McCall Hispanic Ministry Write Up 5
Changing Race Pgs 87-99.
The Shifting Color Line
It is amusing to me that in 1854 Chinese people were ruled by a court of law to be “generic Indians”. Were we so ignorant then as not to be able to distinguish the differences in lineages?
Native Americans have generically been referred to as “Indians”. They derived the name “Indian” first from Christopher Columbus, who “discovered” this land known as America, and thought that he had instead landed somewhere in India. It is always amusing to me that people say Columbus “discovered” America, as if it did not exist previous to his “discovery”. During the early years of the census in America, Indians were classified as whites when they paid government taxes, but if they did not pay taxes, they were known as “free colored” people. Now that definitely indicates a bias toward those who have financial means of sustenance! By 1870, the census admitted that “Indians” had intermixed to the extent that there were then only few persons of “pure” Indian lineage. I wonder why they did not likewise conclude that we Europeans have similarly intermixed to the extent that there are no longer any “Anglos” (?).
Blacks (note that I refuse to use the term “African American” because I once worked with an “African American” who was “white” at the biotech company where I was employed; by the way, he abhorred telling people that he was “an African American”). In Censuses prior to 1820, the gender and age of slaves was not reported, and even until 1840, slaves were merely “numbered” and not named or distinguished in anyway. The term “negro” was used exclusively until 1960, and only in 2000 did the category for blacks change (to: black, African American, or Negro). I do not comprehend the distinction between “black, African American, or Negro”, truth be told.
A white person born in the USA at any time since its inception would automatically be a citizen of the USA, regardless of their parents’ status. However, the same was not the case for colors other than “white”, which clearly is a case of selective application of our country’s laws (we must consider that other “colors” were scarcely even perceived as humans at that time). In the 19th century, the notion of “sovereigns nations” eroded away within the USA border. This notion of “sovereign nations” is ludicrous as I look back upon them, and I openly wonder how our forefathers were ever so ignorant to think they could work in practice.
The Dred Scott case of 1857 only intensified the discrimination against non-white colored people. The judges essentially declared slaves as “property”, which thereby disallowed them citizenship rights (after all, if they are only “property”, why not treat them like an animal?). I appreciate infinitely the author pointing out that both Indians and blacks owned their own slaves prior to closure to the Civil War, which is often over-looked by history books that are hell-bent on demonizing the white race (98).
Historically, census categories have reflected, established, and sustained power relations between the races, which generally empowered the white race.
Hispanic classification in the Census has fluctuated because of changes in perceptions of “race” and cultural criteria, of which the US had no direct control. However, it is nonetheless clear that political motivations influenced drastically the definition of citizenship and (as a byproduct) the definition of racial classification in the US Census. It is now acknowledged that race and ethnicity are social constructions.