Race, Racialization and Latino Population in the United States

Race, Racialization and Latino Population in the United States

Part 1

Race, Racialization and Latino Population in the United States is a nice article put on paper by Tomás Almaguer. In this article, the author emphasizes on the black skinned people in the United States of America prior to 1970. He goes ahead to give out a definite comparison of Latino population in the pre-colonial era and the years later. His comparison cuts across legal status, national origins, and ethnicity among the Latino Americans.  I believe Tomas is so innocent to put it that racial identity has been allowed to take its way in that country where he puts it that Latinos do not fit neatly into the Americas category. They have continued to be discriminated socially and politically on the basis of skin color and origin.  Over the number of years, the differences among Latinos and Americans are thought to diminish while those of Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans seem to show change. This paper elucidates how the racial formation in the United States during the colonial period shapes stand of racialization between and among the Latino ethnicity groups in today century.

Part II

This chapter explains majorly on how ethnicity is related to race and how the two have merged to explain the ideology of modern American Racial Theory. In addition, the article helps me to draw the knowledge about how ethnicity based paradigm has changed over the years into 3 stages. The stages include ethnic approach that criticized the early race theories, the time where paradigm was explained by assimilation and eventually a phase that cuts across neoconservative outlook in general. As I understand, racialization is the process by which meaning on the life of people is attributed to inherited characteristics and all this is for the purpose of exploitation and exclusion.

Part III

Basically, the concept brought forward by Tomas in this article broadens my knowledge on the idea of ethnicity and race of Latinos in America. Actually, I can now narrate on how ethnicity has been able to take stages of change over the number of years. I understand well that the condition on racial discrimination among Latino Americans eases as the time goes. Apparently, it shall come a time when America will be one people despite the differences in skin color or origin. This text advances my understanding as it brings forward the sense of unity among all people. Significantly, I have learned that there has been a substantial development in the Americans racial politics over the number of years. The key evidence is the 1992 presidential election, Los Angeles riots and finally the Clintons politics over racialization.

Article 2: the second ghetto and the infiltration theory in urban real estate.

Author: Raymond A. Moll

Part I

The article is an eye-opener to the major demographic and structural adjustments that took between the period of 1940 and 1960 and how it has brought an influence to the current U.S population. This was facilitated by the continuous movement of people from the rural areas to the urban areas, which had been dominated by the white population. I think the population of the blacks which migrated to towns had an absolute power which diluted the white supremacy by chasing the white population out of the cities. The residential transformation in the American towns was due to the so-called black invasion and it led to the transition of the urban neighborhoods.

To support this claim, I believe the Ghetto formation was a strategy that was used by the black Americans to demand proper hosing that could match those of the whites. Their quest for this was not smooth as it was accompanied by racial wars in the form bombings, riots arson and intimidation. I believe this is the main reason why the whites referred this as an African American Infiltration that has set opposing forces between the blacks and whites even in the present day America.

Part II

The intensifying demand for proper housing with the formation of dark movements to fight for the same led to the emergence of the second ghetto. From the reading “black migration and second ghetto movement”, it is well stated that the force that was employed by the hitherto diminished and discriminated black population led to the change in the demography of the metropolitan areas. According to the article, the whites migrated to these metropolitan areas with the blacks remaining at the cities thus resulting to a huge social consequence.

In analyzing the text, I have discovered that the turbulence that happened in the U.S cities as the blacks showed their muscles had a very strong connection to the world war 11. This is because many people, both the whites and the blacks moved to the new war industry centers and my belief that this is the main factor that led to the expansion of the real estate industry and the infiltration theory. The theory makes assertions that the migration of some groups to the neighborhoods stimulated the out-migration of the dominant groups from that area. This led to the expansion of the Negro families.

Part III

It is true that this text by Raymond A. Mohl advances by understanding in relation to the demographic adjustments and the rise of the ghetto population. I have also understood the impact of the infiltration theory and how it led to the developed of industrialization in the U.S cities, although the journey was not a simple one. I think that the growth the in the industrial work is the one that contributed to the much cash inflow to individuals and to the state, which led to the opening up of savings accounts and banks, as spearheaded by people like Robert Tylor. I have also understood that the infiltration of the unharmonious groups that were racially based led to the improper use of property, especially in the residential areas. The article is thus an eye-opener to the U.S journey towards industrialization and the development of housing, an effort that was greatly backed up by the second ghetto violence.

Article 3: The Idea of Chinatown: The Power of Place and Institutional Practice in the Making of a Racial Category

Author: Kay J. Anderson

Part 1

The culture of Chinatown is an idea that has been borrowed from the cultural traditions of the white Europeans. This arises due to the emergence of racial categories that are constructed in one area then transmitted to another place, thus this is what took place in China. The government has played a very critical role in ensuring that the culture of China town obtains legitimacy by incorporating in it, some social definitions that are bounding to all members of the state. I have found out that the Chinatown has undergone major changes due to the effects of civilization due to the mixture of customs, traditions and other modes of life. According to the article, a challenge has been posted, a challenge of law enforcement especially by the municipal authorities since it has been always very difficult for people to assimilate and become an integral part of the nation. The existence of dynamics between place, race and power have led to the discovery of the human geography.

Part II

The article about Chinatown by Kay J. Anderson is the point that different people of different origin perceive a certain ideology on a different. It is my conclusion that Anderson brings the idea of place and the role of state and interconnects the two to explain how the foundation of the racial category is built in different sectors of the world. Anderson is so vivid to narrate the difference in how Chinatown is perceived in Britain, Vancouver and British Columbia. Actually, in the latter, the idea was sanctioned by the intellectual milieu of race. In short, the effects come by through a matter of place, ideology, state and representation among other factors. Other course materials in support of this idea include Chinatown no more: Taiwan immigrants in contemporary New York by Chen, H.S, and Contagious Divides: Epidemics and race in San Francisco’s Chinatown by Shah.

Part 111

The text has improved my understanding about the Chinatowns in terms of its culture and the landscape. I have also learned the impact of Chinese settlement in the western societies and how this has led to the development of the multicultural china. From the text also, I have observed that initially, Chinatown was a social construct that that belonged to the white European society in Vancouver. This white European society made a perception of the Europeans districts of settlement in accordance with the influential culture of race that took place in that land. The text has made me understand the geography and the landscape of China and how the Europeans had taken control of one section of the country thus leading to both cultural and religious dogma. I think that the existence of racial ideology led to the struggle and quest for power, even at the European section. Finally, the text has made me understand the role of European cultural hegemony in making of the racial category in Chinatown.