Allyship & DREAMers
Ethnically American people are defined by our capacity for cultural pluralism. We are, out of many, one.
Table of Contents (click to Fast Travel)
· Belief in Science & Faith in People
· Sidenotes (as usual, please ignore)
— America’s Tripartite Racial (or Tri-Racial) Hierarchy
Interracial Closet
· MLK’s Dream: Structured vs. Unstructured
Inter-Minority Prejudice
Asian Discrimination (notes for future post)
Plural Monoculturalism / Homophily / Ethnic Enclaves
— Race Ratio (vs. Sex Ratio)
· Interminority Marriage
∘ Imperfect — Kintsugi
Some of my reflections about June 18th — the day in which we won a significant #SCOTUS victory on #DACA. No, I’m not a #DREAMer & will never know the experience of undocumented Americans and their families. In addition, the ethnoracial identity of the #DACAmented community is primarily Hispanic & secondarily East Asian. As the discussion of #RacialTrauma this summer made clear, different ethnoracial groups experience different forms of systematic racism & systemic bias, both intersectional & intrasectional). Though some overlaps & similarities exist…
I can never truly know what it means to be Hispanic or Asian in America.
It is within our differences, our diversity, that I find few things feel as American as standing in #Allyship with others.
My work with North Texas Dream Team & eventually the DREAMer organization I created at UT-Arlington, DREAM Factory, reflects one of the things I enjoy most as a professor: having the opportunity to make a tangible difference in the lives of others.
Without question, assisting in the completion of deferred action applications for undocumented Americans in Dallas & Fort Worth — some of whom were students in my Social Psychology courses at UTA — was one of the most patriotic experiences of my life.
We are a nation of immigrants We build bridges, not walls. The rich diversity of our individual lives defines us collectively as Americans.
The rainbow protests from this summer, the rainbow coalition that shattered the glass ceiling this November, demonstrated what we can accomplish when we as individuals act on behalf of many. Acting on behalf of DREAMers, defending Asians who have experienced increased racism during the COVID pandemic, celebrating the acquisition of protections against workplace discrimination for the LGBT community, & joining the conversation on race with #BlackLivesMatter helps us narrow the gap between who we currently are & the America that we aspire to be. We work with, befriend, live with, & share ourselves with others who don’t come from the same place, have the same stories, the same religion, the same racial background, the same first language, or love in the same way as us because we are Americans.
The United States of America, the world’s global nation, a Democratic Republic experiment in self-government with people from all possible backgrounds, becomes a more perfect union each time its ideals demonstrate its inclusive adaptability to an ever-changing world.
Our ‘American ethnicity’ is defined by our discursive capacity for cultural pluralism. We have the blessing of being the most diverse nation in the world & thus we are all connected to someone who is different from us; whether it’s the economy at the macro level or the workplace at the micro level. As we continue to increase in diversity, America’s collective welfare will increasingly depend on the degree to which we continue to embrace all; not just some.
#EPluribusUnum — We are, out of many, one.
Belief in Science & Faith in People
Inclusion is not a virtue that exists by default, but one I’m immensely confident we will sufficiently achieve with diverse leadership, intersectional considerations of & empathy for others, & greater intergroup engagement so that we are all seen as each other’s keepers no matter the weight of any moment that we are brought to bear the weight of as Americans.
Sidenotes (as usual, please ignore)
Disclaimer: I may post some things in a more or less scattered way over the next few months weeks as I attempt to reorganize/ analyze/ utilize everything collected between Spring & October 1st (when I could work in here in my office again). There’s a lot of material that I essentially stored away until a time when it could be optimized so some posts will look a little less like capital “L” literature & more like… literature. it’ll be catch up for months.
America’s Tripartite Racial (or Tri-Racial) Hierarchy
1 — Top = Whites & multiracials (relative to skin tone) on top,
2 — Middle = lighter skinned East Asians, Indians, Persians, Hispanics, and half-White multiracials in the middle (some interminority multiracials relative to skin tone)
3 — Bottom = Blacks, some darker skin tone East Asian, Indian, Persian, interminority multiracials, & Hispanic groups at the bottom
(Bonilla-Silva, 2004; Gans 1999; Lee & Bean, 2007; Robnett & Feliciano, 2011; Mykel Rodriguez et al., in review).
Race as a social construct is an ontological argument that many hardly have the time to concern themselves with given the deontological reality of race in their everyday life (Bonilla-Silva 1999; Song 2018; Telles & Paschel 2014; Torngren et al., 2019).
Though I continue to wear 2 masks whenever I go out, haven’t hugged anyone since March, & have engaged in near-perfect human distancing, fighting the virus of racism is ultimately a much more important concern for me to continue optimally focusing on — in spite of the coronavirus. Moreover, it’s the case that there are ethnoracial differences related to COVID infection rates, even though survival rates don’t differ based on race.
Interracial Closet
(note to self → assume all material is a direct quote from cited source; need to correct/ add a few missing sources)
Owens, 2004: saying “I won’t date someone Elf” = bad
- saying “I love camping, dragon riding, & want to have a goose/duck dynasty one day” = socially acceptable & still succeeds in ensuring males of the wrong races won’t swipe on my profile.
Racial homogamy in dating is the species-level default for all monoracial groups (i.e., Blackwell and Lichter 2004; Joyner & Kao 2005).
Sociologist Averil Clarke uses the personal narratives of college-educated Black women to show that in the realm of love, romance, and family, they are “disadvantage[d] relative to other women at [their] age and station in life” (Clarke, 2011, p. 15).
Racial minorities today are more likely to marry or live with whites than with other minorities, indicating segmented marital assimilation has yet to occur in the marriage markets of new immigrants (Portes and Zhou 1992).
Minority group members who intermarry with Whites exchange their higher socioeconomic status for the higher racial status of a White spouse (Blackwell and Lichter 2000; Kalmijn 1993; Qian 1997). NonWhite daters gain status by dating any White. Whites, on the other hand, have little to gain by dating minorities unless the latter can elevate their economic status.
Interracial romantic relationships are useful as a barometer of macrolevel race relations (Gordon, 1964; Lewis and Yancey, 1995; Yancey and Yancey, 1997)
MLK’s Dream: Structured vs. Unstructured
Within our structured lives, #MLK’s dream has been accomplished in California.
In regards to our unstructured lives... I feel the world I believed in is still possible, but #colorism & prejudiced parents who live oceans away & #logkyakahenge still dominate the unstructured social landscape.
I’m hopeful that in my grandkids’ generation we will have successfully made progress there as well.
#DiversitywithoutAdversity
I hardly knew a concept like #Colorism existed before leaving Texas. As previously stated, part of the issue is the pedagogically myopic hyperfocus on Black-White prejudice/discrimination & failure to research/lecture interminority prejudice… which will likely increase in saliency (and potentially increase in proportion) as America becomes more diverse.
Interminority racial prejudice & discrimination is painfully underestimated and the failure to acknowledge it is contributing to the challenges of interminority relations.
I’m at the point of shortening lecture content on Asian-White, Black-White, Hispanic-White prejudice research & making discussions of Asian-Black-Hispanic interminority prejudice the majority of that set of lectures.
Inter-Minority Prejudice
All textbooks & most lectures ignore Asian/Black/Hispanic #prejudice towards each other & instead continue to have a hyper-focus on White-Minority prejudice.
1. This is unfair to White people because the latent premise is that no other group shows measurable, consequential prejudice.
2. Continuing to ignore this increasing problem of interminority prejudice will only put us another generation behind resolving the issue.
3. It’s very likely that overt interminority prejudice is presently more prevalent than overt White prejudice.
4. This will continue to decrease #Democrats overall gains during midterms (if the main issue is a #MuslimBan & Hispanic voters don’t feel like that community has been interpersonally positive towards them and/or didn’t seem to care about Issues that Hispanic Dems focused on, then they may be less likely to vote on behalf of ppl who they don’t think like them).
5. Asian minorities, Black minorities, & Hispanic minorities make up more than half of the next generation, setting the stage for a minority-White America in our lifetimes.
If we don’t shift our research & policy focus to #colorism & interminority prejudice now we may very well wake up in an America that has increased in racial discomfort, intolerance, & prejudice, & White people will be the LEAST prejudiced.
This is something minority communities will end up doing to ourselves.
As America becomes ever more diverse, our research & policy discussions must consider social processes beyond Black-White narratives. The historical context of White-Black relations is critical as a baseline, but for too long we have treated the baseline like it’s the finish line. We are too diverse of a country for our discussions of intergroup relations to remain that limited, as though agnostic to the discrimination experienced by Hispanic & Asian Individuals, and the reality of interminority prejudice among minority groups (often in the form of Colorism).
Cultural Museumology
- Immigrants retain preferred traditions/values from countries of origin (enculturation) & embrace preferred components of their new residence (acculturation) (Doane et al., 2017; Gonzales et al., 2012).
Robinson et al., 2020
- “Friendships between international and host-national students, however, appear to be characterized by infrequent and unplanned contact; they are casual in nature, devoid of strong emotional bonds, yet consist of respect, politeness, and courtesy.
Such transient interaction would do little to foster overall satisfaction, reduce anxiety and foster cultural exchange.
The contact situation therefore may need deeper “friendship potential” (p. 76); otherwise it may not lead to the emotional or instrumental support that is traditionally expected from friendships (Eve, 2002).”
Asian Discrimination (notes for future post)
“Asians face higher risk from environmental health hazards than Whites (Clark et al., 2014; Cushing et al., 2015; Downey et al., 2008; Houston et al., 2014; Lievanos, 2015; McKelvey et al., 2007; Morello-Frosch and Jesdale, 2006; Payne-Sturges and Gee, 2006).
Over 40% of the Japanese population and 30% of the Filipino population in the US lived in counties that exceed PM2.5 air quality standards; when aggregated together, they found that 20% of the US Asian population lived in exceedance counties (Gordon et al., 2010).
Cancer is the leading cause of death for Asian Americans (CDC, 2010; Chen, 2005), yet physicians recommend preventative cancer screenings to Asian patients at a lower rate than other groups, in part because of the model minority stereotype (Ibaraki et al., 2014).”
Plural Monoculturalism / Homophily / Ethnic Enclaves
Homophily & assortative norms in our everyday interpersonal lives, having diversity training instead of inclusion training (comfort with diversity should be a requirement like finishing middle school; it shouldn’t have to be trained; inclusion, however, is a verb/action), self-sorting as adults just as we did in the high school cafeteria…
The lecture slide illustrates that diversity is not inclusion. As students withdrew from classes over the semester, remaining students used the newly-empty seats as implied racial dividers.
This is similar to when a row of only 5 seats is open in a movie theater & 2 couples come in: they’re likely to sit in seats 1–2 & 4–5 and leave seat 3 empty in between them.
(This would also be logical #SocialDistancing behavior to engage in for the next year)
That’s what makes ‘inclusion’ such a difficult thing to achieve as perfectly envisioned. The fact that psychologists at an interdisciplinary event are most likely to talk to other psychologists as opposed to engineers, computer scientists, or the art history people isn’t inherently an action of hateful, prejudicial malice towards others. Absent of outright exclusion of others such as using empty seats as racial dividers (an instance of aversive/ subtle prejudice), nothing is taking place that would require diversity training.
This pattern is as natural as a spoon & fork. If someone tries to sell a spork… it may not do as well despite being more inclusive of both spoons & forks.
Race Ratio
Race Ratios matter when discussing the Sex Ratio, unless (1) you’re conducting research in a non-diverse country/state/municipality, or (2) you assume that racial homophily doesn’t exist anymore & we now live in a utopia where a Black kid walking home eating skittles won’t be killed because someone thought the neighborhood is too nice for him to have any reason to be in.
Interminority Marriage
The relatively high income enjoyed by Middle Eastern, East Asian & Indian men do not correspond to increased acceptance in the domain of intimacy.
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Nature sets your range
Nurture determines your placement
Nature determines your landing zone
Nurture determines where you end up landing
Some people have terrible parachutes but end up okay
Some people have excellent parent-chutes & don’t optimize them
Some people have a great start & then there’s a thunderstorm (2008 Great Recession) right before they land.
Some people have a terrible start & then there is historically motivating/inspirational weather (2008 Election) before they land.
Wherever you land isn’t necessarily a permanent outcome with insoluble challenges; HOWEVER, you lose plasticity every 1000 feet you drop (each year older). The closer you are to landing, the less freedom you have to adjust your trajectory.
Indeed, some parts of your possible landing zone are eviscerated as you lose altitude. Some choices put a hole in your parachute. Some life circumstances mean that some parachutes never truly open in time — the way they would in a higher SES zip code.
The Naturalization Act of 1790 required an immigrant to be White in order to naturalize.
- The Naturalization Act of 1870 explicitly extended naturalization laws to “aliens of African nativity and persons of African descent.” This meant that for the first time, Black children would be conferred citizenship upon birth. However, Asians, Hispanics, & other minorities were excluded.
The Page Act of 1875 (Republican Representative Horace F. Page) was the first US immigration law to explicitly prohibit the immigration of a particular group: persons of Asian descent
The Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882 (President Chester A. Arthur) was the first federal immigration law to prohibit immigration on the basis of race. The bill barred all Chinese laborers, skilled and unskilled, from immigrating to the U.S. for 10 years.
The 1898 Supreme Court decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark finally extended naturalization laws to persons of Chinese descent by ruling that anyone born in the United States was indeed a U.S. citizen.
The Chinese Exclusion Act was made permanent in 1903 until it was finally defeated thanks to the 1943 Magnuson Act.
President Coolidge signed the U.S. federal 1924 Immigration Act into law. It capped the number of immigrants who could be admitted entry to the U.S. and barred immigration of persons who were not eligible for naturalization.
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President Bill Clinton 1/17/1997
“Although ours is the most successful multiracial, multicultural society in human history, in the words of Dr. King, “our work is not yet done.” We have not yet fully realized Dr. King’s dream of a Nation of full opportunity, genuine equality, and consistent fair play for all.
Every citizen must rise to meet that challenge because America’s promise of freedom and opportunity cannot truly be realized for any of us until it is realized for every one of us. We all have an obligation to reach out to one another — across the artificial barriers of race, gender, religion, class, and age — so that each member of our society shares fully in the promise of the American Dream.”
William J. Clinton, Proclamation 6967 — Martin Luther King, Jr., Federal Holiday, 1997 Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/224621
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