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IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
Heath Social Relations Series
HEATH SOCIAL RELATIONS SERIES
JEROME DAVIS, Yale University
General Editor
INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. By JEROME DAVIS of
Yale University and HARRY E. BARNES of Smith College (with
L. L. BERNARD of Tulane University, SEBA ELDRIDGE
of the University of Kansas, FRANK H. HANKINS of Smith
College, ELLSWORTH HUNTINGTON of Yale University, and
MALCOLM WILLEY of University of Minnesota).
READINGS IN SOCIOLOGY. Selected by the Authors of
Introduction to Sociology to supplement that volume.
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES. BY EMORY S.
BOGARDUS, Chairman of the Department of Sociology and
Director of the School of Social Welfare, University of Southern
California. In press.
INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY. BY RADHA-
KAMAL MUKERJEE, Head of the Department of Economics and
Sociology, Lucknow University, and NARENDRA NATH SEN-
GUPTA, Head of the Department of Experimental Psychology,
Calcutta University. In press.
ECONOMICS FROM THE STANDPOINT OF ETHICAL
VALUES. BY JOHN A. HOBSON, Lecturer on Economics, Oxford
University. In preparation.
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS. By ROBERT W. BRUERE, Associate
Editor of the Survey. In preparation.
CRIMINOLOGY. By R. H. GAULT, Editor of the Journal of
Criminal Law and Criminology. In preparation.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION. By E. C. LINDEMAN, Chair-
man of the Department of Sociology of the New York School
of Social Work and Lecturer for the New York School of Social
Research. In preparation.
MENTAL HYGIENE. BY FRANKWOOD E. WILLIAMS, Medical
Director of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene. In
preparation.
RELIGION AND SOCIAL CONTROL. By JOHN M. MECKLEN,
Chairman of the Department of Sociology, Dartmouth College.
In preparation.
CONCEPTS OF SOCIOLOGY. BY EARL EUBANK, Chairman
of the Department of Sociology, University of Cincinnati. In
preparation.
INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF SOCIAL STATISTICS.
By ROBERT MORSE WOODBURY of the Institute of Economics.
In preparation.
REVOLUTION AND SOCIAL CHANGE. By HERBERT A.
MILLER, Professor of Sociology, Ohio State University. In
preparation.
HISTORY OF SOCIAL THOUGHT. By HARRY ELMER Barnes,
Smith College. In preparation.
Immigration and Race
Attitudes
BY
EMORY S. BOGARDUS
CHAIRMAN OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY AND DIRECTOR
OF THE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WELFARE IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
With a Foreword by
JEROME DAVIS
Head of the Department of Social Service in
Yale University
D. C. HEATH AND COMPANY
NEW YORK
SAN FRANCISCO
BOSTON
ATLANTA
LONDON
1928
CHICAGO
DALLAS
008 301 155
COPYRIGHT, 1928,
BY D. C. HEATH AND COMPANY
2E8
PRINTED IN U.S.A.
2-5-23 ome
DEDICATED TO
ROBERT E. PARK
RESEARCH SCHOLAR
23/110-4
FOREWORD
Few Americans realize the importance or the extent of
what is probably the greatest single issue confronting Amer-
ica, that of race relationships. No matter to what section of
the United States we turn, we find that a major racial prob-
lem stares us in the face. In the South the question of the
Negro is easily one of our most perplexing conundrums, in
spite of the great efforts to solve it now being made by
Southerners. In the East the great numbers of immigrants
working in factory, mine, and mill present peculiar diffi-
culties in industrial, not to speak of community, relation-
ships. In the West the Japanese problem not only led our
Senate suddenly to break the " Gentlemen's Agreement," but
it still persists in causing friction and racial animosities.
The last United States Census showed that there were
13,112,754 foreign-born inhabitants of the United States.
This is thirteen per cent of the total population, or about
one out of every eight. If we include those who were born of
foreign and mixed parentage, the number rises to the
astonishing total of 36,398,958-34.4 per cent. Assum-
ing a normal sample, at least one out of three people whom
we meet, on the average, is either foreign-born or of foreign
parentage.
We have had a great number of books attempting to de-
scribe the rising tide of foreigners who threaten to change
or engulf our customary American behavior code. The
present text is unique among all previous books on immi-
gration in the following respects:
First, it makes use of the case method. Instead of treat-
ing the subject by using abstract material with a finely
integrated theory, it presents case material of fascinating
-
—
K
vii
viii
FOREWORD
human interest-fascinating because true. Whatever
principles are given are based on an overwhelming array of
factual data.
Second, it is the only text which considers in detail the
fundamental basis of all race relationships: namely, racial
attitude. The causes, consequences, and cures of racial com-
plexes, stereotypes, and antipathies are fully treated. The
author deals with changes in attitude, racial friendliness as
well as the relation of the race problem to personality, pub-
lic opinion, education, and social service.
S
Third, it is one of the few treatises which recognizes the
necessity for giving at least as much attention to the atti-
tude of the native-white American as to the various
minority groups within our population.
Finally, the author has attempted to secure evidence for
his study by statistical summaries of the "social distance "
of hundreds of Americans. Though it is too early to be sure
that these tabulations are large enough to be representative
of the average American attitude, he has gone further than
most other writers on this subject in basing his conclusions
on inductive data. Whether or not his conclusions at some
time in the future will have to be modified, at present no
student of immigration can afford to ignore them. The class
which now studies immigration without using some of the
material contained herein can hardly be said to have ade-
quately studied our American race problem.
JEROME DAVIS
PREFACE
In this report on findings concerning racial attitudes the
writer has drawn upon his experiences as a participant in the
Pacific Coast Race Relations Survey, the Southwest Mexi-
can Immigrant Survey, and Social Distance Studies (with
materials secured from the eastern and southern sections of
the United States as well as from the western). Each dis-
cussion begins with observable data and classifies and in-
terprets these as found in dynamic human experiences. The
interpretations have also been made in the light of a wide
range of ethnological and sociological investigations that
have been conducted by research people in many lands.
In this study one major theme has been pursued through-
out-the theme of race attitudes, which is at the heart of
race problems and conflicts. It stimulates investigation that
is full of groping. It requires pioneering. The results are
tentative; more problems exist at the close of such a study
than at the beginning.
The writer is indebted to all those authorities who have
contributed in the past to an understanding of social atti-
tudes and values, particularly of racial attitudes and values.
He is especially indebted to many persons who have con-
tributed from their racial experiences, but he alone is
responsible for any shortcomings in the findings.
EMORY S. BOGARDUS
ix
CHAPTER
CONTENTS
EDITOR'S FOREWORD
PREFACE
PART I-APPROACH
I. THE IMMIGRATION PROBLEM
II. RACE ATTITUDES
III. STATUS AND RACE ATTITUDES
PART II — ORIGINS AND CHANGE
IV. ORIGINS OF RACE ANTIPATHY
V. MEDIA OF ANTIPATHY
VI. ORIGINS OF RACE FRIENDLINESS
VII. MEDIA OF RACE FRIENDLINESS
VIII. CHANGES IN RACIAL ATTITUDES
IX. REVERSALS OF RACE ATTITUDES
X. COUNTER-ATTITUDES
XI. STATIC ATTITUDES
•
PART III — VARIATION
XII. REGIONAL AND CULTURAL CONTACTS.
XIII. AGE VARIATIONS
XIV. SEX DISTINCTIONS
XV. OCCUPATIONAL COMPLEXES
XVI. RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES
·
PART IV — ADJUSTMENT
XVII.
XVIII. PUBLIC OPINION AND RACE PROBLEMS
XIX. EDUCATION AND RACE PROBLEMS
XX. SOCIAL SERVICE AND RACE PROBLEMS
INDEX
PERSONALITY AND RACE PROBLEMS
PAGE
vii
ix
3
13
30
339 535
43
65
77
94
107
118
135
148
159
174
184
193
209
219
230
241
255
265
xi
PART I
APPROACH
CHAPTER I
THE IMMIGRATION PROBLEM
A migrating person is interesting. He is more than flesh
and bones, more than clothes, a bundle on his back, and a
satchel in his hand he is a culture medium, and a part
of all human life that has preceded him. In one sense he is
an emigrant, trying to get away from something; from
another viewpoint, he is an immigrant, trying to get into
new situations. It is in the latter rôle that he will be con-
sidered here. In the next few pages he will be viewed as a
composite of many immigrants from many climes.¹
1
The immigrant is a moving event in a long concourse.
He is possessed of a fascinating set of behavior patterns and
an elaborate kit of attitudes and values. Some of these
patterns and attitudes have been relatively fixed; others
are fluid; all have originated in response to psychosocial
stimuli, and all are subject to change, but in varying degrees
and under different conditions.
As a person on the move, the immigrant is characterized
by mental mobility. He is troubled by dissatisfactions and
unmet longings which have driven him forth. His face is
set forward with anticipations. Even his fixations of action
have their vulnerable spots.
ANG A
The immigrant is a native on the march; he is a native
of one country, trying to become a part of another country.
He is a native, carrying evidences of his habitat not only
on his back but in his sentiments, in his attitudes, and in
his hopes. He is a native seeking " a more stately mansion
""
1 Based on a range of data secured by interview and life-history
methods. A statistical treatment will be given later.
3
4
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
for his soul and the souls of those who are a part of him.
He is a normal human being with loves and hates, fears
and suspicions — in turmoil.
The immigrant dimly anticipates the necessity of making
major changes and recoils. Grave rumors stare him in the
face, but certain minor adjustments he takes as a matter
of course. Letters from relatives or friends have partially
prepared him, but the "worst" is often magnified, and the
"best" does not materialize. He is shuttled back and forth
between high hopes and dread fears. Now he is expansive,
and soon a defense attitude develops,
The culture-change process begins when the immigrant
decides to move. Promptly upon casting the die, upon
seeing himself in a "breaking-loose" capacity, the old order
grows more precious. The conflict of deciding pales before
the conflict of breaking old ties. The first centers in the
future, with its unknown elements; the second rocks the
past, with its sentiments.
،،
Personality-culture change is stimulated and jolted by
the necessity of "selling out," of buying tickets, of saying
good-bye to familiar scenes and one's beloved, with the
piercing thought that this may be a final good-bye, and that
you can never tell what may happen." Time and again
sentiment is wrenched. Personality meets the tests, now
with defense reactions and now with stoicism. There is a
mental clinging to the old and a running forward to the
new. The whole structure of personality culture is shaken
loose from its established moorings.
Then comes the putting out to sea." It is too late to
recant. The familiar faces stand out, in memory. The
crowd of strangers jostles. Here and there episodes occur
that challenge the attention of even a forlorn and storm-
tossed mariner on new culture waves.
(C
The immigrant arrives. So many things seem different;
expectations are shocked. At first he sees things as differ-
THE IMMIGRATION PROBLEM
5
1
ent, and then he is made to seem different. He is different.
This awareness is isolating. He left the old and is now in
the new-but lo, he turns out to be new, different, peculiar,
an object of mirth.
The journey, throbbing with new experiences, is ended.
Unpleasant temporary adjustments have been faced; the
steerage has been endured. Confidence in human nature,
built up in a peasant primary group, has been jarred; con-
tacts with blasé strangers have been made. The mother
tongue has failed, and exploitation has stalked across the
immigrant's pathway.
Arrival is a great shaking-up time. The expected does
not turn up, and the unexpected lurks around nearly every
corner. The new culture ways are puzzling, and often
upsetting. Conflict rages in the mind of the immigrant;
disillusionment develops, and restlessness ensues. Per-
sonality is disorganized.
The immigrant, now a stranger, does not receive so
extensive a welcome as he anticipated. He may even be
the butt of jokes and sneers. From an important person
in a native village to a "nobody" in a strange mass is a
"come-down." His sense of personal dignity and racial -
pride is treated lightly. His people and their ways are not
on the pedestal; they are viewed as inferior, and he falls
within the shadow. Another culture is on the throne. But
to have his own culture unjustly berated is first baffling and
then irritating. Resentment mingles with disappointment.
1. It is, indeed, a great disappointment to me, and it breaks
my heart to think that many of the good Americans who have
been in my country have misrepresented my people to their own
people. I have seen exhibitions in museums and in the windows
of banks and big stores of the primitive utensils, furniture, im-
plements, etc., of the backward and ignorant Filipinos. Some
books are full of the pictures of the naked Igorots and their
primitive ways of living-people who number about one-twen-
tieth of the whole population. Even the missionaries themselves,
6
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
in their lectures and in their articles published in the papers, talk
of the dark side of the Filipino life. Through all of these the
American people in this country have formed the opinion that
the Filipinos are nothing but backward, wild, uncivilized, and
naked people.2
-
The conflict stages resulting from the immigrant's ex-
periences may be slow in developing. His social expecta-
tions may be so dynamic and well organized, and his
understanding of the new culture ways so imperfect, that
many slighting actions and even insults "pass over his
head." Or in certain cases, he may be so mentally prepared
that he overlooks insults, because they come from people
who "do not understand."
On the other hand, mental conflicts may grow apace, and
the disappointments end in the immigrant's return to the
homeland. The conditions in the new environment may
prove, on the whole, less satisfactory than those in "the
old country." Assimilation does not get under way. Isola-
tion, both ways, occurs; and social distances remain
unbridged.
2. I am disappointed in the United States. Since I was a
very small girl I had heard of the wonder and freeness of the
States, and at an early age I determined to leave the country of
oppression and revolutions-
and come
my country, Mexico
to a place where all are equal and where all have peace and
happiness. I find that this is only theoretically true of the
United States.
the
A
A
My father was a landowner, and I had all the advantages of
education through the grades and even high school. I attended
the university for two years, but my father died, and I was
compelled to cease further educational activities. At the time I
did not feel badly over this, for I knew that it meant my realizing
my ideal at least two years earlier - coming to the United States.
I had an uncle in the United States, who had written many
interesting letters about his adopted country, so I immediately
began preparations to join him. This I did, and as I landed in
2 Pacific Coast Race Relations Survey (unpublished manuscripts),
Los Angeles, 1925.
THE IMMIGRATION PROBLEM
7
L., I thought surely Paradise could not be more wonderful. I had
at last reached my "Mecca."
My first undertaking was to attempt to secure a position, as
after my father's death the revolutionists had left us practically
penniless. For weeks I went from door to door of the business
houses, but to no avail, because I could not speak English. I
enrolled in an evening school and with the assistance of my uncle
soon had a fair command of practical English. However, by this
time my dream country was beginning to hold less charm for me.
All about me I could see trouble and disappointment on the faces
of my fellow countrymen.
Then one day, being greatly discouraged, I went into a dirty
restaurant and asked for a position. I had not the least idea
what I could do in a restaurant, as I had never had a position in
all my life. But to my astonishment the manager, who was a
Mexican of the better class, employed me as a cashier. I worked
at this for two months and then gave up the position to marry -
my manager.
Being a more or less successful business man, he had accumu-
lated a considerable bank account. My hopes were now for a
home a comfortable home like my father's had been, So we
set out to buy a place in a nice, clean, residential district. We
were turned down on every side because we were not Americans.
As a free, unbiased country my dream land began to fade in the
background, and all I could realize was that I was a Mexican.
We tried other sections of L., but always the same obstacle
arose, and more and more. I was aware that my ideal was
nothing more than an illusion.
My husband, a very kind man, has business interests here, and
does not wish to leave. But I am entirely isolated from all that
interests me. I have no friends, as I live in a neighborhood of
Armenians and Russians who cannot speak English nor Spanish,
and we have little in common.
Mr. L. and I are American citizens, but in name only, as there
are many rights that we cannot share. I do not like America,
and I hope some day to return to the land of my birth— the
land I really love.³
Immigrants heavily laden with a foreign culture may
arrive in large numbers in a new culture area and settle
3 Mexican Immigrant Survey of the Southwest (unpublished
manuscripts), Los Angeles, 1927.
8
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
MCKEN REC
together or settle with fellow countrymen who have pre-
ceded them, and thus live in a protecting culture situation.
The children first of all, then the men, and latest of all
the women make contacts with the surrounding natives.
As long as the invaders remain "in their place," all goes
well, even though their numbers increase rapidly.
But the presence of large numbers of "foreigners"
represents an underlying competition. Immigrant children
do not create a problem unless they reach a considerable
percentage in the schools of the better-class neighborhoods
or unless they are older or larger in size than the native-
born children in given grades.
Numbers of unassimilated foreign women do not arouse
race conflict attitudes, except indirectly through a high
birth rate. Their many children may be pictured as a
future menace. Slums are sometimes railed against and
immigrants blamed. Sometimes slums are accepted as
necessary evils; the denizens are pitied and even scorned.
Immigrants are treated as economic commodities because
of the work they can do. As long as they remain docile and
do not react against untoward conditions, they are tolerated
in large numbers. For instance, despite large numbers of
Mexicans in the Southwest today, no Americans are par-
ticularly disturbed by the presence of these noticeably
different peoples. In fact, still larger numbers_are_being
sought. As long as unskilled immigrant laborers, of any
race, remain in their place" amenable to control, all goes
well. But let a few of the more energetic of their number
climb industrially, start a labor union, or lead a strike;
let a few of the families move out from the immigrant
neighborhood into a better-class neighborhood; let a few
of their children take prizes or class offices at school — and
straightway the underlying competition is recognized and
social conflicts are stimulated. Immigrants, who have been
encouraged because of the work they can do, are viewed
THE IMMIGRATION PROBLEM
9
in a new light as potential competitors for rank, position,
status. The slogan is raised: “We are going to be overrun."
The press carries antirace propaganda. Native children
quickly reflect the rising antirace feelings of their parents.
The culture of the "invaded" area is in danger, and many
are the defenders.
The industry and frugality of immigrants are dangerous
to the status of the native group. Their potential abilities
are feared. Many of their cultural ways are not understood,
and misunderstandings create prejudices. Antirace propa-
ganda is both subtly and openly spread, and an overt race
conflict is at hand. In consequence, immigrants who are
slowly becoming unconsciously assimilated are suddenly
made race conscious. The chasm between the immigrant's
culture and the native culture is reopened and becomes
even wider than before.
Assimilation processes are easily halted and turned back
upon themselves. The immigrant who was unconsciously
losing his own culture traits through modification is aroused
by an adverse law or an adverse current of public opinion.
It is announced, perhaps, that he must not use his own
language or that he is to be "Americanized," and he
promptly discovers that his homeland culture possesses an
unsuspected preciousness. Indignant feelings and angry
emotions lead to retaliative attitudes. A race clash or
riot may break out, and racial antipathies may be greatly
augmented. He may return in significant numbers to his
native land.
Sometimes the immigrant who returns home has uncon-
sciously changed. The "old" does not satisfy as it once
did. And so he returns once more to the new culture area,
this time to stay.
3. When I asked the Mexican women why they have returned
to the United States, they told us that they "do not like to wash
on stones." In other words, when they get back to Mexico, the
10
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
conditions seem unbearable. After having used washtubs in the
United States, for instance, they cannot put up with the washing
on stones, and so they struggle back to the United States.¹
In a study of a considerable number of race conflicts,
a lack of understanding and fellow feeling is usually found.
This is social distance. If the factors giving rise to different
degrees and grades of social distance can be described, then
progress can be made in dissolving or even in preventing
race conflicts. If these degrees and grades can be measured,
then race attitudes, particularly those of antipathy and
friendliness, can be analyzed and changes noted. Likewise,
a scientific approach to the study of public opinion may be
expected. Experimentation in measuring social distance
has not yet reached the point of standardization.5
Race antipathy is a judgment, usually a prejudgment
with an adverse emotional content. It is a defense reaction,
a defense of one's status or of the status of one's group.
Prejudice, at best, is a means, not always rational, of pro-
tecting social values; at worst, of destroying more social
values than are protected. Prejudice is "a conviction held
by the other fellow." My conviction regarding the short-
comings of any race is viewed by the members of that race
as a race prejudice of mine. Prejudice tends to maintain
social distance.
Racial friendliness means that a person understands or
at least sympathizes with other races and would admit their
representatives into status in his own groups. As under-
standing and sympathy grow, racial friendliness increases.
The rise of racial good will is a natural process, subject to
the laws of stimulus and response, and possibly of personal
and social control.
To understand race attitudes it is necessary to know the
4 Mexican Immigrant Survey of the Southwest.
5 For some time the writer has been engaged in experimentation
upon social-distance data and expects later to make a full report.
THE IMMIGRATION PROBLEM
11
conditions under which they arise, develop, and change.
The essence of these conditions is usually found in personal
experiences, and in the psychological and cultural back-
grounds which influence a person's interpretations of these
experiences. Neither the immigrant nor the native may
understand his racial experiences, nor the backgrounds in
psychological and cultural processes, and hence it is neces-
sary that all these be analyzed by research methods.
6
PROJECTS
1. Have you or your parents ever moved from one part of this
country to another part, involving extensive changes and taking
considerable risk? If so, describe fully the mental conflicts, an-
ticipations, disappointments, adjustments.
2. Interview an immigrant who has been in this country some
years without making the major cultural adjustments involved in
assimilation, and prepare a written account of the major problems
he has experienced.
3. Interview at length an immigrant who has become assimi-
lated, and describe the changes involved in his assimilation.
4. Select a race besides your own with whose members you have
had social contacts, and write out a complete account of all your
main experiences with them, favorable and unfavorable, in as de-
tailed and natural order as possible.
5. Describe fully a social situation in which the "natives" have
become aware that the immigrant "invaders" are showing signs
of getting "out of their place."
6. Reconstruct the argument advanced by Boas in The Mind of
Primitive Man, showing the essential unity of the human mind.
7. In your own language describe at length "the soul of an im-
migrant," basing your essay on a book by that title, written by
Constantine Panunzio.
8. Have you ever been abroad? State exactly the experiences
which you had while there that influenced your attitude toward
the foreign country or people that you visited.
6 Throughout this report the terms, "race attitudes" and "racial
attitudes," will be used interchangeably, despite the fact that in some
sections of the United States, race problem" usually refers to the
Negro problem, and that "racial problem" is a broader term.
<<
12
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
IMMIGRATION
ABBOTT, GRACE, The Immigrant and the Community, Chap. I.
Century, 1917.
BOGARDUS, E. S., "The Mexican Immigrant," Journal of Applied
Sociology, Vol. XI, pp. 470-84.
BRECKINRIDGE, S. P., New Homes for Old, Chap. I. Harper,
1921.
DAVIS, JEROME, The Russian Immigrant, Chap. III. Macmillan,
1922.
JENKS, J. W., AND LAUCK, W. J., The Immigration Problem,
Chaps. XIV-XVII. Funk and Wagnalls, 6th edit., 1926.
PARK, R. E., AND MILLER, H. A., Old World Traits Transplanted,
Chaps. I-II. Harper, 1921.
RAVAGE, M. E., An American in the Making, Part I. Harper, 1917.
STEINER, E. A., On the Trail of the Immigrant, Chaps. I-XXI.
Revell, 1906.
ATTITUDE
CHAPTER II
An attitude is an established tendency to act with refer-
ence to some phase of one's social or physical environment.¹
The objects of the environment toward or against which
attitudes are expressed become positive or negative values.
The connecting link between an attitude and a value is
action, and the whole unit-attitude, action, value—is
behavior, or a personal behavior pattern.²
Action is not only evidence of an attitude, but apparently
is the medium in and through which attitudes develop. In
PERSON
RACE ATTITUDES
ACTION
VALUE
+
""
ENVIRONMENT
actions, and hence in personal experiences, an individual
learns to respond dependably with reference to stimuli fur-
nished by environmental " objects or "values." The
accompanying diagram illustrates the important rôle of
-
1 Cf. Thomas and Znaniecki, The Polish Peasant in Europe and
America, Vol. I, pp. 1-86. University of Chicago Press, 1918.
2 Cf. Bogardus, Emory S., "Personality and Occupational Atti-
tudes, Sociology and Social Research, Vol. XII, p. 73.
13
14
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
action, and hence of personal experiences in the development
of attitudes.
A racial attitude is an established (or acquired) tendency
to act in a social situation involving persons of a race
different from one's own. The members of each race possess
attitudes, friendly and antipathetic, toward the members
of all other races of whom they have ever heard. The field
of study is large, but the organized knowledge of it is slight.
Racial antipathies involve unlovely behavior traits. They
point to each race at its worst, or to some of the members
of each in their unpleasant social contacts. Therefore an
account of the behavior traits of any race that incite an-
tipathy toward that race is a most one-sided picture. While
these descriptions are not wholly pleasant reading, broad-
minded members of the respective races will welcome the
opportunity to study their races in the rôle of inciters of
prejudice. No matter how unjust, materials of this char-
acter are very real, especially to the persons in whom prej-
udices have been aroused. Data of this kind imply some of
the things that need to be done in order to remove the given
races from the antipathy columns.
In the pages which follow, accounts will be given of the
data contributed by many different types of Americans
from every large section of the United States concerning
their antipathies.3 Seven hundred persons have given
descriptions of their outstanding experiences where race
attitudes undergo changes or originate. "Outstanding"
experiences usually include strong emotional reactions aris-
ing from unfavorable contacts, and hence they throw light
on race antipathies.
In the main the race reactions revealed by the case studies
correlate closely with the reactions secured from 1725
Americans through the "social-distance recording " method,
3 Secured by personal interviews (1924-1927) and from letters,
using the case-study method.
RACE ATTITUDES
15
which will be reported upon after the case-study summary
has been presented. Taken together, the two sets of source
materials serve as checks upon each other.
The races concerning which the seven hundred Americans
most frequently reported unfavorable experiences, and to-
ward which they accordingly expressed antipathetic atti-
tudes, were (arranged alphabetically): Armenians, Chinese,
English, French, Germans, Greeks, Hindus, Japanese, Jews,
Mexicans, mulattoes, Negroes, and Turks. With three ex-
ceptions, these are Asiatic and African raees — non-
Europeans. The degree to which this list parallels the
data given in Table II is a high correlation of the antipa-
thetic reactions disclosed in the two lists.
Strange to say, Americans themselves drew antipathetic
expressions. Americans are viewed with marked antipathy
by other Americans. The personal experience data
give clues. Exploitation of Americans by other Ameri-
cans is the main charge. The wide range of racial types
and behavior standards in this country is another factor.
Americans who are "mad for money," "selfish to the
core," "get-rich-quick promoters," "bootleggers," "law
violators," "jazz crazy," are often mistaken for the
American type.
Pronounced antipathies are expressed against Armenians
on such grounds as lying and unreliability, insolence,
"haggling among themselves," and uncleanliness. Where
the American's antipathetic experiences involve both the
Armenian and the Japanese, the former are usually given
the less favorable record on the score of greater unreliability
and trickiness. Little consideration is given by Americans
to the conditions under which Armenians have been forced
to live in Turkey, or to the fact that lying and trickiness
are necessary survival factors where extortion and massacre
have continually threatened. They fail also to take into
consideration the fact that, when repressed people are
16
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
suddenly released under conditions of freedom, they are
untrained in making constructive use of that freedom;
that the ordinary tendency for any one so situated is to go
to the opposite extreme and to abuse privileges; and that
the older conditioned reflexes still operate in an immigrant's
dealings with the people of the new environment. Americans
react quickly against deceitfulness in the immigrant, which,
however, stimulates the latter to renewed deceitfulness.
Antipathy for the Chinese is aroused not only by meeting
one or a few representatives of the lower social levels, but
also by anti-Chinese propaganda. Both influences are
likely to have been present in the American's earlier years
when critical ability was undeveloped, suspicion was rife,
and fear rampant. Before even meeting better-class Chinese
or hearing one of them speak, Americans have often for-
mulated repulsive pictures. These have become "set" in
definite feeling and emotional patterns. One's experiences
may include a low-class but honest laundryman whose
yellow skin is "unpleasant," whose slant eyes bespeak
"slyness," and whose conversation with another Chinese
is "frightful jabbering." Worse still, the American may
see a Chinese as a "villain" in a popular movie and the
damage is done. Later he may meet educated and gentle-
manly Chinese, but they seem to belong to a different race
from the original image of the Chinese. They are treated
as exceptions.
P
The personal experience data of some Americans reveal
strong antipathies for the English. The American who
gives expression to this prejudice often confuses certain
English travelers possessing "dudish and snobbish ways
with normal Englishmen. The American is sometimes the
victim of anti-English propaganda. He has heard of Eng-
lishmen long before he has talked with one, and the hearsay
is often unfavorable. The British Redcoat, the haughty
English lord, the cocky dude, and the Englishman with su-
99
RACE ATTITUDES
17
perior attitudes toward callow, youthful Americans are
factors explanatory of the American's antipathy. The "up-
pishness" of certain English travelers, their "perfectly
gha-astly" accent, the wearing of a monocle, the kid gloves,
are factors that do the harm. Thus, a few misrepresenta-
tive Englishmen are chiefly accountable for unfavorable
attitudes.
Americans of immigrant or foreign parentage, particularly
Chinese-Americans, sometimes report unfavorable expe-
riences with British officials. "Haughty" or "imperial-
istic" acts of these officials are reported. Many Americans
who have had favorable experiences with Chinese or Hindus
proclaim their dislike for British "domineering.
Anti-French feelings have arisen since the close of the
World War. Reactions against French "militarism" have
been numerous. Many German-Americans have charged
the French with postwar tactics similar to German methods
that have been so completely condemned. Other Americans
protest against "gay Paree," and still others accuse the
French of being ungrateful to America. The non-Anglo-
Saxon moral standards of the French are additional stum-
blingblocks.
Antipathy against Germans is in the main a reaction
against the real and reported atrocities of German soldiers
and war lords. Nowhere else in our land in recent years
is there a better example of the power of antirace propa-
ganda. The force of prewar reports of autocratic and
militaristic "Prussianism" is still felt in the lives of older
Americans. The reports of the dominance of the husband
over the wife, of the numbers of children in the German
family, of the "staggering efficiency " of Germans, of the
"kaiser" with the upturned corners of his moustache
(breathing haughtiness) - all these still live. The thought
of a rapidly growing population, composed of highly
efficient persons integrated into a powerful national
18
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
"machine" with an alleged Nietzschean philosophy, arouses
fear among many Americans.
One Hindu with " a cloth wrapped about his dusky head,"
coming from a land where child marriages occur, where
widows give themselves to be burned, where snakes are
worshiped, where filth abounds and misery is unspeakable,
where a despised caste system enslaves and where beggars
are autocrats, typifies all those factors which create Ameri-
can antipathy for the Hindu. Of an appearance so different
from Americans that even his ordinary smile is interpreted
as being of evil design, the low-caste Hindu appears to be
highly undesirable, and comes to stand for all Hindus in
the American's mind. The race antipathies of Americans
for Hindus are due in considerable part to sheer differences
in culture. Wide disparity in racial cultures leads to mis-
understandings, and the latter to fundamental aversions.
W
The strong propaganda carried on by the Pacific Coast
against the Japanese is a significant element in American
prejudice against that race. Most Americans have met
only a few Japanese personally and casually. The imme-
diate result has been a curious interest in them. On the
Pacific Coast, however, there has been an "invasion" in
considerable numbers of a people noticeably different in
appearance and culture. Their industry and initiative have
made them seem aggressive, and they have been viewed as
dangerous competitors. They have "invaded" the status
of American labor, the American farmer, the middle-class
urban neighborhoods. But no one will allow his status to
be invaded without "fighting back," which fighting takes
many forms, such as making newcomers feel uncomfortable,
issuing threats, initiating propaganda, and securing pro-
tective legislation. On the coast the Japanese have been
pictured as coming into economic power, political control,
and social prominence in the second generation. These
suggested eventualities arouse fear, then antipathy. Com-
RACE ATTITUDES
19
ing into sway with full force, anti-Japanese opinion went
to the extreme of urging total exclusion. Accounts adverse
to the Japanese have been spread throughout America, and
feelings of suspicion have become common. The twenty-
one demands of Japan upon China, the Manchurian and
Korean invasions, the easy victory by war over Russia, a
markedly different and "pagan" religion, a reputation for
imitating western ways, emperor worship, militarism — all
these are in the background of the picture whose foreground
is race antipathy. Far-reaching cultural unlikenesses and
an imagined magnifying of Japan's power, due in part to
geographic and social distance - these work against the rise
of friendly attitudes toward Japanese.
The antipathy that is repeatedly expressed against the
Jew is usually based on a number of unfavorable contacts
with aggressive and "bumptious" individuals. Sometimes
a Jewish collector of old rags and iron, a picture of a
Ghetto, or stories of degradation are explanatory of racial
antipathy for the Jew. Individual experiences are easily
magnified by virtue of a tremendous amount of anti-Jewish
opinion that is present throughout the United States.
Children are reared in this dynamic, anti-Jewish atmos-
phere. It is not unusual in any community for the Jew
to be the butt of racial jokes, and as a rule there are enough
lower-class Jews in the land to give point to this scorn and
thus to keep it thriving. Despite the fact that nearly every
community of any size contains Jewish people as fine as
members of any other race, there are enough of the low-
class Jews present in business and other occupations to
keep the repulsive stereotypes before the public mind. The
latter are described as "money grabbing," as “fussing
about paying bills," as "crude and loud-mouthed." When
the Jew becomes wealthy he does not always lose all his
earlier weaknesses. The "loud-talking, obtrusive, wealthy
Jew" is often notorious. The high-pitched voices of some
20
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
Jews, their aggressiveness in conversation, their thought-
lessness of the rights of others and of many social proprie-
ties, their disregard for the "impression they are making
are elements in the American's anti-Semitic prejudice. The
Jew, like members of other races, is continually getting
"out of his place and into the American's place." More-
over, he is overtalkative about his success, which for many
Jews is a "money success. 4
"}
Antipathy of German Jews in the United States for
Russian Jews is often disclosed here, because the latter are
not distinguished by Americans from the higher class Ger-
man Jews. Likewise, antipathy of Russian Jews for
German Jews because of the latter's "haughtiness and air
of superiority" is not infrequently reported.
···~~
sion,
vàng phong t
The Mexican immigrant is thought of as a peon (“some-
thing of low grade "), an illiterate from centuries of oppres-
a shiftless, good-fer-nothin'," or else a sly, man-
stabbing wild man from the lowest Indian ranks. Reports
concerning Mexicans during border troubles that have oc-
curred from time to time, reports concerning the depreda-
tions of the Yaqui Indians, a reputation for stealing
("taking everything they can lay their hands on ") - such
items give the Mexican immigrant an unsavory reputation
in the minds of many Americans.
Party van ASORTION
***, * 15 M. BA
But the aversions for Mexican immigrants do not neces-
sarily become prejudices, because the Mexican, despite his
high birth rate and high immigration rate, is not a com-
petitor. He does not tend to displace Americans from
anything that they value highly. His docility saves him
from having active prejudice aroused against him. But a
greasy, swarthy appearance" stimulates disgust, and his
careless (or carefree) ways maintain social distance be-
tween him and Americans. Unfortunately, most Americans
"6
4 The fact that many Americans are money loving does not pre-
vent them from bringing this charge against the Jews.
RACE ATTITUDES
21
Judge all Mexicans by the peon immigrant types that come
to the United States and by the lawless raids reported in
the newspapers of nonrepresentative Mexican bandits in
Mexico. American newspaper headlines too often create a
banditry" frame to everything Mexican.
(6
The mulatto, as in the case of any one who is in a
betwixt and between" condition, is without full status
in either the white or colored racial groups, of which he is
a real biological part. There is a marked tendency for the
better-class members of both his parental racial groups to
feel that he is "not entirely of them" and "to blame him
on the other race." Where race friction is as subtly wide-
spread as in the United States, the mulatto is in an es-
pecially difficult position. The antipathy that each of the
two races (white and colored) feels toward the other is
likely to be felt toward the mulatto, and thus the latter
is often under an antipathy fire from both directions.
Where there are births of mixed parentage occurring un-
der illegal conditions, the stigma that these conditions carry
is unjustly attached to the children, and thus the mulatto is
again the victim of aversions, which he had no part in
creating. American public opinion does not yet distinguish
between the sinner and the sinned against, with the result
that mulattoes suffer unduly.
Antipathy against the Negro is due to differences in
biological appearances and forms, to variations in cultural
levels, and to widespread propaganda. Antipathy against
the Negro often begins with the prejudices caught by chil-
dren from their parents. Many children early become
steeped in anti-Negro antipathies. Fear images springing
from a few emotionally shocking or "horrifying" expe-
riences are effective. Aversions based on reactions against
odor, color, kinky hair, and so on, are common.
In achieving, the Negro invades the white man's conven-
tions. He is thereby subject to all the prejudices that
G
22
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
competition in status arouses everywhere. To have him
compete successfully against them is especially repugnant
to many white people. To have one's friends invade one's
status and receive recognition that would otherwise come
to oneself is hard to bear, but to have persons of another
race, who have been "despised," rise to a position along-
side one is "simply unthinkable."
To a high degree the Turk is the victim of adverse
reports. He ranks among the highest in the racial-antipathy
column of Americans and among the lowest as far as any
direct personal experiences of Americans are concerned.
Very few Americans have met a Turk, few would recognize
one (provided he was not wearing the fez); but all have
heard of him, often from their childhood. His persecutions
and massacres of Armenians have been repeatedly told
throughout the land; his Mohammedanism and his polyg-
amy are the other main counts against him. The "religion
of the sword," "the harem," and the "butchering of
Armenian women and children" are pictures so repulsive
that Americans challenge the judgments of those returned
travelers from Turkey who have known the Turk at his
best and who prefer him to the Armenian. Returned
Christian missionaries, preachers, and newspapers report
Turkish atrocities and keep antipathies for the Turk active
in a country that knows few Turks intimately. Returned
travelers distinguish between the government and unscru-
pulous Turks, on one hand, and a "worthy rank and file"
on the other hand. The great mass of Turkish peasantry
impresses those travelers as being a rather kindly, peace-
able, but “ignorant and superstitious people," with their ig-
norance and religious beliefs being played upon at times by
their leaders so as to cause them to commit acts of violence
and bloodshed. Severest condemnation is pronounced upon
the government and its functionaries rather than upon the
great mass of the people. The massacres are sometimes
RACE ATTITUDES
23
seen as the carrying over of an old conflict situation and
as growing out of a failure in assimilation."
There is a second large grouping of races toward which
personal reactions were expressed, but in general ways.
This group includes such races as Bulgarians, Czecho-
Slovakians, Filipinos, Koreans, Magyars, Russians, Serbo-
Croatians, and Syrians. Oftentimes these races suffer in the
United States from being related to races against which a
primary antipathy is felt. Filipinos and Koreans were not
known personally by many of the seven hundred Americans,
but were classed, nevertheless, "in the mind's eye" with
Chinese, Japanese, and Asiatics in general. Likewise,
Syrians are associated with Jews, and Hindus with mulat-
toes. Sometimes the illiterate members of one of these races
have been mistaken for the whole race. Bulgarians,
Magyars, and Serbo-Croatians are not known by many
Americans, but they are pictured as being "crude and un-
couth," remote from the American type. No strikingly un-
fortunate experiences are recorded-just hazy, uneasy,
partly fearful reactions, which will be discussed in later
chapters.
""
By the social-distance recording method a total of 1725
Americans (including the 700 persons from whom personal
experiences were secured) have given their racial reactions
in forms which may be tabulated. This evidence comes
from persons who are representative in many ways of the
better class and thinking Americans, from Americans living
in different parts of the United States—the East, South,
Middle West, and West, from both sexes, from different
occupations, from persons of different ages, different re-
ligions, different educational levels, and different racial
descent. All, however, are native born, and represent in
the main the younger middle class; they also are persons
possessing a high-school or college education, and hence
speak for the more thoughtful and forward-looking members
24
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
of American life rather than for narrow-minded, older, or
conservative Americans. The aim has not been to make a
survey of as large numbers as possible but to penetrate as
far beneath the surface as possible in a limited number
of cases.
As is true of Americans in general, the 1725 Americans
are descended from many different races, but chiefly from
northern Europeans. Table I gives racial-origin data.
English
German
Irish
Scotch
Negro
Jew
TABLE I
RACIAL DESCENT OF 1725 NATIVE-BORN AMERICANS
Chinese
Mexican
Danish
French
Italian
Dutch
Swedish
Canadian
Norwegian
Welsh
Spanish
Japanese
772
328
264
205
202
178*
96
95
81
70%
64
51
39
38
18
H
Armenian
Russian
Polish
Czecho-Slovak
Greek
Magyar
Filipino
Portuguese
French-Canadian
Hindu
Indian (American)
Serbian
14
13
11
drook
6
6
4
co co co ∞ I
3
3
3
1
These Americans have given their reactions to forty
different racial and language groups, including "Ameri-
cans" themselves. Seven different ways of expressing racial
reactions were provided: namely, with reference (1) to
marriage with a member of another race, (2) to having
members of another race as chums in one's social club,
(3) as neighbors, (4) as members of the same occupation,
(5) as fellow citizens, (6) to allowing such persons to enter
one's country as visitors only, and (7) to excluding them
altogether.
Table II presents the reactions of the 1725 Americans
arranged in a descending order of favorable marriage reac-
RACE ATTITUDES
25
•
*
t
TABLE II
REACTIONS OF 1725 AMERICANS TO 40 DIFFERENT RACES BY PERCENTAGES
Regarding races
listed below
English
Americans
white)
Canadians
Scotch
Scotch-Irish
Irish
French
Welsh
Germans
Swedes
Dutch
Norwegians
Danes
Spaniards
Finns
Russians
Italians
Portuguese
Poles
(native
Hungarians
Roumanians
Armenians
Czecho-Slovaks
Indians
Jews, German
Bulgarians
Jews, Russian
Greeks
Syrians
Serbo-Croatians
Mexicans
Japanese
Filipinos
Negroes
Turks
Chinese
Mulattoes
Korean
Hindus
-409[ 9802 0,7
ship by mar- —nd
riage
93.7
To my club
as personal~
chums
90.1
92.4
86.9
95.6
78.1 89.1 91.3 92.8
72.6
81.7
88.
89.4
70.
83.4
86.1
89.8
67.8
85.4
88.1
90.4
60.8
72.3
80. 81.4
54.1
67.
78.7
82.6
French-Canadians.. 49.7
66.4
76.4
79.3
45.3
62.1
75.6
44.2 54.7
73.2
41. 56.
65.1
35.
52.2
65.5
27.6 49.8
16.1
27.4
27.7 31.
15.8
15.4 25.7
22.
11.
11. 11.6
96.7
3
To my street
as neighbors
97.3
9214 92.6
93.4 96.1
}
ment in my #F
To employ-
occupation
4
55.1
36.1
95.4
78.
76.7
72.
ship in my or
To citizen-
country
50.5
45.3
54.7
47.8
44.3
95.9
90.5
96.1
93.3
92.
91,4
92.7
86.
87.2
87.
As visitors
only to my ∞
country
1.7
1.2
1.7
1.7
16.7
4t.
3:8
5.4
6.7
4.4
86.3
5.4
86.1 2.4
80.3
8..
80.1 4.5
8.4
19.7
20.3
22.
17.7
~
0
-
ex-
Would
clude from
my country
0
0
3
71.4
58. 81.6
61.2
12.8-
56.1 22.1
34.7
713. 14.5
28.3
57.7 19.
28.3
58.3
10.1 17.5 25.8
43. 70.7
8.8 19.3 23.8
38.3
51.6
46.2
58.1
8.5 14.8 27.8
8.2
16.4 21.1
L
36.
47.4 26.
8.1
27.7
27.7334
54.3
83.
7.8
39.8
2.1 25.5
16.4
53.5
6.9
14.6
19.7
43.1 21.9
6.1.
18.
5.9 17.7
15.7 - 30.1 45.3 22.7
18.
* 35.2 53.2
18.
31. 41.1
4.3 13.8
4.3 10.4
10.3 30.4
77.1__ 46.1
2.5L
12.
2.8 11.5 12.3
2.3 12.1 13.. 27.3 29.3 38.8
19.5 36.7 52.1 28.5
118
17.6
11.7
1.6 15.2
5.5
1.4 9.1
12.7
38.7 57.3
19. 25.3
41.8
23.4
1.4 10.
1.1 11.8
15,9 27.0 27.3 45.2 224
1.1
9.6 10.6 32 47.4 22.7 16.8
1.1 10.8 11.8 20.1
1.1 6.8 13. 21.4
27.5 34.3 13.8
23.7
47.1
19.1
4
.7
.8
.3
3.1
.8
1.
.3
.3
.9
2.
∞
2.8
8.
4,8
3.3
4.7
7.
4.6
5.0
9.5
7.7
(1.6)
25.3 13.8
7.0
13.4
11.3
9.
25.3
21.4
18.6 8.
30.8 15.1
-
26
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
tions (column one). According to these marriage reactions,
the English are given first place (as in the racial-origin
table, Table I). Of the 1725 Americans, 93.7 per cent
record a willingness to marry members of the English race
(not the best or the worst members, but members whom
they consider representative or average). Only 1.1 per
cent would willingly marry representative Chinese, mulat-
toes, Koreans, or Hindus, and hence the percentages for
these are the lowest.
Practically all the northern European races rate high in
the sympathetic attitudes of Americans; for the latter, being
largely of northern European ancestry, react in friendly
ways toward their own racial connections. In the large,
blood relationships after all operate strongly in matters of
racial understanding and good will.
At the bottom of the columns, or experiencing the anti-
pathetic attitudes of Americans, are the Asiatic and African
races, with southern and eastern European races next in
order. Attitudes of racial superiority, particularly of Nordic
superiority, often explain American antipathies. The im-
portant question arises: Why the extensive social distance
between Americans on one hand and Asiatics and Africans
on the other?
As indicated in Table III, a case group of 202 native-born
Negroes and mulattoes of high-school and college education,
chiefly from the southern states, naturally put Negroes and
mulattoes at the top of their racial preferences. French
and Spanish come next. Asiatic races are put on the lower
preference levels, which is accounted for in part by the
influence of the American cultural environment. The reac-
tions in this particular are similar to the reactions of white
Americans.
A trend indicated in Table IV, showing the recorded reac-
tions of a case group of 178 native-born American Jews, is
the natural first preference for people of their own race. The
RACE ATTITUDES
27
second line of preference is for people of northern European
descent. Adverse reactions to Asiatics are to be noted,
although the antipathetic attitudes toward Turks is much
less pronounced than among non-Jewish Americans.
TABLE III
REACTIONS OF 202 NATIVE AMERICAN NEGROES AND MULATTOES TO 17
RACES BY PERCENTAGES
1
Negroes
Mulattoes
French
Spaniards
English
Canadians
Mexicans
Americans (native white).
Hindus
Japanese
Germans
Italians
Chinese
Jews, Russian
Greeks
Russians
Turks
•
•
3
LL*****
94.
66.
94. 90.
70. 70.
52.
32. 60. 80. 76.
26.
16.
96.
92.
8. 0
10. 2.
70.
72.
16. 2.
64.
24.
8.
76.
14.
0.
68.
22. 2.
28.
28. 8.
74.
0.
0.
40.
20.
16. 20. 18.
30. 34.
40. 36. 8.
42. 44. 34. 30.
10.
32. 8.
44. 20.
34. 10.
20. 24. 26. 38. 12.
10. 16. 30.
34. 20.
0. 6. 10. 16. 14. 38. 26.
14.
8.
6.
6.
2
6.
4.
4.
2.
* 882222222 ∞ ÔÔ
40. 56.
46.
42. 72.
72.
42. 62.
64.
20. 20. 28.
34. 66. 72.
10. 20. 34. 34.
16.
18.
28. 24.
30.
2. 12. 18. 24.
2. 12.
0.
my country
One influence of the culture contacts of the Jews, as
distinguished from the influence of racial factors in the
biological sense, is marked. It is possible to discern the
influence of American culture patterns upon the Jews. By
the application of a refined statistical procedure to the data
now available, it might be possible to measure the degree of
Americanization not only of the Jews but of many immi-
grant races.
28
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
TABLE IV
REACTIONS OF 178 NATIVE-BORN JEWS TO 18 RACES BY PERCENTAGES
1
Jews, German
Jews, Russian
English
French
Germans
Irish
Scotch
Spaniards
Armenians
Italians
Mexicans
Japanese
Turks
Greeks
Chinese
Hindus
Filipinos
Negroes
•
To close kin-
ship by mar-
riage
To my club
as personal ↳
chums
To my street
as neighbors wo
➡K
To employ-
ment in my
occupation
94.3
97.1
100.0
97.1
84.3 91.4
91.4
95.7
80.0 95.7
98.5
95.7
98.5
100.0
54.3 84.3 94.3
52.8 81.4 92.8
34.8 71.4 87.1
34.3 71.4 88.5
24.3 50.0 64.3
95.7
90.0
80.0
14.3
38.6
45.9
64.3
11.4 45.9
55.7
72.8
4.3
24.3 28.5
44.3
2.8 18.5 21.4
28.5
2.8 19.1
27.1
41.4
2.1 27.1
34.3
55.7
1.4
18.5
21.4
28.5
1.4
14.3
21.4
30.0
0.
20.0 27.1
41.4
0.
15.9 27.1 42.8
To_citizen-
ship im my σ
country
6
As visitors
only to my
country
ex-
Would
clude from
my country
98.5
100.0
98.5 1.4
.0
98.5
7.1
.0
91.4
5.7
.0
95.4
2.8
2.8
92.8
2.8
2.8
91.4
31.4 1.4
70.0
10.0
1.4
91.4
1.4
1.4
50.0 15.9
32.8 35.7
58.5 32.8
75.7 8.5
1.4
32.8 34.3 32.8
24.3 41.3
14.3
57.1 17.1 7.1
72.8 15.9 10.0
1.4
1.4
19.1
28.5
14.3
Thus the charges run, and thus race reactions develop
and thrive. The summary of the whole matter may be
concentrated in the one word, status. Where a person feels
that his status or the status of anything that he values is
furthered by race connections, there racial good will is
likely to be engendered. But where a person's status or the
status of anything that he values is endangered by the
members of some race, then race prejudice flares up and
burns long after the "invasion" has ceased.
PROJECTS
1. Trace the rise and development of the term "race,” and
make comparative studies of the different uses of the concept.
2. Make an analysis of the term attitude," and give a
critical evaluation of its place in sociological thought.
""
RACE ATTITUDES
29
3. Choose some social situation that you know in which race
attitudes are active, and describe all the pertinent factors that
are operating.
4. Select any racial attitude that you have held for some
time and trace its natural history in detail from the beginning.
5. Put yourself in the place of the member of any race in this
country toward which there is extensive race prejudice, and
describe fully your reactions to this antipathy.
6. Distinguish with illustrations between aversion, repulsion,
disgust, antipathy, prejudice, and hatred.
7. If you have ever changed your attitudes toward any race
materially, give an account of all the accompanying and ex-
planatory factors.
8. Compare and contrast in every possible way the antip-
athies noted in this chapter toward any five of the races discussed.
RACE ATTITUDES
Boas, FRANZ, The Mind of Primitive Man, Chap. I. Macmillan,
1911.
CARROLL, JOSEPH C., "The Race Problem," Jour. of Applied
Sociology, Vol. XI, pp. 266–71.
DAVIS, JEROME, The Russian Immigrant, Chaps. VI, VII. Mac-
millan, 1922.
DUBOIS, W. E. B., Darkwater, Chap. I. Harcourt, Brace, and
Howe, 1920.
FINOT, JEAN, Race Prejudice. Dutton, 1906.
GAVIT, J. P., Americans by Choice, Chaps. I, II. Harper, 1922.
PANUNZIO, C. M., The Soul of an Immigrant, Chap. XVIII.
Macmillan, 1921.
PARK, R. E., AND MILLER, H. A., Old World Traits Transplanted,
Chaps. III, IV. Macmillan, 1921.
STERRY, NORA, "Social Attitudes of Chinese Immigrants," Jour.
of Applied Sociology, Vol. VII, pp. 325–33.
THOMAS, W. I., AND ZNANIECKI, F., The Polish Peasant in Europe
and America, Vol. I, pp. 20-86. University of Chicago
Press, 1918.
THOMAS, W. I., "The Psychology of Race Prejudice," American
Journal of Sociology, Vol. IX, pp. 593-611.
YOUNG, ERLE FISKE, "What is Race Prejudice?" Jour. of Applied
Sociology, Vol. X, pp. 134-140.
CHAPTER III
STATUS AND RACE ATTITUDES
The commanding place of "status" in an understanding
of race attitudes is beyond question. But what is status?
A synonym is "standing," and a tentative definition: the
personal rating given one person by his fellows. The wish
for recognition is the dynamic force involved. Whatever
lowers the social rating given a person or his group arouses
prejudice. What boosts one or his group is likely to stimu-
late favoritism.
Status is used in this book in the social rather than the
legal sense. Legal status, which is "standing" before the
law, is often a far different thing from social status or
"standing" before the bar of group opinion and attitude.
Many persons have complete legal status, but are con-
tinually moving up or down as far as social status goes.
One can lose legal status and maintain or even gain social
status thereby in the eyes of one's friends. Legal status is
quite stable and formal; social status is a daily, fluctuating,
and unstable affair.
An attack upon one's status arouses prejudice as distin-
guished from antipathy. Prejudice may be viewed as the
result of competition, whereas antipathy is more likely to
be due to adverse sense impressions. An immigrant who
offends one's sense of sight and smell by his uncleanliness
arouses disgust and antipathy. Because one's sense im-
pressions are so primary and so far beneath control by the
central nervous system, they constitute a relatively per-
manent phase of racial problems.
While prejudice, on the other hand, is aroused by com-
30
STATUS AND RACE ATTITUDES
31
G
petition and attack on one's status, and hence is an im-
portant defense mechanism, it may pass away as soon as
the competition and danger from attack on one's status is
over. Being a defense mechanism, however, prejudice easily
becomes engrained in basic behavior patterns, and is diffi-
cult to dislodge.
Where adverse sense impressions are combined with fear
of attack on status, or where antipathy is joined with
prejudice, a relatively stable form of behavior reaction is
established. The vigorous reaction of some Americans
against a certain type of Armenian immigrant was at first
composed of disgust due to the immigrant's unkempt ap-
pearance, and so forth. Later, it acquired a prejudice
element, when these particular Armenians began to drive
big cars and crowd Americans off the highway. Prolonga-
tion of combined antipathy and prejudice reactions creates
a psychological wall which can be broken down only with
great difficulty.
Status and Opinion. Social status depends in part on
public opinion. When public opinion turns against a person
or a group, status is invaded. Not only that, but persons
associating with or even "seen with " an individual or a
group who has lost status also lose status. Even the sur-
rounding neighborhood loses status.
B
Unfortunately, powerful public opinion is subject not
only to the sum total of the prejudices of the persons in-
volved but to a vertical suction movement. Public opinion
devastates status unjustly. It often mows status down for
no adequate reasons. It may frequently be accounted for
by the poorest of logic, facts, or interpretation.
An ordinary person who is sympathetic toward and
appreciative of the struggles of the members of a despised
race does not dare to be friendly, lest the persons befriended
assume too much and seek his company at times that would
lower his status in the eyes of his friends. For instance,
32
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
there is the person who thinks that it is wrong to look down
upon Negroes as belonging to an inferior race, but who does
not care to make friends with any of them. “I think that
I am a coward. I am a slave to public opinion." Or there
is the person who would enjoy playing tennis with Japanese
but shrinks from the resultant loss in status that would
befall him in the eyes of his American friends. The wish
to be fair in one's dealings with the members of other races
conflicts with the wish to maintain status. The latter wish
is a stronger force and usually wins at the expense of race
friendliness.
A person in danger of losing his status goes easily to
extreme lengths, such as denouncing an invading group,
race, or religion, and by so doing plays the rôle of a
"patriot," with the result that his status has been recovered.
Candidates for office may go so far as to denounce non-
voting or noninfluential races and by innuendo receive
"votes" from hoodwinked Americans for being "loyal."
In the United States the Oriental, having been made in-
eligible to vote by legislative fiat, has on occasion been the
goat" of politicians wishing to bolster up a waning status.
In fact, a "loyal good-fer-nothin'" may be rated higher
than a broad-minded "foreigner."
(6
Status and Fair Play. - Status, whether originating in
force or not, and whether relating to a person or to a whole
social group, is likely to be maintained by misrepresentation,
by subtle educational propaganda, by hoodwinking the
honest but gullible public. National groups are willing to
resort to war in order to maintain status. Both persons
and groups struggle to improve status generally but not
always by legitimate means. Because status has been
struggled for, it is precious; and because it is precious, it
will be protected even at the expense of injustice.
Our National Exclusion Act (1924), barring the Japanese
altogether, was interpreted by the Japanese as lowering
STATUS AND RACE ATTITUDES
33
their status in the eyes of the world. By virtue of the
Exclusion Act, the Japanese were put by Americans at a
greater distance than were other races; and hence they felt,
as we would feel if in their places, as if they had been put
on a lower level, and that this lower level carried with it
an indictment of their worth. The increasing of social
distance by legislative enactment is always interpreted as
a demotion in status-something which is intolerable to
any proud people who have arrived at a position of rank
among the peoples of the world.
The Exclusion Act likewise discriminates against the
Chinese; but unlike the Japanese, they did not protest.
They, however, did not have the political rank of a first-
rate power, and hence the effect upon their status was not
so severe. When they reach the position of a leading nation,
our Exclusion Act will constitute a heavy drag on their
status, and they will vigorously protest. To be excluded?
does not hurt, provided all one's peers are also excluded;
but to be singled out for exclusion when one's peers are
permitted to enter, is unbearable.
When some Americans treat members of all races on a
democratic basis, there is often a double rebound. The
Americans lose status, and their racial friends are made to
feel decidedly uncomfortable. To allow worthy members
of
any other race to come to one's home, eat at one's table,
or to marry into one's family, turns loose the hounds of
gossip and destroys one's status. "A racial group toward
which I have a sympathetic feeling, but one with which
I cannot have companionship or business because of the
social disfavor which would result, is the Negro race,"
says a prominent southerner.
4. I felt sorry for him (Filipino), and he has told me some of
his problems. Last night I let him take me out to dinner, and
then we talked afterward. One of my friends saw me in the
restaurant, and today I was waited on by three of them who told
34
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
me that for my good standing I should have to leave off all
friendly relations with this young man at once, or that my friends
would drop me. What should I do? The young man will be
more discouraged than ever. Here is an opportunity to do a
good Christian deed, but my Christian friends won't allow me
to do it.¹
((
5. Personally, since the Chinese and Japanese are both yellow
races in a foreign country, I (Chinese) have a feeling of kinship
with them (Japanese). However, probably because of my
social-mirror self," I have never liked to associate intimately
with them. I know that such an intimacy on my part would bring
criticism and that my family and friends would think badly of
me. In spite of this, I can recognize the good points of the
Japanese, and I certainly do not sympathize with the attitude of
the American government toward them.2
6. As a child, I loved to sit on the carriage box and listen to
our coachman sing songs as he curried the horses. This my
mother explained to me was not the proper thing to do, for the
coachman was colored. My love for darkie songs and stories was
quite the bane of my mother's life for a while. When I was six
years old, I was sent to a public school. In my room was a
colored child. Secretly I liked to hear her talk, but I was well
enough educated by this time in my mother's theory to pretend
to ignore her.3
((
The occupations of immigrants affect their status. Where
they become "servants," their status is at once fixed on a
low level. When they crowd into "slums" and live in
dirty-looking" shacks, a low status is accorded them.
As they rise in the occupational scale, their status also
rises, first among their own people, and then among "out-
siders," or the natives of the region in which they have
settled.
((
Status and Mores.- Status depends in large part on the
mores, but many matters are buried, or forever settled "
in the mores. Doctrines of Nordic superiority or of no
racial intermarriage, for example, are powerful factors in
1 Pacific Coast Race Relations Survey. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid.
STATUS AND RACE ATTITUDES
35
determining status. Status is often fixed by rules of un-
written consent, in family traditions, in racial myths, or
historical conventions. Status is naturally ingrained in
social heredity, caste systems, class distinctions, and even
in law.
In the Pacific Coast Race Relations Survey certain Hindu
immigrants were found who had married Mexican women,
without having their status affected. Certain districts in
the coast cities, occupied by white people, will not allow
Japanese to move in, while others, also occupied by white
people, welcome them. In order to know how status func-
tions in race matters, it is necessary to study the mores.
As the mores regarding races varies, so a person's status
may vary, even though his behavior toward other races
does not change. For a white person to sit next to a colored
person in a street car means one thing in the North, namely,
a convenience; and another thing in the South, namely, a
lowered status. In the North a seat is the desideratum.
There may be no conversation and no effect on the status.
In the South a white person sitting beside a Negro puts
himself on the level of the Negro and promptly suffers loss
of status.
A distinguished white northerner goes South and is invited
to dinner by a prominent Negro. As long as the gathering
is small and "no one is likely to hear about it," the
Northerner is entirely at ease. "But let some of my friends
(white) from Chattanooga come in, and I should begin to
perspire."
When the native's status is "invaded" by members of
another race, antipathy for that race usually flares up.
Sometimes this invasion takes the form of actual moving
into a given neighborhood. For example, Japanese immi-
grants are desirous of improving their status and when
possible move out of "Little Tokio" into an area occupied
by natives, but in so doing they get "out of place." Hence,
36
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
they irritate people who want an established order. They
are more willing to take rebuffs, however, than to accept
inferior status. Attempts to climb up from the lower status
levels bring persecution and conflict. The dilemma is the
choice between inferior status and peace, or recognized
status and conflict. The persecution is due (1) to the im-
migrant's attempts to improve his status and (2) to the
native's attempts to maintain his own status.
The race that shows initiative, one whose members seek
better conditions, particularly better living conditions,
invades " higher-class neighborhoods and does more than
it knows; it invades the status of the people living in these
neighborhoods. As a result the latter become incensed, and
race clashes become imminent.
(6
7. Furthermore, the Negroes are not content to live in one
part of town and the whites in the other, but steadily creep into
all parts of town. In my community, the Negroes inhabit some
of the best sections of town and are still spreading to other parts.
We have had to move out, for we were ashamed to have our friends
see us and have them say: “Do you have niggers on your street?
How can you stand them?" Yes, it is our friends' unfavorable
opinion and not any real objection that we have to Negroes that
makes the difference.*
8. A colored man of near-white type purchased a home in a
white neighborhood. He moved in with his family, who were all
much lighter than the Mexicans who are numerous in this com-
munity. He improved his home and surroundings until it was
considered one of the model places in the neighborhood. He lived
quietly, and all was well until his race was accidentally discovered,
when his home was visited at night and he was warned "to git
out inside of twenty-four hours if you don't want your house
burned with you and your nigger brats in it." He moved away,
and later sold his home at considerable financial loss.
In the same community, opposite to the L. School, a colored
family this year bought a house through a downtown agent. This
time the people discovered it at once, and before the family moved
in had called a meeting on F. Avenue of the local business men
4 Social Distance Studies (unpublished manuscripts), Los An-
geles, 1926.
STATUS AND RACE ATTITUDES
37
and others of the community. Next morning we saw the house
placarded with such signs as "Nigger git out." "Niggers not
allowed here." "This is no Nigger's nest." The family did not
even attempt to move in.5
9. "We fixed him!" said a white real-estate man. "That rich
nigger R.," naming a prominent and well-to-do colored man,
"bought a fine house in our block. The first night after we
heard about it we went there and threw stones through the win-
dows and banged things up generally. He claimed he didn't know
niggers weren't wanted there; but when he saw his house, I guess
he found it out mighty fast. . . . Oh, he sold his place for what-
ever he could get for it after it was knocked up so. I don't know
or care where he went so long as we got him out of our neigh-
borhood."
10. Appeal for police protection is useless; for although there
are about fifty colored men on the police force, they are located
in the colored communities, and the white police usually ignore
if not actually sympathize with the white mob. A few, however,
stick it out in spite of threats of violence. A colored woman and
her invalid mother bought a home in a white community. She
was given twenty-four hours to get out, said a warning note
beginning with the usual words, "If you value your hide." She
appealed to her colored friends. The next evening as the crowd
of white rowdies began to gather around the house, a number of
colored women got off the car at the nearest corner. In absolute
silence they formed into a marching column, two by two there
were about one hundred in all they marched to the house and
stationed themselves about it. Gradually the white crowd melted
away. The two women still live in that house. They were
molested no further."
K
"Invasion" is a key to a great deal of the race prejudice
that exists between the native born and immigrants in cities.
As long as races stay in ghettoes or Little Italys, they are
"all right," but when their members invade the "Ameri-
can "neighborhoods, adverse reactions are at once generated
against them. The speed at which this invasion is under-
taken bears a direct relation to the rise of prejudice. To the
extent that the native feels his status has been lowered by
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
38
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
the invasion of his neighborhood or his occupation by im-
migrant people, to that extent his race feelings are likely
to be inflamed.
Status has usually originated in force, and social distance
likewise has been established by force, war, misrepresenta-
tion, and subtle propaganda devices. The status of groups
has often been determined in the same manner. Moreover,
any group or person will ordinarily fight to maintain status
once it has been achieved.
Status is a result of competition; its existence implies
potential if not actual competition. Status and competition,
moreover, are opposites. One denotes stability, and perhaps
stagnation and hence retrogression; the other, change, and
perhaps anarchy. The stability, however, which arises from
status affords the more energetic person opportunities to
invent and to progress. The changes concurrent to com-
petition lead directly to mental invigoration. Race stability
and status may be synonymous with race pride and de-
generation. Race competition leads to conflict, to changes
in status, and to either progress or destruction.
11. An example that has directly concerned my family was
shown when my father hired groups of men for work in a hotel.
There was a group of American young men and a group of
Japanese. My father had no end of trouble with the white men,
while the Japanese were steady workers. They studied at night
while the white men went out and often came home intoxicated.
I hated to see foreigners take the place of high rank and always
tried to defend my native brothers when my father had to turn
away one American after another.8
12. My dislike for the Japanese is not founded upon any one
definite unpleasant experience. It is, perhaps, envy to a certain
degree, of the advances that these people are making over those
of our nation. Fear that they may become too strong in our
country as well as in their own, causing the next dreaded war,
may stimulate this dislike. Their high birth rate indicates that
they will soon have need of expansion. Trouble will be brought
about if any such attempt is made.
8 Ibid.
STATUS AND RACE ATTITUDES
39
My younger brother entered a Y. M. C. A. contest a few days
ago. Certain honors were to be given to the winners of the first
and second places. When I heard that Japanese boys took both
these honors, a strange feeling of jealousy, because they had
defeated my brother and his playmates, came over me.⁹
The discussion in this chapter of status and race attitudes
is merely preliminary. Enough has been said, however, to
indicate that attack upon status means prejudice and that
immigrants who compete for a living or otherwise with
natives are thereby arousing race prejudices among the
natives. The interrelations between the origins of prejudice
and antipathy are so important, and the relations of status
and prejudice so fundamental that the several chapters will
be necessary in order to interpret pertinent data. A de-
tailed discussion of some of the special points will now be
undertaken.
PROJECTS
1. Trace the historical uses of the term status," from its
origins to its present sociological meaning.
2. Write out a description of any experience of your own in
which you have felt that your status was seriously endangered.
3. Interview a friend and write out any experiences of his
where status played any important rôle.
4. Describe the various ways in which your present status
would be endangered if you violated the prevailing mores re-
garding immigrants, foreigners, or "despised " races.
5. Put yourself in the place of a self-respecting Japanese, and
describe your reactions in some detail upon learning that you
and your countrymen had been excluded from a leading nation
as undesirables."
(6
"
6. If you had an opportunity to sell your residence to a member
of a race that was taboo in a neighborhood, at a distinctly higher
figure than you could secure from anyone else, what would you
do and for what reasons?
7. Analyze as many different conditions as possible where
a racial invasion is most likely to upset the status of a com-
munity.
9 Ibid.
M
40
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
STATUS AND RACE ATTITUDES
CHICAGO COMMISSION ON RACE RELATIONS, The Negro in Chicago,
Chap. VI. University of Chicago Press, 1922.
DUBOIS, W. E. B., The Souls of Black Folk, Chap. I. McClurg,
1922.
FOERSTER, R. F., The Italian Emigration of Our Times, Chap.
XXI. Harvard University Press, 1919.
JENKS, J. W., AND LAUCK, W. J., The Immigration Problem,
Chap. IX. Funk and Wagnalls, 6th edit., 1926.
PARK, R. E., “Experience and Race Relations," Jour. of Applied
Sociology, Vol. IX, pp. 18-24.
PARK AND BURGESS, Introduction to the Science of Sociology,
pp. 708-18. University of Chicago Press, 1921.
PART II
ORIGINS AND CHANGE
CHAPTER IV
ORIGINS OF RACE ANTIPATHY
Of the main types of social data, those describing personal
experiences are perhaps the most significant. They reveal
a person's viewpoint and disclose his culture backgrounds.
They indicate the nature of his personal makeup or per-
sonality organization.
It is in the culture backgrounds that a person's reactions
to his racial contacts are explained. But these are often
very elusive, complex, and lost to research. Their im-
portance, however, remains undiminished.
As a clue both to a person's culture history and to the
factors leading to racial antipathy and sympathy, his per-
sonal experiences are outstanding. It is in these experiences
that racial attitudes and opinions have their major setting.
The origins of these attitudes, however, are not always
clear. They may always be pushed further back. At least,
we can not stop at any point and feel certain that we have
arrived at ultimates. Origins, as the term is used here,
means emergencies." But these are always results as
well as beginnings. They are outcroppings, revealing an
evolutionary social process.
"L
Direct and Derivative Experience.
-
Experiences that
account for race attitudes are either direct or derivative.
Direct personal experiences are first-hand and face to face.
Something has happened in the presence of and with the
knowledge of a person himself. Indirect experiences are
hearsay. Something is reported to a person. In the first
instance the contact is primary; in the other, secondary.
The first is subject to all the excitement of immediacy and
43
44
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
proximity; the second, to the biases of other persons and
to the errors of mediators. The first are real; the second
are subject to the vagaries of gossip, and easily acquire
mythical and exaggerated proportions. When direct per-
sonal experiences are vivid and emotional, they are likely
to be lasting.
13. One day while I was playing ball with my dog, a Negro
passing by the yard shot him. The dog had never bothered the
Negro; in fact, the Negro was a stranger and had never seen
the dog. I have always remembered the look of delight on the
Negro's face as he shot the dog, and I have never forgotten the
look in that dog's eyes, the quiver in his body, the pangs in his
cry as he lay at my feet dying. Often when I see a Negro, I
visualize that childhood experience of the death of my fondest
childhood pet.¹
1
The indirect, cumulative character of derivative expe-
riences is illustrated by the person who in childhood and
adolescent years has accepted uncritically the biases of
parents and other elders. Prejudices so originating are
lasting, by virtue of fixations in the impressionable years
of life. Derivative race antipathy is all-compelling until
dislodged later by a series of direct personal experiences of
an opposite character.
14. My early schooling helped to develop my hatred for the
Mexican. I learned that Mexico was a lazy, hot, dirty country.
There was no inside plumbing or bathtubs. The favorite occupa-
tions were drinking, siesta-ing, and bullfighting. Their exports
were Tecquilla and bad cigars. These people were the same race
that so badly mistreated our soldiers who tried simply to protect
the American interests near the border. The Americans, of course,
had no idea of grabbing any land while they were down there
and were only interested in fairly judging and settling the various
land claims. These were my reasons for being prejudiced against
the Mexicans as a race. It should be noted that in all this time
I had not come personally into contact with them.
1 Social Distance Studies.
L
ORIGINS OF RACE ANTIPATHY
45
As I grew older, I began to learn how foolish my puerile
prejudices were. I came into contact with some Mexicans and
found that they were not fiends-in-human-flesh. They were
human, charming, and one in particular was quite beautiful.
Of course, such a thing as a beautiful woman would not influence
my better judgment. Not very much, anyhow! I learned some
of the truth about the Mexican War and the American wholesale
land-grab." I found that Mexico was not entirely concerned
with revolutions and banditry.2
("
An analysis will be made in this chapter of leading types
of direct personal experiences which give rise to race antipa-
thies. While competition and loss of status are sometimes
involved and prejudice aroused, yet as a rule it is the senses
which are offended and antipathy which is developed.
Hence this chapter deals chiefly with race antipathy. In
the next chapter derivative experiences are the intermediate
factors between the person and the event that is reported
to him, and hence the discussion will be directed to the
"media" of race antipathy. In a later chapter, indirect
experiences leading to race friendliness will be treated under
the captions of the origins and the media of race friendliness.
The conditions under which direct personal experiences
turn into racial antipathies may be classified as (1) olfac-
tory, tactual, gustatory, and visual conditions, (2) bodily
insecurity situations, (3) obtrusiveness situations, (4)
aggressiveness situations, (5) unreliability situations, (6)
quarrelsome situations, (7) injustice situations, and
(8) inferior-culture situations.
Olfactory, Tactual, Gustatory, and Visual Conditions. -
Reactions against the odor of the body of the members
of "another race" are often positive and uncontrollable.
Otherwise fair-minded persons cannot overcome this re-
pulsion. White persons react against colored persons for
this reason, and colored people react against white people
2 Mexican Immigrant Survey of the Southwest.
46
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
for a similar reason. Sometimes this odor is attributed to
excessive perspiration. “A greasy odor is very noticeable,”
and "they are often uncleanly in their habits and carry a
disagreeable odor."
The tactual conditions giving rise to race antipathies are
emotionally unique. Organic reactions are augmented,
doubtlessly, by other adverse feelings and beliefs originating
in one's cultural heritage and early training. The combina-
tion is difficult to overcome.
15. In trying to analyze this antipathy I have concluded that
it is physical in character. I remember the first time a Negro
child took hold of my hand when I was a cadet teacher. I went
as soon as possible and washed my hand. Another time I was
bending over one, he bobbed up and his hair touched my face.
This time I didn't even wait; I rushed to wash my face. Even
now after many more contacts I still have a most disagreeable
sensation if I feel their hair. I deal with little children in school,
and sometimes I give them a little pat on the head. By mistake
I patted a Negro boy's head, and the feeling of wool on his head
gave me a most disagreeable feeling of shock.
Once in a while I get a boy in whose eye I fancy I can see all
the savage traits of his ancestors. Then it seems incongruous that
he should be in school. He should be in Africa leading the life of
his ancestors. Still I do have that feeling of physical repulsion
in a greater or lesser degree toward them.³
3
(C
Gustatory conditions are occasionally expressed. They
are illustrated in the case of the colored man
of good
standing who holds several degrees from important univer-
sities and who states that he dislikes the Chinese to this
day, because when he was a boy he was told that the Chinese
ate rats." A conditioned reflex continues to operate to the
detriment of the Chinese in this person's life. A near-
gustatory repulsion is reported by a person who dislikes
both Greeks and Armenians because he has known coal
mine boarding houses and restaurants where "they have
3 Ibid.
}
-
ORIGINS OF RACE ANTIPATHY
47
served food that most people would deem unfit for hog-
feed (i. e., spoiled meat and vegetables).'
"}
Visual conditions are usually complex. This complexity
is illustrated by the man who reacts against a few, and
hence all, Russian Jews as follows: "I never liked the looks
of his nose; his gestures, manners, and speech are so hideous
that they have turned me against him." Physiognomy
accounts sometimes for these adverse reactions; sometimes
it is the unpleasant sight of "watery eyes" that arouses
aversions. Or it may be " those terrible whites of the eye
that do not simply arouse repulsions but strike terror.
Sometimes, it is "that staring at me" that stimulates un-
favorable feelings. "In fact, they (Hindus) scare me.
They are most rude to a girl and sometimes stare at you
until you move. Then they smile. Maybe it is uninten-
tional, but I dislike them very much." Again, it is "a
sardonic grin ” that does the damage, as in the case of the
person who admits that she is unjust and unfair in her
dislike for the Mexicans, " yet to see a Mexican idly watch-
ing me, with a sardonic grin on his face, makes cold chills
run up and down my back."
7
16. My first encounter with the Negro was in Louisville, Ken-
tucky, where I went to dinner at a hotel and happened to look
into the kitchen where a colored man was preparing the food.
At the sight of this black face, offset with those terrible white
whites of the eyes, I was unable to eat my dinner, and so I left
the table and went to my room.4
17. I have never had much personal experience with Japs.
Still I was compelled to ride in the same seat many times in the
cars. I had the same feeling of discomfort that one has when
seated beside a colored person. Invariably they always had weak,
watery, granulated eyes and lids. They kept repeatedly drying
their eyes and lids and adjusting their glasses. It irritated me
and did not subtract any dislike I had amassed from the news-
papers.5
4 Ibid.
""
5 Social Distance Studies.
48
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
18. About this time I met some Italians and their breath and
even their clothes were so strongly garlic-scented that I kept at a
distance. Garlic I thoroughly disliked, and hence I couldn't
stand Italians. I had read of the blackhand and of stabbing
frays and thought I could see blood and a pent-up anger in the
eyes of every one. Those along the railroad tracks were kindly
looking and music loving, but dirty, dark-complexioned, and very
remote in type from my people. I since have had an Italian
shoemaker. He is courteous, hard working, and I like his boy
from whom I buy papers, but I still see blood and fire and pent-up
anger in every Italian's eye and feel like keeping my distance and
not getting too well acquainted.
6
Sometimes it is the living conditions that are visually
repulsive. "One day I went down to her house (Mexican)
to take the washing to her. I never saw such a dirty house
before. Everything was thrown about. Egg shells were
on the floor beside the stove where she had thrown them."
Or perhaps it is the neighborhood which is visually and
olfactorily repulsive. "They have many overcrowded,
dirty pool halls and dance halls. The homes are filthy,
and the yards are covered with old bones, potato peelings,
etc. The odor in the district is terrible."
19. My dislike for the Polish race is due mainly to personal
contact. My father has his warehouse and the office in a neighbor-
hood populated mainly by Polish people. Next to the warehouse
is a vacant lot also owned by my father, and naturally he desires
to keep it looking clean. But it is impossible to do so in spite of
signs; all the neighbors seem to think it is a suitable place to dump
all their rubbish. The lot is always littered with their bed springs,
tin cans, and things of this sort. My father has also spoken to
some of these people, asking them not to place their rubbish in
this lot, but he could not get any satisfaction from them in this
way. His warehouse is also often defaced by names and pictures
painted on the walls by children of these same Polish neighbors.
True, they are only children, but they show that they are not
receiving training suitable for future American citizens."
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
ORIGINS OF RACE ANTIPATHY
49
Adverse auditory impressions are lasting. Terror is
aroused. Oftentimes a single experience is sufficient. That
which arouses deep fear can rarely be overcome.
20. When I first saw a Negro in my home town (in the
Philippine Islands), I did not have any feeling of antipathy. The
first darky that I saw was repairing his automobile, for he had a
punctured tire. Whenever a creature of this race appeared in
that place, there was always a happy crowd which gathered
around him. So this man was encircled by a crowd of boys, which
I was in, looking at him with a perplexing curiosity.
The Negro could not fix his machine. He used all his instru-
ments, recalled all his wit and energy, pumped and hammered
the old tire, but his efforts came to naught. He became tired,
he perspired; he lost his patience, he became nervous, he was mad.
In an abrupt manner he kicked the tire and cried aloud to the
curious children: "Get out of here, you devils." Then he swore
the vilest blasphemy.
Terrified and astonished by the look and sound of the strange
man, we ran away, but we were mad. That experience stayed
deep-rooted in my being. When I was traveling and rode in an
automobile driven by a Negro, I remembered that incident, and
a new rage sought expression in my face.8
A race against whose members antipathy is aroused on
sensory grounds cannot do much. The adverse reactions
are so definitely organic, so closely related to temperament
and similar hereditary factors, that their adverse operation
can be prevented with difficulty. Particular attention to
bodily condition and appearance, hygienic and æsthetic
measures, however, may accomplish something worth while.
The Hindu's attempt to meet adverse climatic conditions
has a meaning that may be utilized in preventing race
repulsion.
21. The Hindu's insistence on a daily bath early every morning
as part of a man's religious duty; his insistence on the non-use of
the previous day's clothes and on the wearing of clean, washed
clothes every morning after his bath; also his prescription of the
8 Social Distance Studies.
50
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
washing of hands and feet and the wearing of silk garments by the
exigencies of hot climate are all significant."
Bodily Insecurity Conditions. A person, or a group of
persons, experiencing bodily harm at the hands of a
member of a different race, react against that race. The
wish for security has been jolted. Bodily insecurity con-
ditions easily lead to antipathy. A striking, persistent, and
uncontrollable sense of fear operates. A common case is
that of a child who has been "grabbed" or almost kid-
naped. A woman of training and tolerance who suffers a
sense of fear upon seeing a Chinese traces this fear back
to a childhood experience when she passed through a Chinese
vegetable garden. A Chinese "jumped out and grabbed at
me." She started running, with the Chinese coming after
her and yelling something at her in Chinese. She finally
reached home safely, but "until this day" cannot over-
come a rising sense of fear at the sight of a Chinese.
Another American who reports that Mexicans are very
repulsive to her states that this repulsion apparently began
in fear, which originated "in nearly being kidnaped" when
she was eleven years old. After that incident she observed
every Mexican critically in order to decide which she should
be afraid of. She came to think of the Mexican as ،، a
greasy, uncleanly being "; and then, as she grew older, she
heard many times of "the sneaky, treacherous ways and of
their utter disregard and disrespect for women." Thus,
bodily insecurity plays a rôle in building up race aversion.
Another person reports that, when he was a child six
years old, his sister, aged ten, came screaming into the house
one evening shortly after dark. She declared that she had
been chased by a Chinese carrying a knife. "My father
went out and searched all around but could find no one.
He thought that my sister was perhaps mistaken about the
⁹ From unpublished manuscript by H. T. Muzumdar.
ORIGINS OF RACE ANTIPATHY
51
knife, as she is easily frightened and might have exaggerated
her fear." Out of this experience relatively permanent
behavior patterns of antipathy developed.
22. My parents tell me that, when I was a small baby, a little
colored boy came to our house for the laundry. He was the first
one that I had seen, and my reaction was to scream until I was
red in the face. The little boy tried to make me stop by dancing
a doll up and down in front of me, but I only screamed the louder.
The first experience which I remember occurred when as a child
of about seven years I was visiting at my cousin's house. The
grown folks were in the house and had said that we must remain
outdoors. We were playing out in the front yard when a colored
girl passed by, wearing what was, for that time, a very short skirt.
I whispered to my cousin that the girl had a short skirt. The
colored girl heard the whispering and became angry and said that
when she came back that way she would stop and slap both of us.
We were frightened and tried to get in the house, but the grown
folks would not let us as they saw no reason why we should not
play outdoors. We ran around to the back of the house and tried
to hide on the screen porch, but we felt sure that the colored
girl would find us there.10
23. We lived in a town in the Middle West. My father was
having some improvements made about our residence and hired
a Negro to do the work. This Negro was an old darky of perhaps
fifty odd years. He lived alone, in a little shack on the outskirts
of town. We children always called him "nigger Martin," and
our older brother and sisters used this name when they wanted
anything done. "Nigger Martin will get you if you aren't good "
meant more than the words to us.
The Negro Martin was digging a large ditch near our house.
Of course, child fashion, we were there and observed everything
that went on. After a while it became tiresome to us, so we
thought we'd have some fun. As he threw up shovelful after
shovelful of dirt we picked up pieces of dirt and threw them at
him. He became angry (I don't blame him) and told us that
he ever caught us we'd "catch it." We ran and did not bother
him again.
The next day he came and continued his work. We came to
watch, and without the slightest warning he grabbed me into the
10 Ibid.
52
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
ditch. I was so frightened that I cried and screamed while the
others went to tell father. When he came and saved" me, I was
a most happy but frightened girl. The name "nigger" of any
sort always frightened me from that day on. That incident and
all our training about the Negro has naturally made me dislike
and fear them.11
((
24. My father owned a ranch up in F. county. There are
many Japanese in that part of the country who have rented land
in order to grow strawberries, and my father had rented a few
acres of his land to a couple of Japanese families. One evening,
long past bed time, we heard loud cries issuing from the quarters
where the Japanese were living. Father dressed hurriedly and
rushed up to their cabins. He found that a Japanese from a
neighboring farm had tried to kill one of the Japanese on our
place with a hoe. The latter seized an iron rod and had laid out
the farmer. My father was never able to find out the real cause
of the disturbance. As I was very young, I was very much
frightened at the noise. I was also afraid that my "daddy
might be killed in the mixup. Many nights after that I would
jump from my sleep believing that the Japanese were attacking us.
My prejudice toward them dates from that night, and I have
never been able to overcome that distrust. The newspaper prop-
aganda that has been circulating lately about the Japanese wishing
to seize the Philippines, etc., has certainly not helped me to remove
my suspicions. Although I admit my arguments are not based
on very strong proof, still I cannot change my mind.12
>>
25. During a visit in one of our largest cities I had a distressing
experience which has caused me to dislike a certain nationality
of men. My feeling is not entirely one of dislike, but rather
one of fear.
One afternoon I started from our hotel for a walk. I struck
upon the seemingly brilliant idea of walking to the post office
some fifteen blocks away. I had been there several times in our
car, but had never walked. I was attracted by some gay little
shops on a side street, and my curiosity led me into them. I was
immediately transferred into another world. Bright rugs and
draperies were hung outside the shops, and I was fascinated. But
my plan to go around the block and resume my walk to the post
office was not a practical one in that city of crooked streets. I
soon found myself completely lost. Until this time the white
robes and wrapped heads of the Turkish shopkeepers had thrilled
12 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
ORIGINS OF RACE ANTIPATHY
53
(C
me. But when I discovered that I was cut off" from the rest
of the world my world at least I saw only very black eyes
and sneering smiles. I asked my way and was greeted with a
stream of broken English and wild gestures. As I hurried up the
little street, I seemed to be followed and surrounded by Turks.
I finally found my way back to the hotel, but the white robe and
togo followed me for days. Even the present Sheik vogue has
not reconciled me to Turkish and Hindu people.13
M
Obtrusiveness Conditions. — Obtrusiveness in any one is
repelling. He who monopolizes the conversation, who talks
repeatedly about himself, who talks loudly, who selects the
best seat for himself, arouses unkind attitudes toward him-
self. When a person of "another race" does any of these
things, he is doubly subject to criticism.
Persons who attain a new status suddenly a wider
freedom, or wealth are likely to become inflated and
inconsiderate of others. Immigrants and members of
"lower races," when they make advances in a new country,
are no exceptions; they are subject to and fall before these
temptations, and as a result the natives react against them.
The broader-minded and considerate members of a race
must suffer for the obtrusiveness of their racial compatriots.
An American with contacts among the Hindus who pick
cotton in Imperial Valley sees them as "proud and selfish."
After the cotton season is over they buy cars and “feel so
far above every one else that they drive right in the middle
of the road." He accuses them of living "lower than
Americans," of ruining the land, and either of "hoarding
money for cars, or of sending it to India." The whole race
is judged by the few who make themselves conspicuous by
un-American ways, or by being too American. In the above
report, a background of Nordic superiority is indicated.
K
26. The reason I feel especially antagonistic toward the Ar-
menians is because I once lived in a small town where many of
them lived and where they acted as though they had full authority.
13 Ibid.
54
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
Their prices were very low to Armenians, but exorbitant to
Americans. If we were driving on the narrow roads and met an
Armenian, we had to pull off to the side and let him have the
whole road. This was very disagreeable for us, but we were
afraid to do otherwise. On one day a friend of ours made up his
mind to keep his side of the road when he met an Armenian, who
had a heavy truck. The Armenian did not give way but over-
turned our friend's car, killing our friend and one of his children.
The Armenian was brought to trial, but the Armenians were
authoritative and the arrested Armenian was dismissed without
even being fined.
It was this way in everything; the Americans were overrun.
All of them took part in overrunning the Americans wherever
opportunity occurred.14
27. The race toward which I am most inclined to feel dislike
is the Jewish. I've had occasion to be among them in street cars,
stores, and public parks in the city of Chicago, where they are
numerous and powerful. In stores, especially ladies' ready-to-wear
where they often have Jewish employees, they are most flattering
and pleasant until they find out that I don't care to buy their
goods, and then they are rude and even insulting.
I've often watched them eating in public places, and their
greediness disgusts me.
We had a Jewess in our party on a European tour. She was
thoroughly disliked and shunned by the entire party.
This was
not because of her race alone, for her disposition of braggadocio
and self-conceit made her disagreeable to all. Often she would
interrupt a conversation to force herself in.
Not knowing it to be owned by Jews, I went into a strange
store in L. There was only one man present, whom I asked to
show me an article of furniture. He became very personal in
questions, and positively so rude that I made haste to leave his
store.15
Aggressiveness Conditions. - Aggressiveness is an exag-
gerated form of obtrusiveness. In fact, the latter becomes
the former whenever a person pushes himself ahead to the
point of detracting in any way from another person's status,
or when one takes away from another anything that the
latter considers his own. When one's friends become aggres-
15 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
ORIGINS OF RACE ANTIPATHY
55
sive, he may tolerate or excuse their practices; but when a
stranger or "foreigner" does so, the practice becomes con-
temptible.
Immigrants who are more industrious and frugal than
the natives may unjustly be accounted "aggressive." Any
one who does something better than another person in the
latter's field of activity is in danger of being called aggres-
sive. A tolerant attitude is held toward an immigrant race
as long as it does not become competitive; but when some
of its members advance to the point of taking important
positions away from natives, then the whole race is con-
demned as " unduly aggressive."
An immigrant race attempting to advance in the terri-
tory of natives must always face the charge of aggressive-
ness. It is confronted with unjust accusations. It may be
suppressed. In our Anglo-Saxon atmosphere it reacts by
talking of its rights and in emphasizing formal matters
rather than inner needs. Its demand for rights is usually
met by new suppressive regulations and legislation on the
part of natives. There is a mutual loss of friendly contacts,
and clashes grow into overt conflicts.
Real and open aggressiveness is viewed by natives with
mingled hostility and a sense of gross injustice. If aggres-
siveness be accompanied by instances of insolence, then
fierce resentment and bloodshed are likely to follow.
Aggressiveness of immigrants is easily viewed by natives
as meaning destruction of the latter's status.
Even the thrift of the Japanese is charged against them
in a country which boasts of its Benjamin Franklin. In
this thrift is seen the greatest objection to the Japanese
nation. The Japanese immigrant has been thought of as
obtaining "a few feet of land or a small store, and in a
twinkling of an eye we find him either with a large amount
of land or a thriving business enterprise." Thus the Ameri-
can's status is in danger of attack, and prejudice springs up.
56
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
Antipathy, due to offense against the senses, is also stimu-
lated. The Japanese is seen living in a hovel, working with
his entire family and enslaving all from dawn to dark.
"Now these are the methods used by the Oriental, and the
Yankee cannot compete with him."
28. I have developed my greatest dislike toward the mulatto.
This feeling of dislike has been increased through contact with
them upon the college campus. Although they respect the rights
of others as far as they can actually be forced to respect them,
they insist upon the full extension of their rights as an equal
to the other races. They gather in groups at the intersection of
walks and force others to go around them, and not infrequently
walk in a body so that other people must be crowded off the walk.
From observance of them in the public libraries, I have found them
to be most disrespectful of the rights of others. They gather in a
body around a table and talk and laugh so that it is impossible to
study near them.16
29. I am a native son of California, and I love it and hate
to see it overrun by other races. I dislike the Japanese, because
they are doing this to California. Their women as well as their
men get out in the fields and work from dawn till dark every day
in the week including Sunday. They also live on nearly nothing
and lead a distinctly poor type of life. (This does not refer to
the higher class of Japanese but to the common person in Cali-
fornia.) They have no thought for the betterment of the United
States or California, but they hope to save enough money to go
back to Japan. It seems to me that this motive is entirely selfish
in this respect. By doing this hard work in the fields, they throw
our American farmers out of work, because Americans will not
lower themselves to work like the Japanese to compete with them.
Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, but I still dislike
the Japanese and will most probably continue to dislike them.17
30. The racial group I dislike most is the Negro. When I was
younger I rather sympathized with the black man, because, I
suspect, of a number of books I had read giving his side of the
problem. For about the last ten years my dislike has increased,
as I have seen more of them and come in contact with them. It
is especially their boasting attitude that I object to. In southern
cities it is probably different, but here they crowd on street cars,
17 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
-
ORIGINS OF RACE ANTIPATHY
57
1
rudely and roughly pushing their way forward without any
respect for others' rights. This applies to Negro men and women
alike. They get the best seats in the cars and give up their seats
to no one, lame or aged. Besides, they are usually dirty and
evil-smelling, obnoxious in all ways; and instead of keeping in
their place, they push themselves forward and increase their
rudeness. When a Negro is driving a machine, he invariably
takes the middle of the road and allows no one to pass. It is the
result of experiences like these that has caused my intense dislike
of the black man. 18
Quarrelsome Conditions. A person quickly tires of
quarrelsome companions, of people who are "fussy" over
small matters, even though they be his own relatives or
friends. He is still less patient with immigrant neighbors
"who are all the time haggling among themselves." On
occasion, a friendly but exciting conversation among "for-
eigners" is mistaken by natives for a brawl. Races with
loquacious or loud-talking members are misjudged. To
have immigrant neighbors "spend not a congenial moment
together" is unbearable.
-
31. Armenians were put on my minus list because of the traits
I have come to attribute to their race after two years of ex-
perience of a very personal sort that I had with two Armenian
girls and their families. I gained this experience as a freshman
and sophomore in a college where I lived in the same house with
these two girls. Their relatives and friends came often to see
them; and if I had had no closer contact than the meeting of
these individuals, my impression would have been of a very
negative sort. They spent not a happy or congenial moment.
There was always haggling over small points, expressions of
distrust against people against whom they had no proof of wrong-
doing except their own suspicious natures. Even though these
people were high-class representatives of their race, they were
unclean in their habits, and the girls were the despair of the
house mother.
The two girls chummed together and said that they had always
been pals. But they were so suspicious of each other and so dis-
18 Ibid.
58
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
trustful of one another's movements that they were in a constant
state of underhanded examination and investigation. They told
us stories against each other that would have turned us completely
away from the one maligned except that we understood the situa-
tion and made allowances.
Since my experiences of those two years, I have met people
from the Armenian district around F., and they all tell the same
experiences with the race as a large group.19
Unreliability Conditions. To find friends unreliable
shakes the very foundations of social life. Certainty
disappears. Most persons, however, hold strangers to
stricter accountability than friends, or at least are less
inclined to excuse them for the fatal shortcoming of un-
reliability than they are personal friends.
Strangers and foreigners, on the other hand, are less
careful about conducting themselves reliably in their deal-
ings with natives than with their racial associates, and
thus any unreliability they manifest is subject to dual
exaggeration. The greater the social distance the more the
native magnifies the immigrant's unreliability. Also, the
greater the social distance, the less careful the immigrant
is in regard to reliability.
For a "foreigner " to "short change" or "double cross "
a native in a business deal is a heinous sin. Slyness, tricki-
ness, and stealing are important variations of unreliability
conditions. The slightest evidences of dishonesty in race
relations are greatly magnified. An American reacts against
Greeks because the Greeks whom he has known are restau-
rant keepers and storekeepers who "do business on a mean
scale," who give "as little as possible," and are disagreeable
when complaint is made, who come to this country "to
make a lot of money and to do as little as they can for it."
Not only do they seem to be deceitful but "overcharging
and underweighing bothers them not a bit."
19 Ibid.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
ORIGINS OF RACE ANTIPATHY
59
32. I took a check from a well-known Hindu, while working in
a department store, and upon calling the bank found that there
were no funds to meet it. When the manager investigated, he
found that the Hindu had five accounts and that he would transfer
his money from one to another every two months and write checks
on the account just closed. I have found that many Hindus have
instructed the banks not to cash any checks drawn on them that
are not signed in both Latin scrip and in their own hieroglyphics,
and sometimes require that the check bear the thumb print of its
writer. In short, the merchants say that there are but three
honest Hindus in V.20
33. I have developed a prejudice against Jews. It is an unfair
one to hold against the race, because it has developed only as a
result of unfavorable impressions formed of certain individuals
of that race with whom I have come in contact.
As a girl I lived in a small town where the largest stores were
owned and operated by Jews. They were always advertising
sales and making a great display of bargains. People who were
really good judges of bargains found that perhaps one or two
articles advertised were good values, but that everything else had
been advertised just to attract crowds. The proprietors were
never willing to make adjustments and satisfy customers. Their
main object was to accumulate as much money as possible without
consideration for the public.
A few years ago I went with a friend to a small store in C.
The friend wished to purchase a coat. The one she liked and
tried on was priced at fifty-five dollars. The Jewess who waited
on her and who was also the proprietor of the place, used all of
her powers of persuasion to convince my friend that she ought
to buy. Before we left the store she offered the coat for forty
dollars. Had my friend paid the fifty-five dollars asked in the
first place, she would probably have paid a great deal more than
the coat was worth.21
"C
""
34. I used to like the Negroes as well as any race, if not more,
for my father had reared us all to believe in the brotherhood of
man. My father has always been, and still is, very good to the
Negroes. Eight years ago he had some Negro men working for
him. As I have said, he was good to them and never drove
them. But in spite of his kindnesses, such as lending them money
and giving them every consideration that one possibly can to
people who are working for one, two of these Negroes were con-
21 Ibid.
20 Ibid.
60
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
?
stantly stealing things from my father. These thefts were not
noticeable at first, but later they grew so much that father,
careless though he was, noticed them. The police were informed,
and shortly it was found that these Negroes had been selling great
quantities of sacks marked and bundled in a peculiar way that
my father had, to father's competitor!
My father did not prosecute these Negroes, and indeed even
hired the brother of one of them later on. From time to time,
however, various thefts were discovered which were committed
by the Negroes my father employed. My father always paid
his men well and to this day still hires and trusts the Negroes
as much as ever. But I am not so kindly as he; I cannot bear
their dishonesty on top of their laziness. They know that my
father is "easy-going," and so they take advantage of him, and
move about their work at a snail's pace. Because of these ex-
periences with the Negroes, I have grown to distrust them and
to think of them as very, very lazy.22
Injustice Conditions. A sense of having suffered in-
justice is a universal factor in creating racial antipathy.
When discrimination occurs against one's self or race,
accompanied by inconsistency, the response is sharply an-
tagonistic. Oppressed persons or peoples almost invariably
voice injustice repulsions. Sympathy for one's fellow suf-
ferers is a dynamic factor. When an oppressed group takes
the law into its own hands and ignores the established (or
autocratic) order, the representatives of the latter also
protest in terms of injustice antipathies. Injustice stimu-
lates counter injustices.
An American who dislikes Italians finds that the mention
of the race brings to his mind the " many murders committed
by Italians in 'Little Italy' and elsewhere." The principle
of taking the law in their own hands, of taking personal
revenge, of ignoring American laws is a factor in arousing
prejudice against them. An American admits that to
judge all Italians by the least desirable is probably unjust,
and yet he says he cannot prevent himself from doing such
injustice.
22 Ibid.
ORIGINS OF RACE ANTIPATHY
61
35. There is no racial group for which I have the most dislike.
But if some one forced me to answer this question, I would say
that I don't like the Americans. The Japanese people criticize
Americans by saying, "Americans are inconsistent; they know
how to talk love of God, but they do not know how to love people.
They talk much about humanity, justice, and equality, and yet
they do not learn how to treat others equally. What is the use
in sending missionaries to a foreign land and preaching the Gospel,
when they cannot live on the "principles of Christ"? If I shall
count, there are many other criticisms as to the deeds of Ameri-
cans. Of course, I do know that politics and religion do not go to-
gether; they often go opposite directions. But I think that, if at
least the Christian people in America will apply the principles of
Christ to their living, there would not be so much disturbance
between the races and the nationalities. Inconsistency is a part
of American culture. How can we love it?
Furthermore, if I did not have bad personal impressions, I
might not say that I don't like Americans, though in fact there
is inconsistency as a nation. But how individual Americans look
at us, how they treat us! As long as we are living as humans,
is it not natural for us to have antagonistic feelings when we are
treated as an inferior race? 23
36. Chinese immigration is not settled yet. Because the mode
of so doing is one of thoughtlessness, arrogance, prejudice, dis-
crimination (or lack of it) and so wholly insulting, it cannot
possibly settle any question for long. America's treatment of the
Chinese immigration question is so unfair and has been performed
in so terrible a manner that it cannot but cause bitterness in the
hearts of proud and thinking- and if you will-merely self-
respecting Chinese. At present, China is in a state of internal dis-
sension; so much so that she cannot pay adequate attention to her
international affairs. For this reason, and because China has
always been a nation of easy-going peace lovers, little protest has
been made against the unfair treatment given her people. The
time will undoubedly come (however far off it may be) when
China's strength will be so great, or at least so established, that
her demands for fairer play must be met by constructive efforts
and clear thinking instead of by the careless and thoughtless
present method.
The "
student class" is another cause why the immigration
question is not yet settled. We students in America, as much
23 Pacific Coast Race Relations Survey.
62
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
like Americans as you of American blood, resent the American
attitude. Many of us have the right to vote and have influence
with those Chinese merchants who also are American citizens.
We will number sufficiently, in a day not too far removed, to
have a speaking and heard voice in international politics, when
harsh legislation against our people will be defeated by us.24
Inferior-Culture Conditions. The conditions already
presented that arouse race antipathies may occur in almost
any combination or set of combinations. Rarely, in fact,
does any one of them occur alone. Taken together they are
viewed as "inferior culture." Acts that a person or his
friends would not stoop to perform, when done by "out-
siders" are "inferior" and repulsive.
The lower-culture members of any race stimulate dis-
crimination against that race, including the higher-culture
members. A few low-grade persons can ruin the reputation
of a whole race. Observers report that they "know better"
than to make unfavorable generalizations regarding an
entire race because of a few cads, but that they are unable
to dismiss the emotional accompaniments.
A
37. The only race of white people that I greatly dislike is the
French-Canadian. The place where I have lived all my life is
primarily a French-Canadian town. These people are ignorant,
sly, oily, deceitful, and have many other characteristics that are
low-down. They make poor neighbors, are clannish, make no
attempt to learn the English language, and even teach their
children to speak French when they are at home. I have known
quite a few girls very well, and they fall short when it comes to
being a good friend. They are not to be trusted in their dealings
with each other. They do not keep their word. I know my state-
ments are very narrow-minded, but they are really true.25
38. My observance of German neighbors causes a dislike most
especially toward the men. Their attitude toward their girls
and women is one of superiority. I have known the German
father to work his girls on the farm and send all the boys off to
colleges and universities. In one family which lived in a small
town and, of course, had no conveniences for the housekeeper, the
25 Social Distance Studies.
24 Ibid.
ORIGINS OF RACE ANTIPATHY
63
husband would sit and read day after day, while the wife tended
to three crying babies and took in washing to pay his bills. He
carried no water, lifted no tubs, but peacefully smoked his pipe
and read his German news. 26
39. One of the races I would not admit to citizenship in the
United States is the Hindus. When I was in high school, we
visited a foreign vessel in R. It was manned with Hindu labor
and white officers. The Hindus had such greasy hair. Isn't that
an idiotic thing to remember? And their tribal customs were so
hard and fast. Two tribes were represented on the boat, and
neither would have anything to do with the other, as religious
customs forbade. I remember too that the ship was foul smelling
because the Hindus could only eat fresh killed mutton, and they
therefore always carried a large supply of livestock. The animals
had to be killed in a certain manner, and by a headman or priest.
Such customs seem so crude and superstitious.27
In rare instances a person may develop a repulsion against
his own race. He may be in a foreign land and see his own
race at a distance or in the light of their worst dealings
with foreign peoples. He sees his own race, particularly
the lower-culture members of his own race, through the
eyes of other races.
Again, he may know little or nothing against his own race,
but he hears them so repeatedly extolled that he reacts
against them. This adverse repulsion is particularly strong
in the case of a person governed by contrasuggestion. “Al-
though I am partly Scotch, the very mention of the name
makes me prickle with antagonism. I think that this is
due, probably, to the Scotch virtues which were held up to
me as a pattern on which to model myself."
The data submitted in this chapter point to certain origins
of race antipathy and prejudice. That feelings of dislike
originate in unpleasant sense reactions, and that prejudice
is born of an endangered social status, are conclusions that
are clear.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
#17 on the
64
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
PROJECTS
1. Prepare a history of the term "prejudice."
2. Choose some race for which you feel antipathy, and describe
the various experiences that you have had with the members of
this race.
3. Describe the various unfavorable reactions that you have
had to your own race.
4. Give an account of any of your racial contacts as a child
or youth in which you experienced fear.
5. Give instances in detail in which you have reacted against
the members of a race because of their obtrusiveness.
6. Suggest a program for the members of a race to pursue
whose fellow members have aroused antipathy against that race
because of obtrusiveness and aggressiveness.
7. Outline programs for persons to pursue who wish to overcome
a deep-seated set of antipathies for a given race, acquired through
each of the seven sets of conditions discussed in this chapter.
ORIGINS OF RACE ANTIPATHY
CHICAGO COMMISSION OF RACE RELATIONS, The Negro in Chicago,
Chaps. I, XI. University of Chicago Press, 1922.
EVANS, GORDON, W., The Alien Emigrant, Chaps. III, IV.
Scribner, 1903.
FINOT, JEAN, Race Prejudice. Dutton, 1906.
PANUNZIO, CONSTANTINE, The Soul of an Immigrant, Chaps. V,
VI, XVII. Macmillan, 1921.
RAVAGE, M. E., An American in the Making, Part II. Harper,
1917.
REUTER, E. B., The American Race Problem, Chap. VII. Crowell,
1927.
CHAPTER V
MEDIA OF ANTIPATHY
-
In addition to the direct origins of racial antipathy and
prejudice in personal experiences, there are significant
derivative origins. These occur in the experiences of a
person's friends or relatives, or possibly, at the other ex-
treme, in the experiences of strangers remote in both space
and time, in social distance, and in myth. At any rate, they
are transmitted. Significant phases of derivative race aver-
sions are the media or the agencies through which they are
transmitted.
Reactions to derivative experiences, as in the case of
direct contacts, depend upon a person's previously or-
ganized behavior patterns. A given set of derivative or
hearsay statements will arouse antagonism in one person
and friendliness in another, depending on the nature of the
life pattern.
The media by which unfavorable race experiences are
transmitted from one person to another and by which they
often become grossly distorted are many. Six types will be
indicated here.
Family Media. Within the family circle much is said
or implied which engenders race antipathy in children and
youth. Parents talking to each other, particularly the
table talk of adults, is effective stimulus. When the father
speaks feelingly about some dago," the child sits
quietly by, while anti-Italian behavior patterns are set up
in his nature. Short, sharp antipathy expressions of parents
to particular and repulsive race experiences, occurring in the
course of the day's work, are the main factors in "passing
65
66
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
on" race antipathy. A considerable proportion of the race
prejudice in the world has been acquired in this way.
Frequently, a child plays with a boy or girl of another
race, and is entirely happy in his new-found playmate, until
he hears his mother exclaim: "What! Have you been
playing with that nigger! I won't have it." The child,
entirely innocent of having committed a great sin, is shocked
into accepting his parent's antipathies.
Often through the family a child acquires a race superi-
ority attitude with reference to his own race-a Nordic
complex, for instance. The development of such an atti-
tude necessarily involves racial distance reactions. Such
an attitude gives rise naturally to antipathy toward "in-
ferior" races, and hence toward all other races in varying
degrees. A person reports, for instance, that he dislikes
the Negro, because of no particular incidents, that he holds
this dislike "on general principles," and that he "was
brought up on that feeling." He adds that his father and
mother dislike Negroes, "so that tended to make me do
so too."
The distinctive influence of derivative racial dislikes
originating in the family circle is often brought into contrast
with later direct experiences. An adult looking back on
his early adverse reactions toward the French sees these
as duplicates of his parents' attitudes. When he compares
these with his pleasant experiences as an adult with the
French, he is able to define the rôle of his family group as
mediating antipathy.
"}
40. When my daughter entered junior high school, one of the
first things she did was to choose a little colored girl for a " locker
companion. When we spoke to her about it, she said that she
didn't see anything wrong about it, that the colored girl was
friendly, and that it seemed quite natural. We had to tell her
that she could play with the colored girl at our house, but that
at school she had better not have the colored girl for a companion
1
MEDIA OF ANTIPATHY
67
because of what the other white children would say and think
of our daughter.1
41. My grandfather was a slave owner, and my father was a
manager of the slaves on my grandfather's plantation. After I
was born I soon came to face the colored people with not only a
feeling of superiority but with an awful prejudice against the race.
I have often heard my father argue that the Negro had no soul.
The day of slavery was over, but the spirit of slavery persisted.
There were many exceptions of Negroes for whom I cared very
much, especially my colored mammy.2
(C
Associates. — A child's chum or an adult's close friend
may have had an unfortunate experience or two with some
foreigner" and have "exploded" against the whole race
represented by that hapless person. The antipathetic reac-
tions are felt as one's own, and a race antipathy is fixated.
In adolescence, boys frequently indulge in "shooting" and
similar games. Indians, Mexicans, Negroes, or some other
despised people are "hunted" and "shot down." If cap-
tured, the "
enemy" is sure to torture the captives un-
mercifully.
Perchance a person may have an associate in business or
social life who has pronounced race antipathies. To main-
tain status in such an associate's eyes, one must agree with
or tactfully assume the associate's antipathies. By oft
repeating such a rôle a person develops similar antipathies.
In one's social contacts, a person must not be seen with
members of the race that are taboo. In this way also he
acts the part of possessing race aversions, and thus may
actually develop them as his own.
42. My best friend at school was the daughter of one of the
wealthiest men in the small town. Her father was German, and
she lived in constant fear of him. Once or twice I had ventured
to go to her home, but while there I too felt the same cold fear
lest her father come in.
Very often this little girl was kept home from school by
1 Social Distance Studies.
2 Ibid.
68
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
her father for reasons unknown to the rest of us. She would con-
fide to me sometimes of treatment which she received from her
father and which to me seemed very unjust. She was always
poorly clad and seldom had even a nickel to spend on what we
considered the necessities of school life. Still, gossip had it that
her father was very rich.
Her father flatly refused to allow her to belong to the Camp
Fire Girls organization to which I belonged; and later when she
asked him if she could go to Sunday school and join the girls there,
she was punished for asking. Her mother seemed to have no
authority, and even in the smallest things she had to ask her
father's permission. If she didn't—and this practice became
more and more frequent-she lived in constant fear lest he
find out.3
A college woman recalls that when she was in high school
her dearest friend was awakened "by an ugly Negro man
standing over her bedside." Fear and even hatred toward
the Negro race was aroused. This tendency was counter-
acted, says the college woman, by her mother's pleasant
experiences with several Negroes and by her mother's spirit
of racial idealism. The adverse reactions stimulated by her
friend's dramatic experience proved stronger than the
idealism mediated through her mother. "Despite these
ideals, I feel very satisfied to have the colored man select
his companions from his own people."
((
43. When I was a youngster - by that, I mean younger in
years (you will have to judge the minute degree of mental growth
for yourself), — I lived on a street where there were about ten or
twelve boys about my same age. We used to play fanciful games
of youth, such as "cowboy and Indian," or war," or — oh, just
any type of play in which our imagination took the place of the
more conventional material background. One of the favorite
games of our neighborhood was a game called "Mexicans and
marines." In our imagination, we would hunt Indians and Mexi-
cans in the bushes (forests) with sticks (guns). The Mexicans
would shoot at us from ambush, and when we were captured, we
would be tortured in a most horrible manner. If we wanted to
3 Ibid.
MEDIA OF ANTIPATHY
69
scare the smaller children, we would tell them that the Mexicans
would get them. As I recall it, there was a fruit peddler who
went around the neighborhood with a pushcart. I suppose that
he was an Italian, but in our fancy he was a bomb-throwing,
back-stabbing, anarchistic Mexican.¹
4
Motion Pictures. Race repulsions mediated through
" villains" in motion pictures are common. As a rule no
antirace propaganda may be intended, but the "villain"
must be selected from some source. What is more natural
than to choose him from the lower-class level of some con-
demned and helpless race? Such a selection, coupled with
an atmosphere created for the part, is made without par-
ticular concern for the wholsale repulsive effects that are
aroused in the minds of motion-picture goers. Not only is
antipathy created against the villain but, most significantly,
against the whole race represented by the villain. Many
personal history accounts of derivative race antipathy con-
tain references such as this: "Then I think of movies and
plays where some Negro has the villain's part. That always
makes me dislike them more than ever. I saw The
Clansman several years ago, and ever since I have been
afraid of Negroes."
44. A few years ago, the Japanese in the picture show always
took a villainous part. I have never been personally acquainted
with any members of the race, but have formed a dislike for them
because of the little things. However, there are a few on this hill,
and I have never noticed any out-of-the-way things done by them."
(C
45. A picture whose name I have forgotten comes back to me
often, or rather just one part, that of the villain, a sleek, treacher-
ous Chinese. He was employed to do the dirty work." A
white man had been murdered, and the picture showed the Chinese
with a knife going into the man's room. Shortly after, he came
out, with a villainous, bloodthirsty, satisfied look that haunts me
now, ten or more years after. Then, the American, stabbed, dead,
was shown.Ⓡ
4 Ibid.
5 Pacific Coast Race Relations Survey.
• Ibid.
70
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
Newspapers and Books. Reading is a widespread
source of race repulsions. Newspapers are charged with
printing more "bad news about members of every im-
migrant or foreign race than "good news," and thus with
contributing greatly to the distortion of public opinion.
Headlines including the phrase, "Mexican bandits " or
some such idea, when often repeated, give readers the im-
pression, unintentionally, that Mexicans in general are
bandits. The good that Mexicans do is not mentioned, but
invariably "accounts of Mexicans stabbing each other
over some trivial matter" are given space. Hence, exag-
gerated attention is centered on one side of Mexican
life.
""
When a native commits a crime his race is not men-
tioned; but when an immigrant perpetrates a wrong, his
race is announced in flaring headlines. This practice is a
common occurrence, and the members of all immigrant races
protest against it. Not only is the bad that immigrants do
emphasized to the discredit of the good, but "bad im-
migrants" are not placed over against "bad natives" in
proper proportion.
Novels, like motion pictures, need " villains," and a "for-
eigner" is easily appropriated for this rôle. The reader
dwells at length on the subtleties of the villain and transfers
the evils of the villain to the villain's race.
School histories, often in loyal support of the home nation,
arouse unjust antipathies toward the people of other nations
in the behavior of pupils. Only the good of the home nation
is described, while both the good and the bad of other
peoples are dwelt upon. Take the case, for instance, of
the boy whose early lessons in geography taught him that
"the Japanese was a slant-eyed Mongolian, a type entirely
different from the Caucasian and a race that existed under
peculiar standards of living." His knowledge thus acquired
"was prejudiced and not at all accurate as I have since
MEDIA OF ANTIPATHY
71
learned, although I cannot overcome the early feeling of
dislike."
Often school books are quite secondary to other books.
"My dislike started in the grade school when I began to
study history and learned that the Turks sponsored Mo-
hammedanism, which I have always thought of as a religion
of the sword." Sometimes race antipathy is transmitted
through the accessory reading that is done under the read-
ing stimulus of school days. "When I was in high school,
I think that I read more stories based on the reconstruction
period in the South than at any other time, and developed
then a great disgust for the Negro."
46. The Turks have probably received most of my race antip-
athy. As nearly as I can determine the cause of this lies in the
newspaper stories about their cruel practices, the magazine stories
of their customs and the history accounts of them which I learned
at school. In addition to these the stories about races and peoples
that are usually passed around have included only unfavorable
ones for the Turks."
47. The most recent antipathy that has been aroused in my
nature against a people was toward the Germans. I recently read
a book telling about their development of poison gas. I did not
have so much hatred against them during the World War as I did
after I got through reading that book. The authority of the book
is said to be without question. Among many things that I could
not overcome was a bitter hate when I read that, at the time
the Germans signed the international compact not to use poison
gas, they were in their laboratories working on poison gas and
besides continued to store up any amount ready for future use.8
48. Mexican history is full of reasons why a real Mexican should
not only dislike the Americans but also hate them with all the
rancor and hatred of which any human being is capable.
The actual historical facts have been distorted, and only one
side of the question given. The patriotic acts of our heroes have
been magnified, by placing beside each of them the ignominious
act, real or imaginary, of the invader. I have in mind now the
taking of Chapultepec by the Americans. This episode has been
7 Social Distance Studies.
8 Ibid.
72
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
used by almost every writer in fiction, poetry, and drama or song
in their arguments of why we should take care of the "Colossus
of the North,” as the American is often spoken of in Mexico and
throughout South and Central America.
The daily news, and for that matter all our newspapers and
journals even in this country, carry a consistent propaganda
lest we forget" that the Americans took most of what they now
have from Mexico. The newspapers enlarge a great deal upon
anything that may happen to a Mexican, particularly if one is
hanged or is on trial for his life. In this manner they succeed in
keeping to the highest pitch the dislike for the "Gringo," which,
I am sorry to admit, I too shared until after years of close contact
with the much-hated, but more often misrepresented Americans,
I have been able to overcome.⁹
"
Public Speakers.
The rôle of public speakers on the
lecture platform and in the pulpit in developing race an-
tipathies is usually that of presenting a strong argument in
favor of some race. In so doing, the destructive practices
of at least one other race are " played up." The persecution
of Christian Armenians is a common theme that serves to
arouse antipathies for the Mohammedan Turks, based upon
vivid descriptions of concrete occurrences.
49. During the war, I happened to hear a man lecture on the
conditions in Turkey. He brought out the pitiful condition of the
women and children in the country, their great need for education
and religion and better living conditions. From this picture he
took us to the industrial side of the Turkish people, then to the
social side. The social side was appalling in every phase of its
being. And the terrible part of it was that they had no desire
to improve themselves.
But to me the life in the army camps was the worst, not only
among the men but their ideas of life and their ideas of what
their duties were. In his description or narrative, I could think
of nothing worse, not even the scalping of the whites by the
Indians in the early days. They, in a way, had a cause and a
right for such actions in their uncivilized stage while the Turks
have no excuse at all. Besides this, immorality is stronger among
⁹ Mexican Immigration Survey of the Southwest.
MEDIA OF ANTIPATHY
73
the Turks than any other nation on earth, according to people
who have traveled through Turkey and made a study of the
conditions there.10
General Hearsay and Opinion. - General hearsay,
listened to in casual and miscellaneous ways, in snatches
or at length, is ever at work, spreading waves of race an-
tipathy. Gossip is one of the subtlest enemies of racial
understanding. A friendly racial deed may be told once
or a few times, but an unfriendly one a thousand times.
The former tends to be forgotten; the latter to be repeated
and exaggerated. Race aversion thus multiplies where race
friendliness remains stationary or decreases.
The prejudiced person is more prone to talk than the more
thoughtful and unprejudiced one. The former also speaks
with greater conviction and energy than the latter. Hearsay
feeds upon hearsay. One adverse racial experience delights
in hearing of another. Antiracial feeling knows no self-
control and is the most dynamic race-attitude medium
known.
Then there is deliberate propaganda. One-sided data or
misrepresentations are spread. What is often repeated
receives acceptance. The public is easily deceived.
"The
Many persons report that they have heard so much prop-
aganda against the Japanese that they have "come to
have a feeling against them." This feeling has " probably
been given me by hearsay through the conversation of
persons who are prejudiced, and it has succeeded in giving
me a dislike for them." Or, as another person says,
reason why the Turks, as a race, repel me is because I have
heard so many awful things of them and have never heard
anything good of them." Another who feels strongly against
the Turk reports that he has met only one person "who
had a favorable word to say."
Sooner or later this propaganda is not only accepted but
10 Social Distance Studies.
74
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
justified. Repeated impact from propaganda leads first to
its acceptance and then to its deliberate support. More
thoughtful persons here and there, however, begin to raise
questions and may repudiate it. Although repudiating,
they may still feel its effects and their attitudes continue
to express it.
50. So far as I know I have never seen a Turk, and yet there is
no race toward which I feel an equal antipathy. This feeling
dates back to childhood—to the time when I first heard of the
atrocious way in which the Turks treated the Armenian Christians.
Later I read articles and pamphlets relating the harrowing expe-
riences of the Armenians at the hands of their inveterate enemies,
and in Kansas City, several years ago, I heard an Armenian woman
tell of the inhuman treatment which her people continued to suffer
from Turk brutality. On the other hand, I have met only one
individual who had a favorable word to say of the Turks, and she
was too immature to form a sound judgment, and was, I believe,
basing her estimate on a limited knowledge of one representative
of the race. The "unspeakable Turk " and " as cruel as a Turk
are expressions which I have heard all my life. Naturally this
race has become associated in my mind with extreme cruelty and
barbarousness, and just as naturally I have a feeling toward it
of strong antipathy.11
"}
51. The feeling of unpleasantness and dislike that creeps over
me when I think of the Turks is not the product of any intimate
association with any of them, but is rather the result of propaganda
sponsored by the various molders of public opinion, such as the
press and the church.
This propaganda has always been directed toward the extreme
cruelty, the debased morality, and the religion in whose name
the acts of cruelty and immorality could be perpetrated. I cannot
divorce the Turk from their persecution and slaughter of the
Armenians; neither can I think of them separate from their
despoiling of the beauty and chastity of innocent girls and women.
Throughout my whole life the evilness of the Turk has been
thrust before me, without any presentation of any good qualities
that he may possess. The pictures of the Turk with a dripping
scimitar and a fiendish face have not been balanced by any picture
11 Ibid.
MEDIA OF ANTIPATHY
75
presenting his virtue. The glittering cartoons of the harem and
the gross immorality engendered by it have never been counter-
acted by the picture of real love and home.
Thus I am a victim of propaganda. A great deal of it is un-
doubtedly true. I believe that there is also some good, however,
in the Turk. But I am just immersed by the pictures of his
cruelty so that I feel unpleasant when I think of him.12
ata qua mkakati waduk ke
In brief, it may be suggested that the family is particu-
larly effective in creating racial aversion, because it in-
fluences children in their most uncritical years when emo-
tional habits are oftentimes taking on a lifetime nature.
Associates are powerful, because they give one (or take
away from one's) status from day to day. Motion pictures
are influential because of their indirect subtlety coupled
with high vividness. Newspapers have a widespread cur-
rent influence and are easily used for propaganda purposes.
Works of fiction may be very skillful in exercising the art
of indirect suggestion. Public speakers possess dynamic
force at the moment, using both sight and sound devices
to influence. General hearsay and public opinion secure
results by omnipresence and by threatening personal and
group status.
tak ka
the T
i kad of a la pet many fando
Slave CAE
PROJECTS
1. Distinguish in as many ways as you can, with illustrative
materials, between direct and derivative experiences.
2. Describe the different ways in which your early life at home
affected your attitudes toward the different races.
3. Give an account of some of the outstanding racial expe-
riences of your close friends, interviewing them if necessary.
4. Choose a motion-picture film in which a foreigner is used as a
villain, and analyze the various psychosocial factors involved.
5. Analyze a work of fiction in which the "bad" nature of the
member or members of a foreign race plays a rôle.
6. Clip all references to "other races " from one or more news-
papers daily for a month or two months, and analyze the clippings
in their psychosocial significance.
12 Ibid.
76
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
7. Give a complete psychosocial analysis of a speech you have
heard in which some race was incriminated.
8. Compare and contrast at some length the family, associates
outside of the family, motion pictures, newspaper, and general
hearsay as media or conveyers of race antipathy.
MEDIA OF RACE ANTIPATHY
COOLIDGE, MARY R., Chinese Immigration, Chap. V. Holt, 1909.
DETWEILER, F. G., The Negro Press in the United States, Chap.
IV. University of Chicago Press, 1922.
FAIRCHILD, H. P., Immigration, Chap. XIV. Macmillan, 1914.
JOHNSON, CHARLES W., The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored
Man, Chaps. I, II. Knopf, 1927.
PARK, R. E., The Immigrant Press and Its Control, Part IV.
Harper, 1922.
CHAPTER VI
ORIGINS OF RACE FRIENDLINESS
Public attention is usually given to racial prejudice rather
than to its counterpart, racial good will. But the more
spectacular and melodramatic phenomena do not deserve
to receive all the attention; the origins and development of
racial friendliness also merit consideration. Racial antip-
athy, because of adverse sense impressions and racial
prejudice, because of competition, do not have exact
counterparts on the constructive side of the ledger. Pleasing
sense impressions lead to one form or other of racial friend-
liness. The opposite of racial competition, or racial co-
operation, does not produce the exact opposite of prejudice,
but rather a rationalized form of friendliness and an or-
ganized program of helpfulness.
An attempt is made in this chapter to examine the origins
of race friendliness. If the processes by which racial help-
fulness have developed can be understood, then it will be
possible to plan intelligently for the development of good
will in a large way, instead of leaving the matter, as now, to
haphazard and sporadic attempts to soften the rigors of
antipathy and prejudice.
In examining the conditions under which racial friendli-
ness is engendered, we observe certain behavior sequences.
As in the case of the personal experiences that lead to racial
prejudice, we again find that life patterns are paramount
in explaining why some persons react in friendly ways to
certain experiences while other persons do not react at all
or perhaps unfavorably to the same type of experience.
As in the preceding case, the life patterns at any particular
77
78
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
time are made up from the interaction of innate behavior
tendencies, culture stimuli, and previous experience stimuli.
In the immediate discussion attention will be directed to the
personal experience origins of racial friendliness.
Both direct and derivative experiences arouse racial good
will. Pleasing experiences or pleasing accounts of con-
structive race relations lead to a friendliness sequence.
.. Pleasing" refers to anything that furthers a person's
interests or is in line with his life pattern.
In general, it may be said that the person experiencing a
growth in friendly attitudes toward some race possesses
certain behavior patterns (systems of neurones functioning
as units, and connecting sense organs with effectors), which
are "set off" or released by the appropriate stimuli. These
stimuli are behavior traits of the members of different
races. Since these behavior traits (objective) are dis-
cernible, while the behavior patterns (subjective) of the
persons experiencing a growth in race friendliness are
obscure, the former will occupy the center of attention in
this discussion. The question at issue then is: What be-
havior traits of other races are likely to stimulate one's
friendly behavior patterns? The following types of behav-
ior traits have been isolated: (1) similar culture traits,
(2) kindness and geniality traits, (3) dependability and
justice traits, (4) persecution and oppression traits, (5)
noncompetitive achievement traits. A careful study of the
excerpts in this paper, taken from a large number of reports
of the conditions under which race friendliness originates,
will disclose what normally and naturally happens.
Similar Culture Traits. Similar culture traits are bases
of race friendliness. Races culturally similar have points
of common understanding and grounds for the rise of fellow
feeling. Next to our own races we prefer races similar to
our own, because they seem to stand for about the same
social values that we do. Races greatly dissimilar from
-
ORIGINS OF RACE FRIENDLINESS
79
our own represent certain social values contradictory to
those we hold. Further, if a person has a fondness for wit,
for instance, and finds that an immigrant is likewise witty,
a friendship bond not only for that person but for his race
may be inaugurated.
The immigrant, however, must not be too superior in his
culture traits. He must not invade our status, but must
be superior in some complementary fashion to our achieve-
ments. He must not detract from us or even threaten "
to usurp our social position in any way.
("
A Canadian reports his increasing appreciation of the
English. Since English institutions are closely similar to
the Canadian, he finds little difficulty in understanding
them. He is quick to notice their strong points. The
English form of government is adjudged the best in the
world, because in its Canadian form it works well in
Canada. English heroes are great men. They have stood for
principles similar to those which the Canadian ranks high.
An American of German lineage praises German culture
and Germans. His father spoke German fluently and ex-
plained many German customs and practices. Some of
these practices cause this American citizen to swell with
pride, and others are discounted or excused. Although he
was an American child in an American home and in an
American environment, he had learned to understand Ger-
man culture so that he found it "impossible to believe the
stories of German atrocities told of the Germans during
the World War."
2
52. I have a friendly attitude towards the Irish race. On
trying to think out, as it were, the conditions under which I
developed this friendly feeling toward this race, I found that
it is no easy task to figure out just how and why I developed
such an attitude. I think that group heritage colored my thinking
on the subject and determined my attitude towards this race.
Therefore, my attitude is not founded on any scientific or
thinking basis.
80
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
I am a Catholic and attended Catholic schools all during my
grammar and high school life. There are many Irish Catholics,
and on the whole, they are very devout and practical in their
religion. Their devoutness always impressed me greatly. This
is one reason why I feel friendly toward the Irish.
St. Patrick's Day always had a special attraction for me. In
the first place it always meant a half-holiday from school. I
loved the colorfulness of it; and, above all, I loved the stories told
me about it, e. g., Patrick fighting the snakes for the Irish. His
bravery and brilliance always had a special attraction for me.
The idea, also, of the Irish people being oppressed for so long
made me friendly toward them.
Irish songs have always thrilled me. There is a certain simple,
lyric quality about their music and their words that I love. I
think this factor influenced me in my attitude toward the Irish.
In conclusion, I will state that my racial attitude is favorable
toward the Irish because, first of all, I have never had any per-
sonal or general reason to feel unfriendly toward them and many
reasons, though not scientific, or studied, for liking them and
feeling friendly toward them.¹
53. Personally, I have no prejudice against any race on the
earth, and I have friends among many of the races. However,
I suppose my most friendly attitude is toward the Scandinavian
people, because I have been more in touch with them than any
other. I am partly Norwegian and partly Swedish.
I have been reared in a rural community, and in this com-
munity I lived in a section which is largely composed of Danish
and Swedish people. There are a few Norwegians also. Conse-
quently, a good many of my playmates in the grade school were
among the Danish and Swedish. My best girl chum is of Danish
parentage, and we have been chums for some twelve years.
During my high school days, I held several school offices, and I
always seemed to find the students of these races so willing to
help and to do their share of the work. I found the best literary
talent in the whole school among the Danish girls, and I had one
of them for my first assistant on the year-book staff. I also had
boy friends among these races and went to parties and affairs
with them. Although they were very much like all other boys
I knew, I did find some distinct characteristics. First of all, I
found them to be much neater in dress on the average than boys
from other races. Secondly, I found them to have more regard
1 Social Distance Studies.
ORIGINS OF RACE FRIENDLINESS
81
for their homes. The Danish and Swedish homes are linked
together much closer than the so-called American homes. They
have many family reunions; and since their families are usually
large, the family is the real social group. The mothers in Danish
and Swedish homes are genuine housekeepers and home-makers.
They all know how to sew and cook to perfection.
One of the greatest of influences toward a favorable attitude
was the fact that I had two lovely neighbors, one a Danish and
the other a Swedish family. As there were children in each,
I was in both homes a great deal. The mother of the Danish
family taught me how to crochet and to do other fancy work.
The Swedish mother always had cookies for us to eat. I loved
both homes and thought them ideal.
I have always found these races to be good American citizens.
This settlement of which I am so familiar always turns out almost
100 per cent strong on election days. They gave liberally of
their sons during the war, gave their money, and they take part
in civic affairs. As a whole, they are a farming people and do not
take so much part in the town affairs, but I have known several
town leaders who have been Danish and Swedish. They back up
school entertainments and community affairs also. They do
clique " together a great deal, but they do not seem to let their
affairs interfere with the good of the community.
I admire and love the Danish and Swedish people for what
they are. They have so many traits of good living which the
average Americans do not have.2
(6
Kindness and Geniality Traits. - Kindness and geniality
traits arouse friendliness reactions. The immigrant or
"foreigner" who is generous is doing his race a good turn
and promoting inter-racial good will. Temperament figures
in the origins of race friendliness. The Irish, for example,
are referred to as a jovial, congenial people. Their frank-
ness is also an asset. They have a "giving nature." Geni-
ality arouses friendliness. If an immigrant helps a native
"out of trouble," he is repaid with friendly "good turns."
Every one has personal behavior patterns which are
promptly released by kind deeds and by thoughtfulness.
Courtesy, politeness, and respect stimulate friendly
2 Ibid.
82
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
responses. On this basis, for instance, Americans develop
good-will attitudes toward Japanese. One American out of
many reports that he has the most friendly feeling toward
the Japanese, because he has never met a member of that
race who has not been "most courteous, polite, and respect-
ful," even more so than his fellow Americans are.
"They
all act as if it were a pleasure to them to speak to you, and
they enjoy doing you a favor."
An American workman, forced, as he says, to work with
Filipinos, found them to be " congenial, friendly, and always
willing to lend aid." Moreover, they were quiet, reserved,
and well behaved, " meeting the approval of all with whom
they worked." He became a loyal friend to the race. An
American woman viewed askance a family which moved
into her neighborhood. The father was an American and
the mother a Filipino. The mother was not socially re-
spected; and yet much to the surprise of the American
woman, the children were well-behaved and made good.
playmates in the neighborhood. One day Mrs. G., the
American, suffered a serious cut, and the Filipino woman
took charge and dressed the wound. "That simple action
of kind thoughtfulness and courtesy has raised in my mind
the status of the Filipino."
54. Having been born in the South and practically brought up
by a "black mammy," owing to the continued illness of my
mother, I suppose I have a more kindly feeling toward the Negro
group than any other race group. Somehow it has always seemed
to me that the attitude of the Negro has been very favorable
toward my race, and I have found members of the Negro group
sympathetic and coöperative. And I have not always found
members of other groups as considerate as the Negro group.
My attitude may be due to my "black mammy," but even so,
she isn't the only member of her race group that has influenced
my judgment. However, she ministered to all my childish wants
and wishes and in later years has won from me the highest degree
of admiration and respect. It is to her that I owe credit for the
formation of earlier habits which are governing my life today.³
3 Social Distance Studies.
ORIGINS OF RACE FRIENDLINESS
83
55. An incident which occurred recently after I had studied
Spanish, increased my admiration and friendliness toward Mexi-
cans. I was cutting the lawn in front of our home when an aged
Mexican came slowly up the hill. He seemed to be exerting all
his energy just to walk. Behind him came a very unhappy-looking
dog. He stopped on the walk before me and asked for water.
I got the hose and started the water running. He filled his old
hat, and to my surprise gave it to his dog before taking a drink
himself. As the dog drank I could hear his master mumbling,
"Gracias a Dios! Gracias a Dios!" (Thank God.) There was
something about him that attracted me strongly, so I tried to
start a conversation. He told about the goodness of his dog, and
at last about the strength and eternity of Dios. His attitude,
his almost primeval faith, was typical of the Mexican people, and
it is a thing of great beauty. I like them because they are a good
and friendly people.*
56. I have a very friendly feeling towards the Indians. This
feeling originated when I was a very little girl, because I was
born and reared in a town that was located right on an Indian
reservation on the plains of South Dakota.
From the time I was old enough to understand what my mother
and father talked about, I learned that the Indians there in South
Dakota were a very friendly, submissive, and peaceful people.
Even to this day I have a friendly feeling toward them. This
feeling has been developed by many different deeds and things
of kindness that they have done towards me and my people.
My father was a minister, and many times I used to ride with
him to and from his country churches. I remember especially
one very cold winter day. It was near sunset, and my father
and I were driving with a team homeward. We were bundled up
warm, but the cold wind blew in our faces. It was a sharp cold
wind. We were singing as we were driving along the lonely stretch
of road. We met a buggy. The road was very narrow. The
other buggy turned out into the field in order that we could
safely pass. When the Indians in the buggy discovered that it
was my father they came over to us, asked if we had enough robes,
etc., and gave us a warm foot grate" that they had in order
that we should not freeze.
"(
The Indians used to bring wild fruit and berries that they had
gathered from the near-by groves to my mother, " for the children
to eat" and for her "to can." They would also bring turkeys,
etc., at Thanksgiving time.
4 Mexican Immigrant Survey of the Southwest.
84
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
Sometimes, though not as a general rule, they would come to
church to hear my father preach. They felt isolated because of
their color and life, but would come whenever they felt "it would
look all right."
When my father passed away, the Indian tribe there sent a
beautiful floral cross. It was labeled " from friends." They sent
delegates, as they called them, to the funeral, but not wanting
to take up room of the white friends, they stood outside with
hats off and bowed heads in reverence to their departed friend.
These and many other instances have developed my friendly
feeling toward the brown race the Indians.5
Dependability and Justice Traits. Dependability and
justice traits produce friendly responses. To find im-
migrants wholly reliable is surprising to most people and
especially to those who have preconceived notions to the
contrary. One is ordinarily suspicious of strangers and
foreigners," but to find them scrupulously honest is com-
pelling.
The immigrant, so often exploited, is likely to develop an
exploitation complex and act the part unwittingly. When
his economic circumstances have been low, he has had to be
penurious. He has handled small-coin money to such an
extent that he has developed "small-coin" contacts with
Americans accustomed to large "bills." Sometimes he has
come from a "tipping economy and shirks when not treated
generously." An immigrant becomes "attractive" when
he acts dependably and renders as much or more service
than he is paid for. To find merit where one has not been
led to expect it is pleasing. Genuineness is a trait to which
almost any one will respond favorably.
If a person is among strange people or in a situation where
he might easily be taken advantage of in a strange part of
his own city and if he is treated aboveboard and not cheated,
he will experience good-will feelings. Common decency
brings forth favorable responses.
5 Social Distance Studies.
((
ORIGINS OF RACE FRIENDLINESS
85
An oppressed race is especially responsive to just treat-
ment. The members of any race, no matter how low on
the scale of development, react in a friendly way to fairness.
The just dealings of William Penn with the Indians
produced a harvest of undying friendliness reactions.
Higher" races also respond appreciatively to honorable
treatment by "lower" races.
((
57. When I was a very little girl, my father had a grocery store
in a small country village. Every one for several miles around
there came to trade.
Among my father's very best customers was a kind, respectable,
and quite well-educated Negro lady. Every Saturday when she
came to trade she brought her little daughter Levina with her.
Levina and I had been friends since I was two and Levina four
years old. I liked her better than any of my other playmates.
One Saturday when Levina came I was out of doors for the
first time after a siege of the whooping cough. Levina was very
sorry for me because I could not play. We sat on the porch,
watching my little pet kitten frisk about in the grass. A boy
came along with his dog, and the usual thing happened. The boy
sicked his dog on my little kitty. I was not able to run to its
rescue, but Levina was and did. She snatched up the kitten, ran
down the walk, and gave the boy one of the most severe scoldings
I have ever heard. I can still see her tight little pigtails bobbing
up and down, as she shook her head and stamped her foot in
indignation.
I have never felt anything but friendly toward Negroes since
then, and I especially like little girls with numerous pigtails.®
58. When I was a small boy, my father kept a general store
in a rural community close to Pasadena. The county, at that
time, was constructing a new road through the district, and there
were about fifty Mexican laborers encamped in a little settlement
about a half-mile from our store. They traded with us for most
of their supplies, and my father, being possessed of considerable
blind faith, gave most of the families credit, to the extent of
sixty days if necessary.
Few of the Mexican boys my age could speak my language, but
we played together and learned to make each other understand
by means of gestures and facial manipulations. My father, unlike
• Ibid.
86
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
most of the American fathers of the district, did not object to my
playing with them, so they liked me for my seeming democracy,
and naturally, I responded with friendship. They were more
carefree and jubilant than American boys, and I came to enjoy
their company more than that of my white playmates.
When the road was finished, they stayed to work on the Devil's
Gate Dam site and as a consequence were in our district for
another year. My father had come to trust them very much,
and he knew them all as Jesús, or Pedro, or Jiménez, or Pablo.
He told me that they were a good, devout people and that the
hearsay that they were the most dishonest people on earth was
not true.
In the second year of our acquaintanceship with them, a very
disturbing incident occurred. Two of the most trusted families
of the group left without notice, leaving unpaid bills to my father
to the extent of two hundred dollars. It was a blow to all of us,
both financially and from the standpoint of our faith in them.
My father expected to hear from them by mail, but no news
came. After a month had passed we were visited by a committee
of the Mexicans. They went into a back room and had a long
talk with father. When they left they were smiling and chatting
together as if a good thing happened. That night my father told
us that they had come to pay the unpaid bills of the other
families and that, when he had refused to accept, they had in-
sisted. That experience clinched our belief in the goodness of the
Mexican people."
59. Till very recently, I held the Jews in much disrespect.
My view was partly supported but in the main without founda-
tion, except as one might consider prejudice and misinformation
reasonable grounds for opinion and belief. I had formed opinions
concerning the Jew in the light of current antagonism as expressed
by those about me. My views were incorrect as touching the
part he played in the killing of Christ- a very excellent charac-
ter as I thought then and now.
But after personal investigation and observing Jewish life at
close range, I must confess that I am more favorably disposed
and more agreeably impressed with them for many reasons, a few
of which I will enumerate.
I have observed that the Jew, in contradistinction to his
brother Caucasian has respect for his Negro clientèle. He opens
up a grocery store in a Negro district, and a colored boy or girl
7 Mexican Immigrant Survey of the Southwest.
ORIGINS OF RACE FRIENDLINESS
87
is given a job as clerk. A picture house is put into operation,
and invariably a Negro girl sells tickets. Having a keen aptitude
for making money, the Jew sees wherein a drug store will go well
on a colored neighborhood corner, and immediately a Negro
pharmacist is given opportunity to practice his profession, thereby
earning money to set up business for himself.
This policy on the part of the Jew may proceed from a purely
diplomatic purpose. He personally may not have his employee's
interest at heart any more than his brother who operates the chain
of exclusive stores in the loop, but it must be appraised in economic
terms by the one who is employed, and so considered by all who
judge his action. For after all it is better to give a man a job so
that he may work than to have to give him a loaf of bread because
you did not give him work.
Another phase of this policy is that it must be evaluated and
placed to the credit of the Jew in terms of religion. He acts
somewhat religiously (perhaps unintentionally), in that he gives
the job to the Negro when he could put his own race into the
position and get the same result; for the Negro has not yet
learned what it is to be insulted, his "consciousness of kind"
instincts are not yet fully aroused, and his race consciousness is
yet sleepy.
Similar racial experiences make for sympathetic attitudes.
This is shown in the philanthropic efforts of Rosenwald. Any
one holding unfavorable views of a race cannot but change when
he reflects on the big-heartedness of this Jew. Others give out of
human sympathy; he gives out of sympathy plus racial experience.
The Jew's commercial acumen and business tact excites my
admiration, and also the fact that he has shown coöperative
tendencies to help the Negro in honest endeavor. Those qualities
cannot be despised in any people, and they have had the effect
of changing my respect and attitude toward the Jew.8
Persecution and Oppression Traits. Persecution and
oppression traits arouse sympathetic responses. To
see other human beings suffering opens the floodgates of
human sympathy. Stories of a massacre are effective
stimuli to friendly and sympathetic reactions toward the
victims.
If a person has ever been an immigrant himself and been
8 Social Distance Studies.
-88
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
exploited, he is in a position to respond to the supplication
of oppressed races. "The Negro," says a member of that
race, “has been oppressed so long and under such a variety
of conditions that he can sympathize with all oppressed
peoples." Into a Negro district in Los Angeles, for instance,
Mexicans and Japanese are moving without experiencing
hostility and are establishing friendly relations. A fellow
feeling toward the Mexicans and Japanese exists among the
Negroes before the former races arrive in this district. The
Mexicans and Japanese come as persecuted races and hence
with favorable responses already aroused regarding them.
Whatever induces a person to put himself sympathetically
into the experiences of oppressed peoples and to live through
their problems, longings, and disillusionments, stimulates
him to take them into his own universe of discourse to
identify them as being human like himself, and to excuse
their racial peculiarities.
<<
60. I stopped in a market run by a Japanese to get some fruit.
The proprietor was waiting on an American lady. The incident
ran like this,—the woman said, "Charley, have you any nice
lettuce?" “Yes,” he said, “these heads are five cents and these
are seven." Oh," said the woman, " you should sell those seven-
cent heads for a nickel. I will take this one for a nickel," and
picked it out of the seven-cent lot. He shrugged his shoulders
and said nothing. The nicely dressed lady then asked about
peaches, felt of the different grades, and then picked up a peach
and bit into it, asked the various prices, then took a dime's worth,
picking out the peaches and putting them into the sack. This
American lady who was well dressed and appeared to have means
then proceeded to pick over the tomatoes in the same way,
taking a dime's worth, then the green peppers, finally buying
something like twenty-two cents worth and picked out every
article she bought, and then to end it, she reached over and took
a couple of apricots and said, "Charley, do you mind if I give
my little girl these?'
When I came home in the evening, I told this experience to my
two boys and my wife at the table; and say, the boys did get the
point and have on several occasions since asked if I had ever seen
ORIGINS OF RACE FRIENDLINESS
89
any more of those "finicky" women. That experience has made
me more tolerant with the Japanese.⁹
61. I have been isolated more or less from races other than
my own. Toward the Mexicans I have a very friendly feeling.
Although I do not understand their language and do not have the
same standard of living as they, I have a friendly feeling toward
them. I have been in contact with them many times and have
had a chance to study their ways.
My feeling toward them has been a sympathetic superior feel-
ing. They seem like grown-up children leading a simple life.
One always has a friendly feeling toward people one wishes to
help. They seem so simple and helpless. The Mexicans are
very harmless if you handle them right and play upon their
interests and emotions.
The Mexicans have been held back for so long that they seem
to lack the ability to progress. Anything that we can do to aid
them to progress, I think, will be of benefit to this country.
They form a part of our working class, and society should protect
and educate them.
The newspapers and other circulars have put out much propa-
ganda against the Japanese and other foreigners, but why not
against the Mexicans? There has been no need. With a little
care these people are easy to get along with.
I feel that these people are now a part of our country and
that we can either make or break them as we see fit. One cannot
help but feel friendly toward them. Friendly feeling toward
them seems to be the best way to control them.10
62. The fundamental reason for my prejudice in previous years
toward the red man has been that I haven't understood him and
his civilization. I remember distinctly that in the grammar grades
I was taught that he was selfish and of a very suspicious nature
a man to be feared and dreaded. Too, that he was a menace,
a personality within himself, with traditions incapable of assimila-
tion in our life and development. However, because I as a child
was interested in him as a wearer of beautifully colored beads and
as a person very different from myself, so now I find him in-
teresting as a character and fellow citizen. I began to wonder,
to read, to inquire about him. I found that it is the Americans
that are really the causes of his keeping within his shell and of his
seeming distrust of us, etc. The average American has shut his
9 Pacific Coast Race Relations Survey.
10 Mexican Immigrant Survey of the Southwest-
90
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
door and refused to help him to better culture and civilization.
He has taken his land, given him small payments and merely an
opportunity to live. I feel very deeply sorry for him. I don't
mean that I would be willing to eat, sleep, or drink with any
Indian that comes along but there are many who have had the
best possible advantages and made more of them than any of us
do many times, and it is those regardless of color or creed, I now
would be willing to treat as an equal in every way. True, the
Indian is offered an equal chance for education, but not for
advancement after he has finished.11
63. Having been reared in a very religious home, where little
or no conversation leading to race hatred was ever expressed,
I did not, as many people, form any antagonistic feeling toward
any race. However, the way a person has been reared aside, he
cannot help noticing the good and bad actions of some races.
When I grew older, I was always attracted to races who were
experiencing unkindly treatment from more fortunate races. I
suppose I felt this more keenly, being a member of a less favored
race, than other races having less race hatred to deal with.
Somehow I always wanted to help members of races who were
experiencing any form of race oppression. Many a day I would
sit and wonder just what line of work I could enter in order to be
of service to fallen humanity or the delinquent of any race.
Finally, I worked as a volunteer in the County Charities. This
position threw me in contact with many races who were suffering,
mostly from lack of a square deal, either because of low wages
which were inadequate for a living wage, or because of lack of
adjustment to American mode of living. In the case histories
some very pathetic accounts are given which cause one to feel
that more detailed study of races should be given before any
sharp conclusion be drawn as to inferiority or superiority. I came
to this conclusion while teaching in the S. Valley. In my school
most of the students were Mexicans, chiefly of the low type.
Their parents spoke little English and knew little of American
modes of living. In spite of their oddities, I visited them as
regularly as I did other parents of my pupils. I became interested
in all their family life, the births, the deaths, and marriages of
the different Mexican families. I always showed them that I was
interested not only in their children but in their home life as well.
Before the end of the term many of the Mexican women were
able to give short talks at the Parent-Teachers Association. From
11 Social Distance Studies.
ORIGINS OF RACE FRIENDLINESS
91
these and other facts not mentioned I began to form a very kindly
attitude toward the so-called low type of Mexican people. I like
the Mexicans, and they like me. Parting with my Mexican
friends was very pathetic and an experience I shall never forget.12
Noncompetitive Achievement Traits. Noncompetitive
achievement traits bring admiration, and admiration leads
to friendliness. We admire, applaud, and "go out to" a
person who achieves, providing his success does not detract
from our status. The achievement of a few persons is
credited to the whole race; and friendly feelings are engen-
dered toward that race, providing there is no competition
with one's own race or nation involved.
In the North, friendliness toward the Negro has increased
until recently. This good will centered around the progress
that the Negro has been making in the South. It continued
until after the Negro began to migrate north in considerable
numbers. As long as the Negro progressed and remained
noncompetitive as far as the North was concerned, northern
good will increased. But when the competition of the Negro
was felt in the North, then friendliness began to be sup-
planted by prejudice. "In such a city as Gary, therefore,
there is a population which had every reason to hope that
the restriction of immigration would aid in a rapid upward
forcing of its wage level, but which sees in every Negro
arrival the threat of undoing the economic advantage de-
rived from the immigration laws. The Negro thus becomes
an economic as well as a social threat, and the feeling
against him and his progeny is the feeling against the man
who takes bread and butter out of one's mouth." 13 In the
same way, friendship first for the Chinese and later for the
Japanese grew on the Pacific Coast as long as these people
were industrious and thrifty, but noncompetitive. When
their numbers and success made them an economic threat,
12 Mexican Immigrant Survey of the Southwest.
13 Editorial, Christian Century, October 13, 1927.
92
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
good will toward them decreased, and ill will sprang into
action.
64. My admiration for the English is great, particularly for
their empire-building qualities. I think of that island upon which
England is located and then of the world-embracing sway of
English institutions and language, and rejoice. The solid achieve-
ments of the race brings off my hat, and excuses to me their
frailties. They are not competitors of the United States so much
as co-laborers, and their achievements make our own the surer.
I'm for the English.14
65. I have long deplored the attitude of the South toward the
Negro. When I have come in contact with a Negro, I have told
him so. The rise of the Negro from slavery and his struggle
against gross indignities and lynchings has fired my imagination,
until I have sometimes felt that the Negro has put all other races
to shame, even including the white race. The achievements of a
man like Booker T. Washington have been a miracle. I did not
think that anything could overcome my love for the colored race,
but two months ago the property across the street was sold to a
Negro, and later I received a notice from a Negro organization
asking for a square deal and consideration of their wishes to live
wherever they were able to buy property. This is too much
for me.15
This discussion gives a clue to methods of overcoming
social distance. It indicates how people in general possess
personal-behavior patterns that need only to be released
in order to produce friendliness. It also gives evidence
that there are certain types of constructive-behavior traits
that immigrants in general may manifest. These act as
normal stimuli for releasing friendly patterns of action on
the part of nations.
PROJECTS
1. Analyze all your experiences with the members of any race
toward whom you feel distinctly friendly.
2. Put yourself in the experiences of any race which has been
persecuted, and compare its reactions toward another persecuted
race with its reactions toward the persecuting race.
14 Social Distance Studies.
15 Ibid.
ORIGINS OF RACE FRIENDLINESS
93
3. Compare similar culture traits, kindness and geniality traits,
dependability and justice traits, persecution and oppression traits,
and noncompetitive achievement traits in regard to their relative
importance as race friendliness generators.
4. Can you name and describe any set of factors not mentioned
in this chapter which leads to race friendliness?
5. Compare the factors leading to race friendliness with those
that are origins of race prejudice.
6. Prepare a fifteen-minute radio talk designed to augment
race friendliness.
ORIGINS OF RACE FRIENDLINESS
BOGARDUS, E. S., Essentials of Americanization, 3rd Edition.
Jesse R. Miller Press, 1923.
GAVIT, JOHN P., Americans by Choice, Chap. I. Harper, 1922.
INQUIRY, THE, All Colors. New York, 1926.
And Who is My Neighbor. New York, 1924.
>
PALMER, A. W., The Human Side of Hawaii, Chap. III. Pilgrim
Press, 1924.
PRICE, M. T., Christian Missions and Oriental Civilizations, Chaps.
IX, X. Shanghai, 1924.
RAVAGE, M. E., An American in the Making, Chaps. XX, XXI.
Harper, 1917.
ROBERTS, PETER, The Problem of Americanization, Chap. III.
Macmillan, 1920.
·
CHAPTER VII
MEDIA OF RACE FRIENDLINESS
Many persons feel racially friendly toward a number of
races without having had many actual contacts with
representatives of these peoples. There have been few
direct experiences and contacts. The existence of deep-
seated racial good will, however, cannot be questioned.
When this good will is traced back to its earlier sequences,
a variety of derivative experiences or indirect contacts is
found. Members of a person's family group, his school and
church groups, for instance, have themselves experienced
favorable contacts with the races in question, or have heard
favorable reports, and hence give pleasing accounts. In
consequence the listener gains a favorable impression and
responds in friendly ways when he meets representatives
of the given races. His friendly attitude elicits a similar
response, which in turn stimulates the original attitude of
friendliness.
The favorable reports are mediated or conveyed through
many factors, chief of which are: (1) home contacts, (2)
religious contacts, (3) school and college contacts, and (4)
foreign travel and study contacts.
Home Contacts. Most homes are centers where racial
antipathy in some fashion or other thrives. But racial good
will also finds inception in many homes. Good will toward
the family's race and associated races is commonly engen-
dered. As one travels out toward the circumference of races
remotely different from the given family's race, he finds
his own race friendliness attitudes diminishing. In only
a few homes does one find no race aversions.
94
MEDIA OF RACE FRIENDLINESS
95
C
Sometimes in homes where persecution and bitter ex-
periences have been felt, one discovers a home atmosphere
favorable to all persecuted races. Sometimes in a home a
single member may represent a tolerant attitude toward all
races. In homes where religion (see next section) possesses
a brotherhood of man hue, where the members are mutually
interested in culture and race history, where catholicity
of attitudes prevails, there the home atmosphere is most
likely to generate race friendliness. The sympathetic study
of the culture history of races leads a person to toleration
and then to understanding and fellow feeling, to the judging
of immigrants as persons, each on his own merits rather
than as a mere member of "a despised or low-down race."
66. My father never seemed to hate any race. I do not recall
that he ever said anything against any immigrants. Sometimes
my mother would speak out against the Irish or the Jews, but he
always sat and looked at her in wonderment. I often raised the
question in my mind why father didn't agree with mother. I
would start to get stirred up against some race, and then my
father's calmness and bigness of spirit would check me, and I
would finish up by pondering over my father's self-control. It
seemed to me that somehow there was a larger viewpoint than
just hating the other races. My father never spoke against a race
so far as I know. He often said what he thought of certain
persons, but he did not connect them with their races. I'm pretty
much the same way, and I think that my father's calm assurance
that there is something similar about all human nature affected
me more than I know. Through his influence more than any other
way did I get my present race standpoint.¹
67. I pride myself on my democratic attitude toward all races,
but deserve no special credit, for I was brought up at home that
way. My father was a prominent member of our little community,
and although he was Scotch, he always treated the Belgian renters
like human beings. They were treated as neighbors the same as
anybody else. When they came to town, they were invited to
our house as dinner guests. I remember hearing them tell how
well they were treated and how they appreciated coming to our
1 Social Distance Studies.
96
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
home. Other people were often mean to them, because they
were not educated, or were poor, or were Catholics.
I remember that "hired girls" were treated the same way
in our home, and I have always tried to do the same. I recall
father saying many times that a person who is honest and hard-
working and trying to get ahead is worthy of receiving the same
friendly spirit that is shown any one, and he lived what he
preached.2
Religion Contacts. Religious idealism is a
common
source of race friendliness. The doctrine of brotherhood of
man is at least a theoretically sound principle for develop-
ing racial good will. Organizations of an "interdenomina-
tional" order, such as the Young Women's and the Young
Men's Christian Associations, generate race friendliness.
Mission study classes conducted from ethnological and
culture history viewpoints promote race understanding.
Wherever religious motivation is coupled with acculturation
principles, there religion functions distinctly well in build-
ing race friendliness.
College men attending Y. M. C. A. conferences describe
striking experiences. The racial atmosphere is decidedly
friendly. Preliminary lectures and talks have emphasized
the principles of the brotherhood of man. The foreign
students who come have been selected; moreover they come
expecting to show themselves friendly. The constructive
Christian environment is altogether favorable for helpful
racial contacts. Typical of numerous accounts are the ex-
periences of a young man at Asilomar, California, beginning
with the "candle ceremony" and ending with a growing
friendship with one of the foreign students who was present.
The candle ceremony had as its theme the building of a
world outlook; the addresses stressed race relations; the
study group was led by an American who had been in good-
will work in Japan for nineteen years. Last but not least,
this young man and his friends admitted into their circle
2 Ibid.
J
MEDIA OF RACE FRIENDLINESS
97
a Chinese student. "He returned on the train with me,
and our friendship has been steadily growing."
68. I lived near the beet fields in which Mexicans were em-
ployed. They were peons of the lower class and were not clean
or pleasant to look on. Perhaps the long beet knives which
they carried added to their formidable appearance. However,
I formed an unfavorable impression of Mexicans in general.
Then I became acquainted with a few Mexicans who were
customers in the store where I worked. After this I attended
some mission study classes in which we studied the Latin Amer-
icans both above and below the border. From these classes a
different attitude arose; an understanding of the different Latin
temperament, of how one family had a piano but no chairs, and
why this was so. This fuller knowledge coupled with an
acquaintance with a Mexican preacher and several others of
varying classes has changed my entire idea of the Mexicans.
Instead of an unpleasant lot, I now see a human people with the
same hopes, fears, and ambitions as our own and with a deep
desire to become educated and to better their status.3
69. My home is in the very heart of the raisin district of
California, in the central part of the San Joaquin Valley. In
that section, as in many others of our state, every little town,
not to mention the cities, has its "Jap town." In my childhood
experiences, "raisins" and the "Jap town" held a very large
place. Oriental labor, as a large factor in that soul-trying, heart-
breaking round of hard labor and uncertainty that is the raisin
industry, has made me well acquainted with, if not a part of, the
problem known as the "Japanese problem in California." Also,
the echoes of the Russo-Japanese War impressed upon me the
idea of a superior being, against whom nothing nor no one might
prevail.
But early in my school days I began to feel some of the un-
reasonableness of the more unthinking and unbridled animosity
of the whites toward the Japanese. I soon saw some of the
faults of the whites in dealing with them, some of their bold
inconsistencies; and so came to occupy a sort of neutral position,
which, had I been asked to characterize, I should have called a
desire to see "fair play." In strict honesty I must say that, since
being able to form my own judgments to any extent at all, I have
not been able to hold any violent prejudice against any race.
3 Mexican Immigrant Survey of the Southwest.
98
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
But to get to the heart of my story. About two years ago or
a little more, the missionary forces of my church started a Jap-
anese mission in the "Jap town" of my home town. Through
my more or less active church work I soon became — I might say
automatically-interested in this mission. I was prevailed upon
to take a class of boys and young men. I did so, and found
myself taking a deep interest, though I had to speak through an
interpreter. Changes in the labor situation caused the disbanding
of this class, and I took over a group of older grammar-school
and younger high-school students. At about the same time I
assumed the superintendency of the Sunday school. I have not
time to give a detailed account of my association with those
people, common hard-working folk all. But let it suffice for me
to say that I have yet to find kinder, better-hearted, more con-
siderate, or open-hearted and friendly folk than this little group,
a part of the "yellow peril." 4
School and College Contacts. - College and university
life affords young people of other races opportunities of
meeting under favorable conditions. Personal friendships
lead to racial good will. The question may be raised, of
course, as to how deeply fixed this good will becomes in
college and how long it remains after a person's college days
are ended. A college training, however, if one "majors " in
the social sciences and takes work in social anthropology,
race psychology, and immigration, affords a breadth of
view that is favorable to the inception of race friendliness.
Knowledge of one or two high-class, dependable members
of another race leads to favorable conclusions toward the
entire race. This is an interesting start toward, but not a
substantial ground upon which to construct enduring race
attitudes of good will.
The college atmosphere is likely to be idealistic. The
environmental controls are alive with tendencies fostering
good will on broad, theoretical grounds. Behavior patterns
favoring a widening outlook on life are inaugurated.
Instead of meeting immigrants of the least developed and
4 Pacific Coast Race Relations Survey.
MEDIA OF RACE FRIENDLINESS
99
narrowest types, the college student in his daily contacts
meets immigrants (students) on their higher, plastic, active-
minded, "cultured" levels. Race friendliness thus is more
natural." A college student reports that he now has a
very different feeling for practically all the races of a color
different from his own, because of his experiences in college
in meeting members of intelligent young men and women
of the various races and because of his study of the music,
art, and religion of these races in the social-science courses.
"All these factors have led me to a more tolerant attitude
and a more sympathetic understanding.”
A discriminating young woman states that previous to
her college days she had received the impression that the
Chinese were dirty, dishonest, and two-faced. In college
she met some Chinese girls and found that they did not
conform to her preconceived notions. In fact, these con-
tacts led her "to think that as a race the Chinese are very
worthy." One of these Chinese girls acquired a fluent and
correct use of the English language in an incredibly short
time, which created "a very favorable impression." More-
over," she really had a keen sense of humor." Many in-
teresting conversations followed concerning the social,
economic, and political problems of the Chinese, which
resulted in a keen interest in the Chinese.
A series of racial discussion meetings now being conducted
under the auspices of the Y. W. C. A. of the University of
Southern California illustrates a technique for developing
racial friendliness that has both religious and college back-
grounds. The general secretary of the Y. W. C. A. selects,
for example, two American college women of breadth of
view and frankness and two Japanese college women of
similar training. The four are invited to the home of the
secretary for informal dinner and to remain afterwards for
a conversation in front of the fireplace, at which mutual
racial impressions are discussed. For instance, one of the
100
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
American girls will lead off with a frank statement of her
impressions of the Japanese race as a whole. Then a Jap-
anese girl follows with a description of her impressions of
Americans as a people. And so on. Personal experiences
and hearsay reports, true and false statements alike are
examined. At times, the discussion grows excited and, again,
subsides into mutual regrets for human misdeeds. The sec-
retary raises a question now and then or relates a portion
of her own racial experience. One experience leads to the
recital of another by another member of the group. Thus
the discussion goes on. Another topic is announced for
the next meeting, such as: "What do my friends think of
your race?"
As a result of a series of meetings of this
type, racial understanding, sympathy, and good will are
multiplied. At the same time, another series of discussion
conferences is being held by two white girls and two Negro
girls with the Y. W. C. A. secretary in charge. Still other
racial combinations as bases for discussion meetings are
planned. In this way widespread discussions of a construc-
tive nature are fostered.
70. Before I came to the university I had really never known
any Jews, at least not those of the best type. In high school and
junior college I knew one girl, a Jew, who was the joke of all my
friends. Her personality was far from pleasing. I tried to get
better acquainted with her and to persuade her to come to Y
meetings, but, the better I knew her the less I liked her, till finally
I gave up in disgust.
There was also a Jewish boy in junior college, who, like the
girl, was the butt of every one. His personality was not quite
so disagreeable, but he rather lacked in gray matter and was
always doing ridiculous things. Moreover, I noticed several times
that he cheated in exams. I believe I judged the whole Jewish
race by this girl and fellow, and by unpleasant stories I had heard
about Jews.
After I came to the university I met a number of lovely Jewish
girls at the Y, girls with high ideals and pleasing personalities.
My prejudice against their race began to fade. I met one or two
MEDIA OF RACE FRIENDLINESS
101
Jewish fellows who impressed me with their fine character and
keen intellect. I find that my prejudice now has almost dis-
appeared.
An article I read on the Jews and their social isolation made
a big impression on me. I realized as never before how remarkable
the Jews have been to keep their distinctive characteristics.
When I entered the university a colored girl came and took
the seat next to me. All I noticed was that she was colored, and
I decided to take another seat the next day.
When I went to my next class, which was in sociology, the
professor took up the question of race prejudice. The next day
when the colored girl came and sat beside me, I looked at her.
She had a very pleasant, smiling face and I, perhaps in an effort
to assure myself that I was not prejudiced, talked to her. Several
weeks passed by; we exchanged books, and I decided that I
rather liked having her sit next to me.
Within the first month after the semester had started, I was
invited to the home of some friends for luncheon; the man was a
professor at one of the universities, with a Ph.D.; the wife was
a graduate of an eastern university. They both represented the
highest type of intellectually active people. The table was set
for four. I wondered who the other guest was, since I saw no one
else there. Dinner was served, or rather luncheon, and to my
surprise my colored girl who sat next to me in class took the
fourth place. She worked for my hosts after university classes.
I don't suppose my hosts will ever know how the first few bites
of food almost choked me, but I am quite certain now that I will
not move away or even want to if a colored person eats at my
table, or sits next to me.5
71. There is one thing of inestimable value that language study
has done for me. It justifies whatever time and study I may
have put upon it. The study of Spanish, in other words, has
given me as no other thing has, a new viewpoint on Mexico.
Before such study my ideas of Mexicans were chiefly drawn from
the people who dig ditches and repair our car tracks. Through
a Spanish organization I was drafted into the work of making
a program characteristically Mexican for the purpose of adver-
tising the real Mexico and not the Mexico as people think it is.
The program when finally finished consisted of a two-act play,
several dances, a skit from a Zarzuela, a musical comedy, and
some songs by a quartet in costume.
5 Social Distance Studies.
102
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
It was during rehearsals that my long-held prejudices against
these people vanished. I have never worked with people who are
so inventive, clever, and willing. The much-mentioned Latin
temperament did not rise up half so readily as the American
temper. On the part of the men there was politeness, chivalry,
and fascination. I learned to know several of the charming people
of Mexico City who were here for one reason or another, and
I found that they were just as delightful as any one could wish.
They seemed to go out of their way to be nice to me. This was
true whether they were the Castilian type or the Mestizo, mostly
Indian, type. I came to love them dearly, and I also learned
through the medium of their language that they were as full of
high principles and deep purposes as any of my countrymen.
There was always on their part an expressed wish for conciliation
and understanding. It is a shame that we don't meet them half
way and that we confine our ideas to what we see up and down
our railroad tracks and in the poorer parts of our city.6
Foreign Travel and Study Contacts. - Travel brings a
cosmopolitan attitude to many people, providing they are
already open-minded and interested in cultural diffusion as
well as in scientific assimilation. Otherwise, travel easily
brings an increase of race antipathy. Travel that covers
the historic spots, art centers, or that seeks business gain
leads frequently to increase of race antipathy, but travel
that seeks out people and strives to know their circumstances
and their culture history commonly arouses friendliness.
Exchange of students between countries, student parties
traveling in foreign countries, international houses such as
the splendidly equipped International House in New York
City all these foster racial understanding. Apropos of
this theme, an "international college" might be proposed
where native students would be limited to 25 per cent of the
total, where fellowships for other countries would bring
together at least four students from each of the nations of
the world, with the larger nations contributing substantial
quotas.
C
• Mexican Immigrant Survey of the Southwest.
MEDIA OF RACE FRIENDLINESS
103
72. During the past ten years, my impressions and sentiments
of England and the English have been completely changed. At
the age of seven I was so prejudiced against the English that I
would not play checkers with red checkers, because the British
soldiers had worn red coats in the American Revolution. I
cannot imagine any one having any more bitterness and hatred
toward a race than I had. This was probably because I had
already commenced to read stories of the Revolution, had heard
lots of them, and acquired the idea that all things English were
products of the devil. When I started to school, my opinions
were strengthened by stories of the persecution of the Puritans
and finally the war against the mother country. History was
presented in a way to make the pupils think that everything we
did was all right, completely just with the direct sanction of God,
and that everything some other nation did was inspired from the
opposite source. Now I cannot sufficiently condemn this de-
testable practice of filling children's minds with lies. It is meant
to produce patriots, but often produces bigots.
Further, my impressions may have been influenced to some
extent by older people (none too well educated or broad-
minded) with whom I came in contact and who had had unfa-
vorable experiences with a poor type of English immigrant or
tourist.
When the World War began, my sympathies were all with
Germany, as it seemed a good opportunity to overthrow England
and "punish the wicked nobles and king" that I pictured in my
perverted imagination.
About 1915 a French-Italian-Swiss schoolmate began to change
my opinions. This precocious youth explained as well as he could
the issues at stake, and gradually I came to see right on the
allied side. By reflection England came to seem less and less
a bad country. Then association with English people gradually
dispelled my bitterness and hatred, and I came to love England
next to my own country. It seemed that the "English kids" I
played with were decent chaps, played square, were clean and
very little different from what I thought Americans to be, except
in accent. As I grew older and read and observed, I lost
practically all my prejudice.
Then in 1921 I had an opportunity of going to England for
three years study. If an Englishman cared enough for Anglo-
American friendship to provide for one hundred American scholars
to be in residence at Oxford all the time, surely I owed it to
鲁
​104
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
"(
justice to judge his race fairly and to throw overboard prejudice
in coming to a final decision. Hands across the sea,' English-
speaking university," "Anglo-Saxon coöperation," etc., were being
much talked of just after the war. I would go and live among
them and see for myself. And so I went to England.
99.66
From the first I felt very much at home and easily fell into
harmony in my new surroundings. An American should never
feel like a foreigner in England — he isn't treated nor considered
as such. They still think of us as one of the family of British
nations and take great pride in our accomplishments, for they
started us on our course and gave us our language, law, and most
of what is best in our literature, religion, and tradition. I found
that I was never thought of as a foreigner - that a person from
Los Angeles, seven thousand miles away, is considered one of us
more than a person from Paris three hundred and eighty-five
miles away. Thus differences are ironed out and disappear. One
comes to feel his Americanism less poignantly and to acquire
sympathy for the English-speaking world. From this there is
only a step to Christian fellow feeling and on that may be built
world citizenship.
(C
""
As I progressed in the study of English history, literature, and
traditions, my prejudice changed to open-mindedness and then
to sympathy and love. This process was helped along by relations
with the people with whom I came in contact. They were cordial
to me and went out of their way to make me feel at home in their
country. British coldness was exploded. I observed that no one
cheated and that high standards of action prevailed among my
associates in business and conversation. Surely they could not
be as bad as the history books made out. No underhand trickery
was condoned in games of any kind, and this made a strong appeal.
Their common sense was a wonderful thing. The humblest seemed
able to weigh values. A man could execute the king in Hyde
Park without going to jail. People tolerated it because there
must be a few crooks in every society, and no harm would come
of it anyway. Things were done just as needed. No high-flown
phrases and theories were worked out to take care of cases that
never arose. Courtesy from my servant, from my tutor, from the
policeman, postman, in fact from every one with whom I had
dealings impressed me that the English had evolved the art of
social life further than we have. The respect of all for excellence
struck me forcefully. The scholar there emulates the learned
professor; the general run of people look up to a university man.
MEDIA OF RACE FRIENDLINESS
105
The accomplished and well-born command respect even without
money!
Three years of these impressions quietly playing on my mind
changed me from feeling friendly toward England to becoming
more than generous, even devoted. I came to understand that
to know all is to pardon all, to understand all is to sympathize
with all.
I believe racial prejudice disappears with the growth of mutual
experience and am more firmly convinced than ever that our
future depends on our public school system where this mutual
background is possible."
The home atmosphere early influences children to express
either favorable or unfavorable racial attitudes, because of
the uncritical ability of children. They accept generalities
without much question. Where the home is tolerant ra-
cially, the children respond similarly. Religious idealism
is often coupled with a tolerant home atmosphere. It is
effective because of its broad swing and frequent remoteness
from direct racial contacts. School and college experiences
are significant because of the constructive atmosphere and
of the opportunities for making contacts with fine types of
young people of many races. Travel and study that provide
opportunities for natural life conditions generally result in
broad racial reactions. Culture studies and university-
directed conferences regarding inter-racial relations produce
racial tolerance and good will.
PROJECTS
1. Compare the conditions when "the home atmosphere" is
likely to be conducive to racial friendliness and when conducive
to racial antipathy.
2. Account in as many ways as you can for race intolerance
and prejudice on the part of many religious people who profess
a brotherhood-of-man principle.
3. Work out a set of procedures for insuring the permanency
of racial good will based on contacts made in college.
7 Social Distance Studies.
106
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
4. Outline a plan whereby sympathetic travel and study abroad
might be greatly expanded.
5. Compare home atmosphere, religious idealism, school and
college contacts, and travel and study abroad regarding their
relative merits in furthering racial good will.
6. Develop a plot for a scenario or a work of fiction in which
racial good will is indirectly furthered.
7. Compare the media of race friendliness with the media of
race antipathy.
MEDIA OF RACE FRIENDLINESS
BRIDGES, H. J., On Becoming an American. Jones, 1919.
DANIELS, JOHN, American Via The Neighborhood, Chaps. VI-IX.
Harper, 1920.
FURMAN, LUCY, The Quare Woman. Atlantic Monthly Press,
1923.
INQUIRY, THE, All Colors. New York, 1926.
And Who is My Neighbor? New York, 1924.
RAVAGE, M. E., An American in the Making. Harper, 1917.
STEINER, E. A., The Broken Wall. Revell, 1911.
CHAPTER VIII
CHANGES IN RACIAL ATTITUDES
All the racial attitudes of some persons and some racial
attitudes of many persons are in a state of flux. In addition
to the origins of racial antipathy and friendliness that have
already been considered, there are changes continually
taking place in racial aversion and attraction. These
changes are, of course, origins also-secondary origins,
as distinguished from the original or primary origins.
At least two main types of changes in racial attitudes
may be observed: (1) augmentations and (2) reversals.
This chapter will consider augmentations or the conditions
under which a person's racial antipathy and his racial
friendliness are increased. The following chapter will deal
with reversals of both unfavorable and favorable racial
attitudes.
Although augmentations naturally fall into increases in
antipathy and increases in good will, they represent one
major psychosocial process: namely, the fixation of be-
havior patterns already initiated. The experiencing of
more contacts direct or indirect, favorable or unfavorable,
of the kind already experienced is the essence of the story.
The conditions under which this process functions may
vary. Antipathy growth occurs in connection with social
explosions; good will growth implies the dissolving of
conflicts and the solving of race problems. The latter is
often gradual, quiet, and unassuming; the former, loud-
mouthed and easily excitable.
Augmentations of Racial Antipathy.— A further exam-
ination of the racial attitude data presented in previous
19
107
108
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
chapters shows that Americans experience increases in
racial antipathy toward the same races, with slight excep-
tions, that figure in the origins of antipathy. Antipathy,
in other words, is easily accumulative. It feeds partly on
itself, and flourishes easily. Once started, it acquires a
momentum that is difficult to halt.
Table V indicates changes in racial attitudes of 508 of the
1725 native Americans, certain of whose racial attitudes
have already been noted in Tables I to IV. Of the total
1725, materials relating to changes in attitudes were asked
from 524. Replies from 16 of these were confused and
uncertain in meaning, and hence eliminated, leaving a total
of 508. The racial descent of these persons is given in the
first column of Table V. The points at which racial antip-
athy and racial attraction occur are noted in the next two
columns respectively. Some races are high in both these
two categories, for instance: Armenians, Chinese, French,
Germans, Hindus, Italians, Japanese, Jews, Mexicans,
Negroes, and Russians. The races ranking noticeably higher
in the "antipathy increase column " than in the "friend-
liness increase column" are: Germans, Greeks, Hindus,
Jews, Mexicans, Russians, and most of all, Turks. Races
ranking higher in "friendliness increase column" than
in the antipathy increase column" are Armenians,
Chinese, Czecho-Slovaks, Danes, Dutch, and so on, down
the list.
66
*
Table VI gives an arrangement in a descending order of
the races most extensively the victims of increasing antip-
athy. The predominance of non-Europeans will be noted.
War propaganda accounts in the main for the increasing
unfavorable reactions that were experienced by Americans
against the Germans; while postwar reports of French
militarism and French bitterness toward America relative
to the noncancellation of war debts explain the adverse
changes in attitudes toward the French.
CHANGES IN RACIAL ATTITUDES
109
TABLE V
CHANGES IN RACIAL ATTITUDES OF 508 NATIVE AMERICANS IN A
5- TO A 10-YEAR PERIOD
Armenians
Bulgarians
Canadians
Chinese
Czecho-Slovaks
Danes
Dutch
English
Filipinos
Finns
French
•
French-Canadian
Germans
Greeks
Hindus
Indians (American)
Irish
Italians
Japanese
Jew, German
Jew, Russian
Koreans
Magyars
Mexicans
Mulattoes
Negroes
•
Norwegians
Portuguese
Poles
Turks
Welsh
Roumanians
Russians
Serbo-Croatians
Scotch
Scotch-Irish
Spanish
Syrians
Swedish
•
·
•
•
Racial
Descent
•
•
215~ ~ ~
•
15
3
2
3
42
251
1
0
72
~~~~8~~O
62
9
4
223
131
3
44
38
7
1
2
021
-
.104
82
5
0
14
0
24
Less
Favorable
28
3
2
47
0
0
6
3
3
17
-POENARREDON&8*-
4.
67
0
6
3
ල
3
36
2
0
0
7
3
4
63
1
More
Balance in
Favorable Either Direction
46
3
30
35284
75
18
15
12
28
20
45
2
51
7
14
29
9
32
86
34
29
11 →
2
41
8
77
20
3
14
4
23
5
~I~073
11
2
40
33
7
4
18
0
∞∞∞∞DORE∞-PRIN
28
28
32
18
15
6
25
17
28
1
7
29
11
27
4
1
7
♫♪♪ONOO2~I~~~~+28"
31
37
7
0
12
0
10
20
3
11
1
13
3
11
33
4
29
56
3
110 IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
TABLE VI
FIVE HUNDRED AND EIGHT AMERICANS REPORTING INCREASES
IN ANTIPATHY, ACCORDING TO RACES, ARRANGED
IN A DESCENDING ORDER
Percent-
age
93 18.3
67
13.2
•
Jew, Russian ... 66
12.9
Jew, German
65
12.9
Turks
63
12.4
58
11.9
10.4
9.2
Against
Japanese
Negroes
•
Germans
Mexican
Chinese.
•
•
•
•
Num-
bers
53
47
Races
Greeks
Russian
Turk
Jew, Russian
Jew, German
·
• •
•
Nos.
56
37
31
Against
Greeks
Russians
29
13
In Table V, column 4 is given the adverse and the fa-
vorable balances, that is, the deficits of surpluses represented
by comparing the numbers of more favorable changes with
the less favorable changes concerning the respective races.
The deficits in favorable changes will be considered first;
the surpluses will then be taken up.
Table VII gives the highest numbers in the adverse
balances. The relative adverse changes are somewhat
different from the absolute changes given in Table VI. The
Turk moves up from fifth in the "absolute" list to first
place here, the Negro and the Chinese disappear, the Ger-
mans and Russians do not change, the Japanese drop from
first to ninth, the Greeks move up from tenth to fifth, and
the Hindus from fourteenth and so on.
Irish
Italians
Armenians
Hindus
French
Mulattoes
Mang
•
•
TABLE VII
ADVERSE BALANCES OF INCREASED ANTIPATHY OVER INCREASED
FRIENDLINESS REACTIONS AS REPORTED BY 508 AMERICANS
Races
Num- Percent-
bers
age
7.0
7.0
Mexican
Hindu
•
Germans
Japanese
Portuguese
36
36
33
33
28
25
17
8
6.5
6.5
5.5
4.9
3.3
1.5
Nos.
12
12
7
73
CHANGES IN RACIAL ATTITUDES
111
An increase in a person's antipathy for the members
of some race is usually due to factors similar to those
that bring about his adverse reactions in the first place.
A repetition of these factors easily augments antipathy.
Repeated contacts with any of the more important un-
favorable traits of a race cause a rise in the antipathy
temperature.
In addition, moreover, there are distinctive ways in which
race antipathy becomes definitely augmented. Two of
these tendencies may be noted.
"}
(1) Often a person's increased racial antipathy is due to
definite rationalization upon and even brooding over certain
of his adverse race relations. In this way he may build up
an effective antirace fixation. Through repeated conversa-
tion or speeches against a race, a person may “work up
an increased antipathy unintentionally. He may engage
so completely in a given antirace propaganda movement
that he multiplies his own antipathies and becomes unable
to "see" any but the adverse phases of a given race's
nature. Favorable data are habitually underrated or
overlooked.
-
73. As to a race that I constantly feel less friendly toward, I
would cite the Turk. The Turk is the only person I would not
admit into our country, allow to visit, or to have any contact
with anybody or any country I hold decent or respectable. This
is not race prejudice, because it isn't the fact that he is a Turk,
but because of what he stands for, of what his history has proved
him to be, and because of the great harm he has done and persists
in doing. Were he of any other race, I would judge him likewise.
I have personally come in contact with Turks, and with over-
whelming numbers of the followers of Mahomet. I know their
Koran. I know from personal contact that their philosophy, their
ambitions, their education, their social standards, their customs,
their view of life, and all the rest are hopelessly rotten
there is no other word for them. I have come in contact with
many Armenians, talked with them, as well as with missionaries
who know the situation; and there is nothing in the world's
((
""
112
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
history that represents any evil quite as bad as the Moham-
medan Turk. There are exceptions, I know, but we are judging
from the overwhelming majority. When you understand Mo-
hammedanism first-hand and realize it to be by far the worst
religion in all the world, and then get acquainted with the Turk
and find him the worst specimen of humanity, then stick these
two worst things together. You have a combination which can't
be surpassed for evil; and that is why I think the very presence
of a Turk, not because he is a Turk, but because of his character,
would pollute the very atmosphere of our country. The more
I learn about him the worse is my impression of him. He is indeed
the "sick man of Europe." I am very sorry for him, and would
like to help him, were it possible.¹
(2) Often when a person moves to a new geographic
region (a point to be treated more fully in a later chapter),
an antipathy that he has acquired earlier will be magnified.
Either he comes in contact suddenly or competitively with
a race which he has known only casually before, or else he
may become neighbor to a race which is experiencing a
larger degree of freedom than previously. Under the larger
freedom it may go to an extreme of obtrusiveness, and thus
arouse a greater prejudice in the American newcomer than
he experienced against that race in his previous habitat.
This new freedom may be used by members of an oppressed
race to invade the status of the American "recently ar-
rived" from some other part of the United States, where
such invasion would be prohibited by the mores.
74. Most of my life has been spent in the South, and it is only
natural that I should be prejudiced against colored people to a
certain extent. I have always been friendly toward colored
people and have treated them kindly, because southern Negroes
know their place.
In the South there are restrictions against colored people which
do not exist here. These restrictions are necessary, and I believe
that they should be promoted here. White people are not on
the same level with colored people and should not be compelled
1 Social Distance Studies.
CHANGES IN RACIAL ATTITUDES
113
to be associated with them. I do not believe that they should
attend the same schools, churches, and social gatherings.
Where colored people are allowed the same privileges as white
people, they oftentimes make themselves very offensive, take
advantage of, and abuse these privileges.
When a colored person sits down by me on the street car, I
move. This is habit. A few months ago a colored girl came to
the house where I am staying and ate lunch in our dining room.
As this was my first experience of that kind, I was shocked and
became very indignant.
I do not believe in being rude, but I believe in keeping them in
their place. This habit is one that I have developed so strongly
that my enforced association with them here makes me more
unfriendly than before.2
Increases in Race Friendliness. Increases in race
friendliness have already been noted in column 3 of Table
V. An examination of Table VIII, made up from Table V,
reinforces the observation already made in this chapter
that the races toward which there is the greatest growth of
race friendliness in the United States are also in the main
the races toward which there is also the greatest growth of
race antagonism. Japanese, Negroes, Chinese, Germans,
and Mexicans not only head the antipathy column but also,
are the races toward which friendliness has grown most,
a surprising observation. Public opinion has been focused
on the antipathy facts but has entirely neglected the friend-
liness developments. Race haters are often loud in
their denunciations, angry and dogmatic in their assertions,
and reap the benefits of headline publicity in the metro-
politan press. A candidate for United States senator emo-
tionally declaring that the country's gates shall be closed
to all Orientals "brings down the house" in tumultuous
and violent, almost "hatred applause," but who has heard
of a senatorial candidate strongly urging oriental friendli-
ness? The " race befrienders " secure a very limited hear-
ing in the press, but the pulpit is usually open to them.
2 Ibid.
"C
G
""
GRE
114
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
Inter-racial good will is also being promoted by radio-
broadcasted speeches.
In referring back to Table V, it will be observed that the
508 Americans report 924 cases of increased degree of race
friendliness to 729 cases of increased race antipathy. Since
these reactions were recorded without signing names, there
is no reason to believe that the reports of race antipathy
were deliberately minimized for fear of arousing charges
of narrowness and intolerance. On the other hand, most
persons are less aware of the "friendly changes" in race
attitudes than of the antipathetic ones, and thus the friendly
changes recorded in column 3, Table V, and in Table VIII
are doubtlessly smaller than the figures actually imply.
TABLE VIII
FIVE HUNDRED AND EIGHT AMERICANS REPORTING INCREASES IN
FRIENDLINESS, ACCORDING TO RACES, ARRANGED
IN A DESCENDING ORDER
Toward
Japanese
Negroes
Chinese
Mexicans
Germans
Armenians
((
53
51
46
French
45
40
Spanish
Jew, German 34
Nos. Percentage
86 16.9
77 15.1
75 14.7
10.4
10.0
9.0
8.8
7.8
6.7
•
Toward
Swedish
33
Czecho-Slovaks 32
Italians
32
Canadians
30
Indians (Amer.) . 29
Jew, Russian
29
28
25
20
Filipinos
Russians
Norwegians
..
Nos. Percentage
6.5
6.3
6.3
5.9
5.8
5.8
5.5
4.9
3.9
•
According to Table IX, giving the excess of increase in
friendliness changes over the increase in antipathy changes
as reported by 508 Americans, the Chinese alone of the
races against which antagonism is most often expressed
survive the comparison. They alone appear on the positive
side of the ledger with a surplus of friendliness reactions
experienced toward them by Americans. They are not
competitors" or "invaders " today; their numbers in this
CHANGES IN RACIAL ATTITUDES
115
country have been decreasing; hence, the psychological ad-
vantage is theirs, and good will toward them is on the gain.
The other races appearing in the favorable balance list of
friendliness reactions are all " noncompetitors " in American
life, such as the Spanish, Indians, and Dutch.
TABLE IX
FAVORABLE BALANCES OF INCREASED FRIENDLINESS OVER INCREASED
ANTIPATHY REACTIONS AS REPORTED BY 508 AMERICANS
Races
Nos.
33
32
Spanish
Czecho-Slovaks
Swedish
French
Chinese
Indians (American) .. 27
•
2222
29
28
28
Races
Filipinos
Norwegians
Canadians
Danes
Finns
Dutch
•
Nos.
25
20
18
18
17
15
The life-history materials at hand indicate that growth
in racial good will is due chiefly to "repeated favorable
experiences." And "favorable," in the last analysis, means
anything that promotes one's own status.
-
The unconsciously gradual nature of the growth of race
friendliness makes its study difficult. Persons are unaware
of this growth until some person or event brings the change
to their attention. Thus, there are few outstanding ex-
periences in their minds. The existence, the wide extent,
and the importance of the growth of racial good will, how-
ever, are all demonstrable facts.
Variations in Speed. The time element varies in race
attitude changes. One may suddenly develop race antip-
athy; a single adverse experience involving bodily harm is
sufficient. Race friendliness involves the overcoming of
defense reactions-defenses against the strange, the dif-
ferent, the unknown, the uncertain. It is natural that in
this connection a person should change slowly. After they
have once gained momentum, it is also natural that both
race antipathy and race friendliness should develop rapidly,
116
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
unless inhibiting experiences occur. In general, it may be
concluded, however, that race antipathy develops reck-
lessly and race friendliness, with caution.
Summary. There are two main phases and three main
stages in racial antipathy and racial friendliness phenom-
ena: (1) the cultural, and (2) the biological phases; and
(1) the originating, (2) the augmentation, and (3) the
modification stages. The two phases will be summarized
first; and then, the three phases.
(1) A narrow or broad ethnological background, an
intolerant or liberal training in a person's primary groups
is the background of racial antipathy or racial good will.
A hard and practical or an idealistic, humanitarian, and a
socio-religious cultural heritage accounts in part for the
rise of antipathy or friendliness.
(2) Persons vary temperamentally. Some develop more
introvertive or extrovertive tendencies than others. Some
are more easily stimulated to adopt suspicious attitudes
than others, or to be humanly and hence racially responsive.
(1) The first stage begins with unfavorable or favorable
experiences, either direct or by hearsay, which crystallize
racial attitudes and "fixate" them in either repulsive or
attractive settings. To the extent that a person's racial
contacts hamper or further his basic wishes and his status,
he is likely to respond in aversive or friendly ways.
(2) Augmentation of ill will or good will usually occurs
upon the repetition of either destructive or constructive
racial experiences. A second or third unfavorable, or fa-
vorable, experience naturally follows the behavior patterns
already inaugurated.
(3) Both antipathy and friendliness may cool off, sub-
side, and even be subject to reversal. This theme remains
to be examined. It is in these reversals that the most sig-
nificant phases of racial attitudes come to the surface.
CHANGES IN RACIAL ATTITUDES
117
PROJECTS
1. If you have ever experienced a great increase in antipathy
or friendliness toward any race, give a detailed description.
2. Choose a race antipathy and a racial good will attitude that
you may have, and describe any changes in rate of development
that has taken place in either.
3. Compare in as many ways as you can augmentations of race
antipathy and of race friendliness.
4. Outline a practical program for definitely increasing the
total amount of race friendliness in your community.
5. Give a full description and analysis of any mutation of race
attitude that you have experienced, or that some one whom you
have met has experienced.
6. Analyze the mutation of a racial attitude.
CHANGES IN RACE ATTITUDES
ABBOTT, GRACE, The Immigrant and the Community, Chaps.
IV, V. Century, 1917.
ANTIN, MARY, The Promised Land, Chaps. XI-XIII.
COMMONS, J. R., Races and Immigrants in America, Chap. IX.
Macmillan, 1920.
GAVIT, JOHN P., Americans by Choice, Chaps. I, II. Harper, 1922.
PARK, R. E., AND MILLER, H. A., Old World Traits Transplanted,
Chaps. III, IV, IX. Harper, 1921.
SAUNDERS, A. J., "Reforming the Kallars in Madura, South
India," Jour. of Applied Sociology, Vol. XI, pp. 121-8.
CHAPTER IX
REVERSALS OF RACE ATTITUDES
Reversals of race attitudes are even more interesting
than augmentations of either antipathy or friendliness. As
representing major types of changes that occur in race
attitudes, reversals are of two classes: changes (1) from
friendly to antipathetic and (2) from antipathetic to
friendly. The latter occur less frequently than the former.
They constitute a more "difficult" process, for antipathetic
behavior patterns are ordinarily better fixated by emotional
reactions. The change from antipathetic to friendly atti-
tudes usually requires a time element. Mutations or sudden
changes are rare. The shift from friendly to unfriendly
attitudes, however, may be sudden.
The most common type of reversal is the change from
derivatively (hearsay) friendly to directly antipathetic. A
hazy indefinite friendliness based on general impressions
may be suddenly changed to antipathy by a single adverse
experience. Another noteworthy reversal type is the change
from derivatively (hearsay) antipathetic to directly
friendly. "Bad impressions" of a race may be corrected
in due season by direct contacts with worthy representatives
of immigrant races. In both these forms of reversals, the
changes start from derivative or hearsay experiences.
When direct personal experiences have become "fixed,"
reversals do not often occur.
Reversals afford an excellent field for the study of both the
origins and media of race attitudes, both antipathetic and
friendly. The original or primary beginnings of race atti-
tudes are often obscured in the multitude of happenings of
118
REVERSALS OF RACE ATTITUDES
119
early childhood and of youth, but the secondary or reversal
beginnings may occur in adult years and under more easily
observable conditions. Reversals are more dramatic, are
subject to personal attention, and hence are especially in-
teresting to study.
Sudden Reversals from Friendly to Antipathetic Atti-
tudes. The mutations from friendly to antipathetic race
attitudes not infrequently involve a general derivative
background of favorable reports concerning some race, and
a single dramatic set of direct and personal experience with
one or more members of the given race. Sometimes the
mutation is brought about by a regional change; that is,
as indicated in another connection, a person moves from a
region where somewhat favorable ideas are held toward
a certain race to a region where low-type and obtrusive
members of that race are in evidence. Sometimes no change
in region is involved. Immigrants of low-culture traits
move in, with the result that even idealistic natives become
hateful. The old story is repeated: Status has been invaded.
Sometimes a public leader or perhaps a friend, gives ex-
pression to startlingly disturbing accounts of a race con-
cerning which none but favorable accounts have been
current. The account is often that of a long-distance (geo-
graphic) view being supplanted by face-to-face accounts.
The latter imply a lowering of one's status. In general, it
may be said that the stimuli which function to arouse race
antipathy gradually, as described in preceding chapters,
also function when operating suddenly to effect mutations.
Sp
An American business man states that formerly he be-
lieved that Jews were unjustly criticized and treated. He
saw no reason to dislike the race. He concluded that many
people are prejudiced because it is the thing to do. All the
Jews whom he had known were pleasant and agreeable.
In fact, his first playmate was a Jewish boy. "But lately,"
he reports, "the Jews I have met have disgusted me the
120
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
things which they do, their manners, are repulsive." As a
result he has turned against the whole race, although he
admits that it is unfair to judge a group by a few individuals,
"but it is natural to do so." He tries to forget his dislike,
but when "I am near them I can't help looking for certain
traits, and discovering them."
75. I have a distinctly less favorable impression of the Negro
race than I had five years ago. As a child, I believed that Negroes
were downtrodden and didn't have their proper opportunities.
My opinion soon changed when my contacts became closer.
I like to think that perhaps I have met only the worst, but at
the same time, my opinion applies to the whole race.
Several families moved into my neighborhood, and they
promptly began to assert themselves in a manner decidedly not
neighborly. Rapidly the Negro population increased, and vice
crept in. The whole district-but recently a respectable neigh-
borhood became a regular red light district with bootleggers
thrown in for good measure. Because none of the Negro people
that I knew were good citizens, I do not approve of them.
I have also worked in a clinic. The larger number of Negro
patients have venereal diseases. They are very shiftless and do
not take any interest in their own welfare.¹
1
76. During my freshman year in high school, a series of race
riots took place between the Negroes and the whites. This was
in Chicago where the colored population is quite large on account
of the industries. Up to that time, I had been rather friendly
with some Negroes at school and did not feel any social distance
between us, since I had never had any reason to. My home
was not far from the Negro settlement; and when the riots
began, the Negroes were forced to remain out of school. I
continued to go to school and did not pay much attention to the
upheaval.
Then one night just after dark I was sitting on the front porch
with some children of the neighborhood when a crowd of people
came running along the street and yelling. They were after a
Negro who was just a few feet ahead of them. By the time they
had reached the corner, the Negro was taken, and I could hear
his cries in a prairie not far away. I began to sympathize with
the Negroes and to read the papers. Of course, the papers did
1 Social Distance Studies.
REVERSALS OF RACE ATTITUDES
121
not speak well about them; but, nevertheless, I decided that the
riots were one-sided.
My attitude was suddenly and violently changed in about three
days. My best friend and playmate was attacked by a Negro
when she was returning home from the store one evening. A
crowd captured him and lynched him. I felt as if she could never
be revenged enough and must admit that I was delighted when
I heard that the attacker had been hanged on a telegraph pole
until the police removed him the next day.
Now I can talk and associate with Negroes, but I feel a wave
of distrust go over me, and I cannot sympathize with the poor of
that race. I can never give to a Negro cause, and I feel they are
inferior to me.2
Sudden Reversals from Antipathetic to Friendly Atti-
tudes. While genuine mutations from antipathetic to
friendly attitudes are rare, there are numerous cases of
near-mutations. Direct personal experiences are the com-
mon factors. Even these, however, need to be repeated in
order that the near-mutations may become permanent.
A sudden widening of the daily experiences of life, if
accompanied by favorable racial contacts, may result in
reversals. Here and there, along the pathway of life, occur
events which shake up one's behavior patterns, give one
a great light,” and lead to personality reorganization.
66
Even war, despite its usual tendency to produce race
hatred suddenly, may break down prejudices within the
limits of "allies," and develop a camaraderie among races,
which are culturally wide apart, even antagonistic. The
permanency of this camaraderie may even be assured by
"fighting together " for "a good cause," for a long period
of time.
A sense of humor expressed on the moment may be a
"reversing" factor, providing it is revealed by a person
with other personality traits that are "likeable" to the
one who already feels antipathetic. A woman who had had
2 Ibid.
t
122 IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
an interview with the department manager of a large cor-
poration was about to be accepted when the manager
suddenly inquired concerning her nationality, and she
replied that she was an American. "No, I mean, are you
Jewish or Gentile?" She looked at him and demanded,
"Are you a Catholic or Protestant?" Being good-natured,
he laughed and explained, "Please don't be angry. You
see we are directed to employ Gentiles in preference to a
Jew whenever possible, but I like you; and even though
you are a Jew, I will accept you."
77. My early training at home included among other things
the cultivation of a respectful attitude toward all races, all nations,
and all religions, and as a result my opinion of the Poles as a race
held no thoughts of malice or prejudice of any type. In addition,
having been early interested in music, my attention was focused
to a great extent upon a leader in this field, Mr. A., a Pole.
Besides being a great musician, Mr. A. was also considered a
leader in political thinking, which in his case took the form of
race prejudice. During the last five or six years, having been
much concerned with the history of the world in general, and in
particular with that phase of human history dealing with racial
and religious problems, my attention was directed to the inhuman
pogroms taking place in southern Europe. No crimes of bar-
barous peoples in the early ages were in any way more atrocious
than the extremely cruel and inhuman treatment accorded the
Jews in Poland. There was not the faintest trace of justice of
any kind, and murdering became the chief method of giving vent
to primitive prejudice.
Curiously enough, Mr. A., a majestic power in the musical field,
became a leader in his own country in a totally different world of
thought. The object of reverence and respect of millions, he
turned upon a group of his admirers with a vitriolic prejudice
fatal in its effect, and I have turned against him. By means of
his broadly acclaimed leadership in one field, he manages to incite
his people to atrocious acts and inhuman treatment by appealing
to a primitive emotion — hate.
It has been said that a race or a nation should not be judged
by one individual of that race; but when this one individual has
demonstrated in so clear a fashion the blind ignorance of his
REVERSALS OF RACE ATTITUDES
123
mind and has so easily become a leader of his people in so un-
righteous a cause as that of race prejudice, then I say I feel
more than perfectly justified in looking down upon the race he
represents.3
An unexpected kindness in time of personal stress and
loss rendered by one member of a disliked race may be
sufficient to bring about a near-mutation. One man reports
that during his high-school days he had a strong antipathetic
feeling toward the Chinese and the Japanese, who were
then pigeon-holed in his vocabulary as "Chinks" and
"Skibbies." His brother died in the navy in 1920, and the
body was returned home for burial. "I observed that, when
the last call was sounded at my brother's funeral, it was an
oriental sailor who blew 'taps,' and I was told that my
brother referred to Orientals as his 'little brown brothers.'
This incident may be recorded as the starting point in my
change of attitudes."
((
A farmer learned as a small boy to look upon Norwegians
as a cold, gruff, and brutal people." The family had had
a Norwegian cook for several months, and "still I was in
deathly fear of her cold, calm look." But one night the
other members of the family had gone out for the evening,
and he remained to play with the neighbor children. In the
midst of the fun, he fell and broke his ankle, and was carried
home to be welcomed by no one but Nina, the cook. He
cried from pain and fear, but "Nina, with all possible ten-
derness, comforted me and told me stories just like mother
always did." All the time that he was an invalid, "Nina
was so kind and thoughtful each day that I came to realize
more and more that underneath her coldness was warmth.
Because of this episode, my feeling toward all Norwegians
changed."
78. The Turk, in a vain effort to subject Armenia to the
religion of Mahomet, has inflicted on her massacres with all the
3 Ibid.
124
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
blood-accompanying features and artistically nasty details that
cunning brains could devise.
As an adolescent girl, I drank in these ideas with avidity. The
Turk to me was the devil personified. Consequently when I heard
that we were to sell a house we owned to a member of that
execrable race, I was horrified. The day the deal was to be
concluded, I awaited his arrival with fear and trembling. He
proved to be a short, stout, kindly-looking gentleman about my
father's age. His wife was one of the most beautiful women I
have ever seen. He had a sense of humor and proved that he
knew just how to treat a girl of ten or twelve. He had a fascinat-
ing store filled with beautiful articles, and his chief line was
oriental rugs. We spent a lovely time examining and hearing
about them. He admitted the faults of his race, but he himself
showed what education and Americanization can do. He is now
one of my most delightful and valued friends.
Now why was I taught to fear and hate without knowing that
there is another side to the question? There are good people
as well as bad in every nation. I was taught all the bad and the
good was entirely ignored. Maybe this man is one of the best
of his race. I don't know. But this I do know, that never will I
teach hatred of any nation and emphasize the bad to the exclusion
of the good. It seems to me that this is a blindness unworthy
of any American and a Christian people.*
79. In 1914, when the war broke out, I was in college preparing
to become a teacher. Until then, I held of foreigners the ideas
generally fostered by caricaturists. For instance, that all true
Englishmen must have long teeth and long feet and wear strange
attire, that Americans must have gold teeth and flash diamonds
on all fingers, that Germans must be very stout, wear spectacles,
and generally have dreadful table manners, and so on.
The war came, and soon my country became a land of many
tongues — Britishers, Scots, Welsh and Irishmen, Australians, New
Zealanders, Canadians, Belgians, both the Flemish and the Wal-
loons, Italians, Portuguese, Poles, Russians, Nipponese, Chinese
coolies, Brazilians, Hindus, as we called the Indians of India, our
black men from Africa, our yellow men from Indo-China, even
Germans and Austrians in the shape of prisoners, later on the
Americans with their own black men and their Indians. I am
forgetting the Serbians and Rumanians and the French. We
rubbed elbows in the streets, in the shops, in the restaurants, in
4 Ibid.
REVERSALS OF RACE ATTITUDES
125
the theaters. It soon was an oddity to hear French spoken at
all. I became more or less acquainted with all these peoples, and
I learned to think of them as my equals. I lost sense of my
narrow-minded provincialism. Of course, I had a great oppor-
tunity to become acquainted with them. I was a teacher in a
little town on the main road to the front at about sixty miles
from Amiens; and as I could speak English, I often was being
mustered as interpreter. There were several camps of different
foreign armies near by. Besides, my parents lived in the center
of a British Royal Air Force camp, and our home was home to all
the boys.
Of all these foreigners, I came to know the Anglo-
Saxons best of all, and learned to like them very much. Perhaps
it is because I felt akin to them, owing to my Celtic ancestry.
I do not know. Perhaps it is because, understanding their
language, I was able to share in their thoughts and their feelings.
Anyway, the truth is that to this day, I like all Anglo-Saxons,
some better than some of my countrymen. I liked and still like
them so well that I married one of them in preference to a French-
man, and I am not sorry yet that I did so, so much so that I
could come to this country and work out my happiness here.5
Gradual Reversals from Antipathy to Friendliness.
Many cases of attitudinal change reveal considerable ration-
alization and a recognition that previously held views were
narrow and on the whole ill-founded. These gradual
changes may frequently be definitely distinguished from
mutations involving serious emotional disturbances. Dis-
like due to ignorance gives way to admiration due to educa-
tion. Childhood training has often meant inculcation of
prejudice, but later, direct experiences with friendly mem-
bers of another race bring about a shift from repulsion to
attraction. A broad educational and ethnological training
and tolerant religious teachings function similarly. As in
the case of the origins of racial good will, so in the reversals
in the same direction, the contacts afforded in college
life and by idealistic religious life. are especially
potent. Changes under these conditions are subject, how-
ever, to reversals back to antipathy, when college and
5 Ibid.
126 IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
church influences decline and unpleasant race experiences
multiply.
،،
Many times gradual reversals occur entirely in the field
of derivative experience. In early years of life, a person
forms adverse race opinions, according to the prevailing
social stimuli. Later he begins to read and think for him-
self and learns particularly of the misconceptions which
he has held toward a given race. A broad cultural knowl-
edge may supplant narrow hearsay prejudices, with a grad-
ual reversal in race attitudes as the result. A person reports
that he once conceived of the Chinese as undesirable'
and that this conception was gained almost entirely from
propaganda in regard to Chinese coolies competing with
American labor. He then had the privilege of making the
acquaintance of several Chinese men and a few Chinese
women, and says: "I must confess that it would be hard
to find a finer type of manhood anywhere than some of
these people represent. While it must be admitted that
they are probably of the best class, yet my association with
them has been sufficient to remove the prejudice that I once
had toward that race."
""
A person ten years ago thought of the Jewish race "in a
very intolerant manner" and only in terms of people who
were "the murderers of Christ" and money lenders such
as Shylock. He was so prejudiced against the Jews that
he did not deem it possible for them "to be highly moral
or even respectable." Then came a change in experiences.
He met several Jewish university students whom he came
to include in his list of friends. In the study of history
he discovered that Judaism was the cradle of Christianity.
"Could it be possible, I reasoned, that these despised Jews
had contributed something to the traditions that were
sacred to me? Gradually, then, I had to acknowledge that
if I was a sincere seeker after the full truth, I must realize
how narrow, prejudiced, and intolerant I had been. But
REVERSALS OF RACE ATTITUDES
127
contacts with members of that race and study about their
institutions have changed my point of view."
Another person who lived near a colony of Scandinavians
of the peasant class, uneducated and crude, who did not
try to learn English and whose children were seldom sent
to school, reports that he never liked to be around them or
to talk to them. Then he moved to another part of the
United States and became acquainted with a well educated
family containing daughters, all of whom he "liked very
much." When he discovered that these people were Nor-
wegians, he let his earlier impressions of the race influence
him, and he no longer visited with them or, as he says,
"I tried to, but their friendship was so interesting and
desirable that my early prejudices were overcome. We
are the best of friends, and I think very highly of
Scandinavians."
((
Recalling her childhood days, an American woman states
she once considered the entire Mexican people as being
dirty and illiterate, because the first Mexicans she knew
were slovenly, ambitionless, and lazy." In high school,
however, she had a Mexican woman for her teacher in
Spanish. This woman was energetic, quick, witty, and
neat. A visit to her home located in an old house in the
Mexican district was enlightening. "I don't believe that
I have ever seen any home cleaner than that one." Con-
tacts with another Mexican woman who was a teacher
revealed her as well versed in culture history. "She knew
practically everything about the history, literature, and
language of the Germans, Spaniards, Italians, French, and
Mexicans." While she was not so neat or as mentally
quick as the first teacher, she not only read and wrote five
languages well, but also spoke them. The contacts with
these two women, and with a few others like them, supple-
mented by extensive reading on Mexico, have been the
means of changing a personal antipathy to friendliness. An
{
128
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
acquaintance with the hardships under which the Mexicans
labor "made me first to sympathize with them and then
to love them."
Even prejudices which have been taught a child delib-
erately over a period of time may be supplanted by friendly
attitudes. An ex-soldier recalls that as a boy he was taught
to resent the very existence of all foreigners, including the
Russians, "Dagoes," and Orientals. Whenever he showed
himself at all friendly toward a member of any of these
races, he was "ostracized" by his parents and playmates.
But the crumbling of his prejudices began as a result of
reading books. In connection with an Italian under trial
locally, he wrote his first drama. For a year he worked on
this play and read extensively about Italian life, history,
courts. Secretly, he found romance in the Italians. Later,
his overseas experiences gave him an open admiration for
the race. "Three Italians completed my conversion."
80. Formerly, my entire family was much prejudiced against
the Japanese. I had been told about their immorality, their
gambling, their desire to dominate this western coast, their detri-
ment to the farmer because of low living standards and long
hours of labor for the entire family. When any one mentioned
restricted immigration, the suggestion was endorsed most heartily.
Great was the dismay of all when it was announced that a
Japanese had leased forty acres of ground across from us. At
once we spoke of selling, etc., etc.
A quiet Japanese family of four moved into a hut erected at
the extreme corner of the land. We were grateful for the location.
Few words were exchanged for months. Application was made
for irrigation water.
My mother became interested in the two children, who were,
indeed, good little folks. She gave them fruit and cookies and
other things which they did not have. Finally, when milk was
engaged, they came for it daily.
In all his business contacts, the Japanese was thoroughly
businesslike and considerate. He always paid before a bill could
be sent, and on several occasions he was refunded the overpayment.
Exchanges of fruits and vegetables were made, and my mother
REVERSALS OF RACE ATTITUDES
129
seemed especially happy to send over a surprise when she noticed
that their working hours had been particularly long because they
wanted to plant a special crop.
When the children were ill and assistance was offered and
visits made, the couple seemed almost overcome. Gradu-
ally, more English was acquired and little hurried chats took
place. Now and then, when emergencies arose, my brothers took
the man to places in the machine, and their gratitude seemed
unbounded.
It is true that in farming every one works long hours, usually
for seven days a week. The labor is very tiresome-stooping
and working in wet ground. However, sometimes whole fields of
grown lettuce or cabbage must be plowed under because of
market manipulation, although at the very time city people are
paying enormous prices for those very commodities because of a
limited supply. This is most discouraging after months of labor
and expense.
As neighbors they are quiet, orderly people that mind their own
business and yet are most kindly, reliable, and helpful.
Other Japanese came into the neighborhood and as much could
be said for them. When the land agitation occurred and leases
expired, foreigners of other races came who are not nearly such
good neighbors. They are more selfish and have poorer principles.
Our entire family has overcome a prejudice for the Japanese
through direct contact extending over a period of years.
6
81. Having from my early childhood lived here in C., where
the prejudice against the Negro is not as great as it is in some
parts of the country, I feel that I was not influenced against
them so much by current opinion as I was by my own experiences
with the Negro children that attended my own and a neighboring
school. There were not a large number of Negroes at my school,
but at the neighboring school a few blocks away they were almost
in excess of the whites.
All through grammar school and intermediate, my experiences
with the Negro children were unpleasant, ranging from gang
battles on the street to classroom warfare. Only on one or two
occasions did I find myself agreeably impressed with a colored
boy or girl. There were two colored children in particular that
I could finally come to admire. They were related to each other,
were well mannered, bright, and were both good singers. On
several occasions they distinguished themselves and won my
6 Pacific Coast Race Relations Survey.
130
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
rather reluctant admiration. This was the only exception to my
general dislike of the colored race upon leaving high school.
I lost track of these former classmates shortly after I entered
high school; and it was not until recently, after several other
happenings had changed my former viewpoint, that I again came
into contact with one of them. From a feeling of resentment that
I should have to live in the same world with them, I have come
to regard the Negro as a capable, interesting, and useful citizen,
worthy to become an integral part of our nation. My first expe-
riences that helped to change my viewpoint happened at S. B.,
where there are quite a few Negroes in attendance. In one of
my classes, a physical education class, I was paired off with a
Negro girl of rather unpleasant appearance. Not wanting to
raise an objection, I resigned myself to the idea of having her
for a partner and was therefore agreeably surprised to find that
my partner was one of the quickest and most skillful athletes in
the class, and that, instead of her being a hindrance to my
progress, I was the one usually at fault when we were beaten.
A feeling of elation at our final winning, and the high score was
no doubt responsible for the cordiality of my manner toward the
girl the rest of the semester and the basis for the friendly inter-
course we had in a later class.
In another field also I found a Negro to be my equal, if not my
superior. In a class in story writing and literary criticism, a
colored girl was one of the brightest and most talented members
of the class. We spent many periods preparing our stories, and
her criticisms and suggestions were of great value and aid to me.
It was after several other similar experiences that I again met the
Negro girl of my grammar-school acquaintance, and I was not
at all surprised to find her an accomplished musician, a book-
keeper, and an accredited pharmacist. She was well known in
musical circles in our city and is drawing a large salary at her
trade of pharmacy. We had a long talk and found many points
of common interest. She had attended college and had gone to
several other schools, including a musical conservatory and a
business college. She is now working in a drug store and fills
prescriptions, attends entirely to the business end of a busy branch
post office located in the store, and is teaching music at night
and in her spare time. She is charming and well educated and
has introduced me to several of her friends who are also of a high
type of Negro.
These instances that I have quoted represent Negroes of a new
REVERSALS OF RACE ATTITUDES
131
type that are coming more and more into prominence, led by
Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. DuBois, and other Negro leaders.
of recent years.7
82. I feel much more friendly now toward the Japanese than
I did twelve years ago. Twelve years ago I was on the mission
field and visited in Japan. I heard some reports about the
trickiness, insincerity, and troublesomeness of this race from the
very lips of missionaries and others who knew the Japanese very
well. For instance, I was told of a certain missionary who was
traveling through Japan. She had purchased a ticket which was
supposed to take her to a certain destination. On the way she
changed her mind, for very necessary reasons, and decided to
stop off a few stations before she reached her intended destination.
This she did, and went immediately to the house of a missionary
friend. It was about nine o'clock at night. She was ill and
prepared to go to bed. Ten minutes after her arrival at this
friend's house, however, the place was surrounded by police who
banged upon the door in a most unceremonious way, demanding
that the last arrival, the white woman, be brought to them. The
missionary replied that her friend was sick and that she was
unable to see them until early morning, when she would take the
next train to her destination. The Japanese officers replied
she would not be allowed to stop over until the next
that her ticket read through to such and such a place
she had no right to stop off, under any conditions, buying or
new ticket, or anything and that she would have to spend the
time in the police station until the early morning train. The
sick woman tried to get a little rest, but it was impossible, although
her missionary friend endeavored to convince the officers that
everything was all right.
They kept up the pounding through the night and were not
satisfied until they had put the white woman on the train that
was to take her to her destination. They could not understand
why she could possibly want to stop anywhere short of that place,
and they would receive no explanations of any kind.
Again, when we landed in various Japanese ports, they were
very discourteous in their examinations of all on board, before
they would allow any Americans to land. We might have under-
stood the first instance cited, if it had been during the war, but
it was not. It was just their way of doing things. Then, again,
in coming to California, we heard all kinds of terrible stories
7 Social Distance Studies.
132
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
about Japanese, how they had poisoned a certain woman who
would not lease land to them, etc. I have had Japanese gardeners
treat me rudely and lie to me, and I knew they were lying, just
for their own convenience, rather than put up a few vegetable
plants that were in plain sight. They had more important engage-
ments, so told me they did not have the plants. I should have
stated that in going through China we heard all the time about
the faithfulness and honesty of the Chinese, but only of the
dishonesty of the Japanese. Even the Japanese themselves will
not trust their own people in banks, etc., but, rather, put in the
honest Chinese. Of course, in China no one would trust the
Japanese, so we were told. Then again, in Japan, I was at first
rather shocked because the Japanese would not get up in a street
car that was crowded and offer me a seat. I was often the only
woman in a car, yet they all let me stand. All these things brought
about a general dislike for the nation as a whole, although I adored
picturesque Japan.
7
As to the change of attitude which I now possess, this came
about when I really began to know the Japanese, when they began
to open up their hearts to me and tell me of their difficulties,
ing that I was naturally sympathetic, regardless of race. I was
ested in ong around on case studies, visiting Japanese
he.e. I began to get into the very inside of this much
urstood race and to see their side of the situation. When
understood the terrible way the Japanese were being treated
here in California, I was very sorry for them, and began to bear
with them their cruel treatment, to feel ashamed of my own race,
and to realize that in many respects the Japanese were ahead of
us. As I began to understand their customs and manners, I saw
that I had misunderstood them.
I could give dozens of examples, but one will be enough.
Perhaps you know a Japanese laughs when we would cry. He
will tell you of the death of his son, the most terrible tragedy
that could befall him, in a laughing manner. He laughs when
things hurt him most or are most serious. This custom we think
almost as incongruous as that of the Chinese wearing white as a
mourning color while we wear black. I think the great bulk of
ill-feeling between races is just that lack of understanding of the
point of view of each. As I have visited and gotten acquainted
with the Japanese, I see how superior they are to us in the many
ways in which they are often thought to be inferior, judged by
those who do not know them. I wish my home were as clean,
REVERSALS OF RACE ATTITUDES
133
my children as neat and courteous and well-trained as those of
the Japanese in whose homes I have visited. I can say the same
of the Hindu homes in the city. In the Japanese Christian
churches, in the schools, in the debating societies, in contests, the
Japanese excel. The teachers in the schools invariably declare
that the Japanese are their best students. In the university I
have some Japanese friends. They are much more informed,
more interesting, and better company than many of the American
students. This can also be said of the Chinese and other oriental
students. I would like to be as well equipped as they when it
comes to brains. The Japanese, I believe, is the coming race of
power in the world. They cannot be kept down. The Americans
tried to keep them out of the best schools in Hawaii, setting a
very high English test for entrance. This only spurred the Japanese
on to greater work. They specialized, particularly in English, and
passed the entrance tests above the Americans. They are bound
to have the best along all lines.
I have no race prejudice as such, I believe. The question of
marriage with oriental races or with mulattoes is a matter of
logic of expediency rather than race prejudice.
the results in the Orient of marriage between, say the Inui anu
the white, in which we get the Eurasian, a useless, weak, deg raded
product — neither one thing nor the other, only the weaknesses
of both races. That is not so true of the Chinese and the white
as it is in most of the other cases.8
A study of these materials gives an idea of the actual
ways in which reversals, both from friendly to antipathetic,
and from antipathetic to friendly, both sudden and gradual,
take place. By examining these, procedures may be devised
for preventing unnecessary losses of racial good will, and
for transforming prejudice into friendliness. The impact
of a series of favorable contacts, providing there is not too
much deep-seated prejudice to be overcome, and providing
there are no intervening adverse experiences, usually brings
about a reversal. It is wise, therefore, to exercise control
over as many conditions as possible under which racial con-
tacts occur.
8 Pacific Coast Race Relations Survey.
134 IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
PROJECTS
1. Choose any reversal of attitude (preferably a race attitude)
that you have experienced, and describe the factors accompanying
the change.
2. Compare the reversals from antipathetic to friendly, and
from friendly to antipathetic, in as many different ways as possible.
3. Compare sudden reversals with gradual reversals from as
many different angles as you can.
4. Work out an educational program for either an urban or a
rural neighborhood whereby reversals from unfriendly to friendly
attitudes may be effected on the part of natives toward immigrants.
5. Compare the full meaning and process of mutation of a racial
attitude with the mutation of any other type of attitude.
6. Write a short story in which there are at least two reversals
of race attitudes.
REVERSALS IN ATTITUDES
BRANDENBURG, B., Imported Americans, Chap. XX. Stokes, 1903.
J., On Becoming an American, Chap. V. Jones, 1919.
COOL IDGE, MARY R., Chinese Immigration, Chap.
Holt,
XIV.
1,909.
FAIRCHILD, H. P., Immigration, Chaps. XVII, XX. Macmillan,
1925.
LIPSKY, A., "The Political Mind of Foreign-born Americans,"
Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 85, pp. 393-403.
PANUNZIO, C., Immigration Crossroads. Macmillan, 1927.
STERN, ELIZABETH G., My Mother and I. Macmillan, 1917.
CHAPTER X
COUNTER-ATTITUDES
Racial attitudes are not always simple reactions to re-
pulsive or attractive stimuli. They are often counter-
reactions to other racial attitudes. This development of
racial attitudes illustrates circular responses. One aggrava-
tion or imagined aggravation leads to another ad infinitum.
.
A newly arrived immigrant may act cautiously, because
of the strangeness of the "new" social environment. He
may respond slowly, if at all, to advances made to him.
But his caution may be charged by the natives as back-
wardness or even stupidity, and in consequence he may be
viewed as a curiosity. He is ignored or else made fun of.
In turn, he senses the meaning of the furtive glances at him,
withdraws further" within himself," and acts more strangely
than previously. The natives withdraw, and social distance
both ways increases. He cannot now seek their acquaint-
ance without such a move being charged against him, and
they cannot approach him without being regarded with
supreme suspicion.
-
Segregation. — In a distinctly different way, the situation
of the Negro in the United States illustrates the operation
of counter-race attitudes. He prefers segregation and yet
fears it. White people segregate the Negro, but in so doing
accord him a lower status. The Negro wishes to work out
"his own salvation" in his own way and with his own
people. He does not wish " favors" from the white race;
but in accepting segregation, he finds that it does not give
him full status, and thus is obnoxious. He does not wish
assimilation with white people lest that should mean the
135
136
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
F
passing of his race. He is not happy in segregation, for
the label of partial status is unbearable. He is struggling
up from low cultural levels to higher levels, but with the loss
of his race facing him on the one hand, and with denial of
full status, on the other. All people are willing to fight for
status, and so the Negro is moving not only into segregation,
but also into a fighting mood. The conflict of attitudes is
well illustrated by the Negro who states the situation as
follows:
83. Although I'm an American-born Negro, I do not want to
belong to any groups other than those of my own race. The
Negro does not want intermarriage with any other group but his
own race. Where he has deliberately violated this rule, he is
ostracized from his own race. All he wants is a real, equal
opportunity to vote, education, and recognition in economic,
literary, and other ways, according to his ability-in other
words status. When he does something worth while, he wants
to be considered just as good as a white man who does well.¹
The Jew often finds himself in a complicated situation.
He strives to get ahead, but in so doing arouses adverse
attitudes against him. He reacts against these, thereby
displaying his worst nature. Still more antipathy against
him is aroused, and the race situation changes from bad to
intolerable. He easily becomes the victim of circular-
response situations. The antipathy generally expressed
against Russian Jews, says a German Jew, is credited to
their habit of not assimilating. But this failure is accounted
for by the rebuffs which they receive when they attempt to
mix with Americans. The latter think of them as being
dirty, radical, and disagreeable; of the German Jews as
being too forward, of both as thinking too much of them-
selves and as being characterized by bickering and littleness.
Hence, their attempts toward assimilating are not welcomed.
Thus the chasm widens and widens. Adverse impressions.
1 Social Distance Studies.
COUNTER-ATTITUDES
137
on the part of both Americans and Jews lead to new adverse
reactions. The process acquires a momentum hard to stop
and turn back.
The mulatto, likewise, is often hopelessly confused. If
born out of wedlock, he bears the stigma that usually be-
longs to one or both of his parents. If his father be a white
man, he never knows advice or care from his own father.
His mother, often uneducated, gives him limited training
in a deficient environment. Often he has the appearance of
a white person, but he has been brought up in the Negro's
culture. He may have a white man's temperament but
live in a colored man's environment a situation that is
baffling. If he secures an education and aspires to success
in the white man's world, he is halted at the door of the
professions, if not sooner.
He is ignored, and status is denied him no matter how
earnestly he may wish to "make good." He reacts against
both the colored and the white man's worlds but cannot
establish a world of his own.
2
White Negroes. — Unique counter-attitudes are expe-
rienced by the "white Negroes," who in order to maintain
status play the role of white persons in the white man's
environment. The following illustrations relate to only one
side of this situation. Only those individuals who hold
their racial identity as Negroes could be approached by the
interviewer. A study of those clinging to their white blood
would be revealing, but very difficult. Because of the con-
sequences which would naturally follow any self-admitted
black blood in those who have severed any relations with
it, information would be almost impossible to obtain.
Interesting situations are revealed in the following
illustrations.
2 The illustrative materials used here have been obtained by
Juanita Ellsworth, a social-research interviewer from the University
of Southern California.
138
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
Miss A., who is a young college graduate, became a
teacher in school where there are many little Spanish
children. "Soon after my appointment, the principal came
into the room one day and asked me to interpret the con-
versation of two of these children. I declared my ignorance
of the Spanish language and the principal was surprised.
Turning to me, she said, "Aren't you Spanish?" "No,"
I replied, "What are you, then?" she asked. I told her,
and she looked as though she were astounded. A few hours
later I was summoned to the office and requested to resign.
She said that a terrible mistake had been made as I had
been mistaken for Spanish. You can see that the disad-
vantage of my acknowledging my race is only too obvious.
However, on the other hand, I could never have been happy
there had I been forced into deception."
Miss B. is head girl in a large and responsible business
concern. When she secured the position, no question about
her race was asked, and she vouchsafed none. When asked
why, she replied, "Do you honestly believe I could have
gotten that position or any decent one if it were known
what I am? I'd likely be offered a maid's job. As it is
I am paid the highest salary and given more authority than
any girl in the office. My attitude toward my associates
there is restrained. Sometimes I am inclined to be bitter
when I reflect that the girls who profess the deepest devo-
tion would turn in a minute if they knew of my one-eighth
black blood. I never accept any of the office hospitality.
I offer the subterfuge that my mother's illness prevents
my entertaining and that I can't accept hospitality of others
when I can't reciprocate. The idea of my cutting loose
from my race is even more preposterous to me than aban-
doning my family. I'd work as black any time if I were
given the same opportunities and advantages."
Dr. C., who has associated almost strictly with white
students during his college days, explains his actions as
COUNTER-ATTITUDES
139
follows: "It didn't take me long to realize that if I was
going to have any fun - really — I'd have to forget any
black ancestry I had. Too, in my associations here I wasn't
always being depressed by any possibilities of insults and
discriminations. Negro students don't get anything out of
white colleges but work and pity. My passing as white
was intentional and deliberate, and I'd do it over again.
The advantages were my unhampered participation in
activities and human treatment I received. Of course, I
couldn't really leave my race permanently, because I have
too many fond remembrances. When I get ready to marry,
I'll pick out a girl just like myself, not that I adore a light
girl more than others but because, when we go to shows
and travel, we can do so without any discrimination."
Mrs. D., a young woman who has just recently married,
stated that in working prior to her marriage she had never
any unpleasant or unusual experiences.
"The most ap-
palling thing that ever happened to me, however," she
stated, "occurred at the time of my marriage. When my
intended husband and I appeared at the license bureau to
secure our marriage license, they told me white women
weren't allowed to marry Negroes in this state. My hus-
band became furious, and it was only after heated words
and witnesses that my statement was accepted. Too, when
my husband and I go out, the curious attention that we
attract makes my husband disgusted. You can see, then,
that my color, although an advantage when I used it to
'get by' has proved rather a nuisance to me since. I
sometimes feel inclined to wear a sign 'I am a Negro,' so
that my husband won't be the recipient of such hostile
glances from every white man that notices us."
Miss E., who is a young girl so very white that the keenest
of examination cannot reveal any trace of Negro features,
complains of her experiences in a manner similar to the
above. "My color has been an awful nuisance to me." She
140
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
explains, "Frequently when I was in school various teachers
reprimanded me for becoming so intimate with little
colored children. One sent a note home to my mother
stating my unnatural attraction for little black girls. Once
a white man threatened to slap my little brother for daring
to pull a white girl's hair. And right now, what advantage
is my color aside from theaters and tea rooms? You girls
are asked or invited out by young men who wouldn't think
of taking me any place because they are afraid they will be
embarrassed because I look like white. I sometimes wonder,
if I crossed over, if my troubles would be over. I couldn't
do that, though, because everybody that I love is on this
side. No, I've never deceived any one. I've never had
occasion to. Those whom my color deceive I usually
enlighten, to their horror."
Miss F., who worked with both men and women in a large
store, said that they never suspected she was colored
they'd have died, she said, if they thought I even knew any
colored persons. They ridiculed every Negro that passed
the store. "Sometimes it used to fill me with unholy glee
to hear them condemn all Negroes after having lavished
such flattering attentions upon me. Sometimes their re-
marks would make my blood boil. I left there primarily
because I was tired of them. Too, they were a much lower
type of people than I was accustomed to meeting in my own
group. I'd much rather work in an office in our own group
if I could, because I might lose my temper sometime."
Miss G. says that she doesn't know whether she is or has
been "passing" or not. "They never asked me what I was,
and I never told them. I like the girls I'm working with
very much, though. They are a fine group. It has been
an advantage to me to be able to work here, because I have
had an opportunity of knowing and studying them in a
different way than I could otherwise. There is a certain
culture that representative white people have that I admire
COUNTER-ATTITUDES
141
- not enough to give up my own race for, but, nevertheless,
I have more faith in them and less skepticism as a result
of my contacts."
Mr. H., who is a mechanic, said that he had never hidden
the fact that he was colored, although his appearance could
easily have allowed him to do so. "I always have been
treated well. Most of the fellows think that my fairness
gives me a distinction that my darker brothers lack. It
has meant that I could go where I wanted, and I guess that
counts. The most unpleasant experience I had happened
not so long ago. The workmen from a rival shop complained
to the owner of the restaurant where most of the fellows in
our neighborhood lunch that he was allowing a Negro to
eat at his place. The man politely informed me and asked
if I'd mind coming to the back in order to keep from hurting
his business. I hold my racial consciousness above any
material gain. Never could I forget my parents for a job
or a few extra privileges."
Mr. I., another young man with a very influential position,
states that he is going to resign shortly. "The strain in
keeping up this deception is terrible. I know I'll not have
the salary, but I'll have peace. I never go out with a
colored person without being in mortal fear that some of
my business associates will see me. On the other hand,
I can't go out with some of my business associates without
fear of meeting some of my own people. The most cruel
experience I've had was the occasion when I was compelled
to walk by my brother and his wife because she showed
undoubtable signs of being a Negro. I can never get away
from even the little black blood that's in me sometimes
I wish I could. I know I can't, so I'm going to quit even
this pretense soon."
Miss J., who is a student at a prominent dancing academy,
reports: "I guess I deceived my coworkers until I 'got in '
with them. There had never been any question raised
142
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
about me until finally some one saw me out one evening
with a colored boy. Of course, then, when I was asked
about it I admitted my own race. They were surprised,
but not as much as I was when they continued to treat me
nicely. I really expected to have been snubbed when they
found out about me. Of course, if I had had brown skin,
I probably would never have had the opportunity to make
such interesting and cordial friendships. The girls have
occasionally wanted to sympathize with me, saying, 'It
must be awfully hard on you. Why you're as white as we
are!' I said, 'Oh, I don't know I've never had many
serious difficulties.' I sometimes think I am more fortunate
than my dark sister whose color prevents her even getting
the chance of making good that I have. I've always lived
with and mingled with my own people. Whether or not
I could do differently is a question I've never analyzed.
Others do. Maybe if the circumstances were different and
my racial ties less permanent, I might, too—but really
I don't know."
M
These Negroes, whether immigrant or not, have "coun-
tered" successfully in an environment which puts a
premium upon being white and a reproach upon being
colored. Nearly all the persons who have crossed the color
line, as indicated in the cases cited, have done so because
of the economic opportunities afforded thereby. The cross-
ing of the color line, says the interviewer, was not due to a
dissatisfaction with the Negro group, but to a desire for the
advantages open to white persons and closed to colored
persons.
Second Generation. Another type of social situation
where race attitudes become highly complicated is illus-
trated by the American-born Chinese and Japanese in the
United States. By education in the schools and by other
means, they become American to a surprising degree. But
in adolescence and early maturity they find themselves the
COUNTER-ATTITUDES
143
victims of adverse social and occupational stimuli. Their
ripening American responses are checked and turned back
by ostracism.
""
But when their attention returns to things oriental, they
discover that they are out of touch with oriental life, that
they do not know the native tongue of the "old country
well, that they have become separated in thought and feel-
ing from the older generation, and that they cannot return
to the old life. They have responded favorably to an
environment that refuses to receive them fully and have
lost touch with the old environment. They are people
without a country through no fault of their own. Conflicts
disorganize them; race attitudes are hopelessly tangled.
84. Not long ago I met a Japanese boy who was reared in
America and who did not pay attention to his race. He played
and associated with American boys. Then suddenly one day he
found he was being discriminated against. He became conscious
that he was not allowed to associate freely with the other white
boys. While thoroughly Americanized, he was isolated from
American contacts by race. He decided to go to Japan. Upon
arriving in Japan, where he supposed he would feel at home, he
was as isolated as in America. Their customs and habits were
as strange to him as they were to other Americans. He returned
to America to lead a life of isolation. He was a man without
a country, cut off from America by race and from Japan by
custom.3
85. We are neither Americans nor Japanese. The Americans
will not receive us into their group; we cannot go back to the
life on the plantations. If we went back to Japan, conditions
there would be so different that we would feel like aliens. We are
urged by American teachers to go on to college, but often we find
that we would have been far happier without an American educa-
tion. Why are we urged to go on to school when we are never
placed on an equal basis with Americans? The color line is not
drawn at your colleges. We are permitted to attend your schools
and donate our money to help build better social institutions. Why
are we not good enough to belong to them? We, the second gen-
3 Pacific Coast Race Relations Survey.
144
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
eration, who by virtue of our birth are American citizens, why
are we considered alien Orientals ? 4
It is often necessary or at least natural to counter and
recounter - to zigzag one's racial attitude course. The
"second-generation" immigrant is often the victim; par-
ticularly, the Oriental-American is likely to suffer beyond
comprehension. The following case is not untypical.
86. I was distrustful of the Japanese. I did not like them. Their
mode of living was so strange. I had not a single thing in common
with them. But what happened? During my early high-school
years there were many clashes of wills between my father and
me. He was old Japan, and I was the new. To me, it is interest-
ing to note that up to this period I had never thought of myself
as a Japanese, but always as an American. I was never conscious
of the difference. To me, Japan was a foreign country. I knew
absolutely nothing about it. I knew more of Europe and of
America, than of Japan. I was more interested in studying about
India and China than about Japan.
Gradually, as the circle in which I moved became larger, I met
different people of various temperaments. My simple outlook
on life became complex, and more complex, as I unwillingly
realized that I was not to be classed as one of them. It was one
of the most heartbreaking periods of my life. I wanted to be
American; I wondered why God had not made me an American.
If I couldn't be an American, then what was I? A Japanese?
No. But not an American, either. My life background is
American. My ideals of life, of education, of religion, were all
American. I knew the Constitution, the oath of allegiance; I
knew the history of America from its earliest beginnings. I knew
its strength and weaknesses, and its drabness and its romance.
I loved America and its ideals, because her ideals were my ideals.
I used to rise up in wrath against any criticism which might be
made against America, my country. But they tell me I am not
an American; that I cannot ever be assimilated for no reason
which I have ever been able to understand. . . .
During the last five years I have been slowly educating myself
in things Japanese. As I learned their customs and their point of
view, I have liked them immensely. And during these last five
4 Ibid.
COUNTER-ATTITUDES
145
years I have become bitter in my attitude toward certain stand-
ards of the American people. The rash, unjust statements, the
utter lack of human courtesy, the various laws of California,
have all made me feel heart-heavy. . . These things have
not only hurt me materially, but have lessened my faith in
human honesty, in human good will, and in even the religion of
Christ which the people of American think we "heathens" need
so badly.
""
My contact with certain Americans has given me a certain
reserve which has often branded me as a cold, expressionless
person without any feeling." When I am with those whom I love,
I am my natural self. Japanese are classed as cold, unemotional
people. But what of individuals like myself who are naturally
impulsive and emotional? It is not because of my racial heredity
that I am often cold or expressionless; it is my contact with
certain classes of people who have taught me the wisdom of
keeping my thoughts to myself.5
The converts made by a missionary are also likely to
experience counter-race attitudes. They have been pulled
away from their own racial kind but have not accepted all
the culture patterns of the missionary. They maintain
conflicting culture traits for instance, the religious against
family traits. Their adjustments are contradicted by well-
established sentiments. Moreover, they are living the new
life while still surrounded by all the powerful objects of
sentiment of the old life. They are often isolated from the
home folks while living in the home folks' territory. When
the missionary leaves, the convert's loyalty becomes
strained. The old racial pull becomes strong again, and
yet to return would be unsatisfactory after having known
the new life.
It is fair to say that a large amount of racial antipathy
is due to frictions or "circular-response
"" causes. Dislike
stimulates dislike, antipathy reaps antipathy, and fortu-
nately, good will leads to more good will. The emotions
of fear and hatred on the part of the native rather than real
5 Ibid.
146
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
:
weaknesses of the immigrants cause a considerable share of
racial prejudice.
By the same token, friendly attitudes of natives as well as
the worth of the immigrants are fundamental. The phycho-
logical process appears to be the same. Either antipathy
or good will emerge in stimuli which arouse further antip-
athy or good will. Psychosocial momentum is often the
main story in a racial conflict situation.
A person's real racial problems sometimes occur when a
person's direct racial contacts contradict his derivative ex-
periences, or vice versa. A deadlock may occur in a person's
reactions and result in a static condition - a theme signif-
icant enough to be treated separately.
PROJECTS
1. Give an account from your experiences where a minor inci-
dent has started a strong prejudice or friendliness momentum.
2. What kind of an educational procedure can be inaugurated
whereby counter-race prejudice movements may be overcome?
3. Compare the counter prejudice with the counter friendliness
momentums in as many specific ways as possible.
4. Indicate a program for meeting the needs of American-born
Chinese or Japanese who have "outgrown" China or Japan but
who are not received in the United States.
"
5. Take five unfavorable attitudes of your own toward as many
different races and estimate the rôle that circular-response
developments have played.
6. Choose five races toward which you have an unfavorable
attitude and estimate in each the proportion that circular response
reactions have played in each.
""
COUNTER-ATTITUDES
BRAWLEY, B., A Social History of the American Negro, pp. 267–81.
Macmillan, 1921.
DETWEILER, F. G., The Negro Press in the United States, Chap. VI.
University of Chicago Press, 1922.
IYENAGA, T. AND SATO, K., Japan and the California Problem,
Chap. VI. Putnam, 1921.
COUNTER-ATTITUDES
147
MILLER, H. A., Races, Nations and Classes, Chaps. III, IV, XIV.
Lippincott, 1924.
Panunzio, C., Immigration Crossroads. Macmillan, 1927.
PRICE, M. T., Christian Missions and Oriental Civilizations, Chaps.
IV-VIII. Shanghai, 1924.
CHAPTER XI
STATIC ATTITUDES
Important and common as are changes in race attitudes,
static attitudes are still more common.¹ Here are vast
areas of inertia. In a case study of persons who were invited
to record all the more favorable and the less favorable
changes in their opinions that had occurred in the last ten
years toward the enumerated races, a total of 480 changes
were noted out of a possible 4290 changes, or 8.9 per cent.
After allowing for changes that were not important enough
to have made a lasting impression or that were not reported,
we shall have remaining a large percentage of unchanged
opinions and attitudes.
Personal interview materials indicate that these relatively
permanent or static attitudes are: (1) markedly unfavor-
able, (2) potential, and (3) markedly favorable. The first
and the third may each be of such a pronounced or radical
character that nothing can shake them. They are based on
emotionally patterned reactions. The second is different.
It is usually due (a) to lack of information or (b) to in-
formation that is general and somewhat equally divided-
for and against.
Seven Types. A more detailed analysis brings out
seven types of static attitude situations: (1) that due to an
overwhelming fear and hatred of a dominant race; (2) that
due to a consuming disgust for "low "types of culture traits;
(3) that due to a sense of dynamic loyalty to one's own
M
1 An elaboration of materials first published under the title of
"Static Social Distance" in the Journal of Applied Sociology, Vol.
XI, pp. 579 ff.
148
STATIC ATTITUDES
149
race and to an overmastering superiority complex; (4) that
due to an absence of knowledge; (5) that due to general
knowledge about equally favorable and unfavorable;
(6) that due to a brotherhood-of-man cosmopolitanism and
idealism; and (7) that due to a rationalized philosophy of
judging all races on a basis of personal worth rather than
of racial heredity. Illustrations of these relatively per-
manent attitudes have been given in several of the preced-
ing chapters. The analyses here therefore will not be
extensive or the illustrations many.
1. Well-established fear-hatred behavior patterns are
primary factors preventing change of attitudes. Fear
arising out of a real or seeming attack upon one's social
groups operates in the case of the Armenian's consistently
adverse reactions toward Turks, or of the Polish Jew's
reactions toward the Poles. An Armenian, for instance,
says, "We are century-long enemies of the Turks. Their
oppressions have always been unbearable. I never see one
in Christian America but I shudder from head to foot and
start to run." The permanency of such an attitude is easily
understood. A Polish Jew reports that his grandfather
taught him to hate the Poles and that "I can never forget
the brutal murder of my father. I have always hated
them (Poles) with an undying hatred, and I don't see how
it can ever change, not until memory grows dim." The
permanent element in this expression is also evident.
Hatred naturally follows fear. A race that is thought of
as "bloodthirsty" is hated as a matter of course. Fear-
hatred patterns are tenacious; they are ingrained feeling
complexes, coupled with rationalized particularizations
against whole races.
87. One does not hear the German situation talked over any
more. I wonder if people all feel an unforgivable attitude toward
them and try to cover it up or whether my animosity is of such
an unusual depth that I can't seem to forgive or forget the stories
150
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
I heard of the Germans during the war. Since peace has been
restored, many of the stories have been discredited, but still my
first reaction to the word "Germany" is one of hatred. I will
be very much interested to follow this attitude of mine in the
next few years to see if it will change.2
2. Uncleanliness, animal-like breeding, coarse per-
sonal appearance, and so forth repeatedly displayed by
members of any race pave the way for a continuing dis-
gust for such a race on the part of all but racially sym-
pathetic people. No particular fear or hatred is experienced,
but an overwhelming disgust. Portuguese immigrants of
the illiterate type are referred to as "filthy," as "living
like pigs," as "breeding like rats." "They live on a lower
plane than ordinary human beings, and there is no hope
for them." The custom prevalent among the men of certain
undeveloped Slavic peoples of beating their wives gives race
antipathy toward Slavs a relatively permanent aspect. A
mental caste attitude develops. Organic feelings of re-
pulsiveness offset by no favorable experiences frequently
account for static race attitudes of this unfavorable type.
3. A strong sense of race loyalty and kinship holds many
persons steadfast in their favorable attitudes toward their
((
((
"}
own races,” irrespective of how guilty various members of
the given races may be of despicable deeds. "I am English,"
says one person, " and have always admired the Canadians.
They are English anyway. They are a part of my own
racial family." A loyal son of Erin boldly declares: "The
Irish is my own race, and of course I have always liked
them and always shall."
An overmastering race egoism leads many persons into
stable superiority attitudes toward less fortunate races.
Pitying reactions and a certain friendliness are character-
istic of this type of static race attitudes. A patronage
complex becomes rooted in taboo and convention. The
2 Social Distance Studies.
STATIC ATTITUDES
151
wish for recognition is also satisfied, providing the "in-
ferior races" play a double rôle. As long as status is not
invaded, friendliness within certain limits is ordinarily
expressed toward the lower caste race.
88. I know my association with Negroes is passive; I am not
interested in talking to them, being associated with them, or
wanting them around. Recently coming from Texas, I suppose
have too much prejudice to quickly overcome. They have
always been washwomen, cooks, and the like. And my love for
them has been of the quality of one who loves a faithful and
worthy servant, or any worthy inferior. One treats an inferior
with possibly more kindness than an equal, but the feeling of
condescension is there. Intermarriage between white and black
is intolerable to me. I don't mind them sitting in class next
to me. It makes me feel cosmopolitan and thus balances in
personal vanity what might be overcome by racial prejudice.³
89. I was brought up on stories of Indian life in the early days.
Grandfather was a doctor, and he often had work to do among
the Indians. When there was any danger of trouble between
white and Indian, some of his Indian friends would always come
to warn him. However, no serious trouble ever developed. As
far as I can learn, grandmother had the rare knack of knowing
how to handle the Indian, just the right mixture of sternness and
friendship. I know, when she died, that the Indians for miles
came to the funeral.
Growing up with this background of family friendship for the
Indians, I have always had that comfortable feeling of friendly
patronage toward them.*
4. Absence of social contacts and lack of racial expe-
riences give many people attitudes of permanent aloofness
from races that they do not understand. No new racial
experiences, either direct or derivative, bring about changes.
I have never known members of the race (Serbo-Croatian)
and do not have any personal acquaintance with it. My
feeling is neutral." In referring to the Syrians, another
person states that "
no members of that race have ever
crossed my path." "I am neither favorable nor unfavorable
4 Ibid.
3 Social Distance Studies.
152
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
to them—just do not know them, that's all. I have never
had any experience with the group and so have not changed
in one way or another so far as I know." Still another
cannot discover that his opinion has changed concerning
any racial groups in the last years, because of the fact that
he has lived in a distinctly American community. No
immigrants or Negroes live there. No contacts with any
other races have been made, and there" have been no dis-
tinct reactions either favorably or unfavorably."
5. General knowledge of an impersonal sort is accom-
panied by a potential attitude. Status is not invaded.
Emotional reactions have not been aroused. No occasion has
yet arisen whereby definite action one way or the other
has been stimulated. The knowledge in hand is of a non-
personal, noncompetitive nature. "I don't know what I do
think about the Dalmatians," says one American. "I
understand that they have a fine physique and good vitality,
but on the other hand they are reported to be backward
culturally. They are 'humanity in the rough,' and I sup-
pose can be refined. I am reserving my judgment until
I know more about them."
6. A brotherhood-of-man cosmopolitanism is often the
foundation of a stable race friendliness. Friendly feelings
arising out of a long series of favorable experiences with
certain races become crystallized into permanent attitudes
of race friendliness. Religious idealism may also account
for the even tenor of general racial good will that many
persons manifest. An oppression complex often brings a
deeply human and relative sympathy. "Being a member
of a physician's family, I early discovered that pain and
sorrow are no respecters of person or color."
90. The Indians are a racial group toward which I have always
had a friendly feeling. I think this is due to my early contact
with them. About six miles from my home town there was an
Indian reservation. We always had an Indian woman come to
STATIC ATTITUDES
153
our house to do the washing. My mother could speak Spanish,
and the Indian could also, so they always had a visit back and
forth. We gave them things to take home with them besides
their wages, bought their baskets, and they in return would often
bring us presents of pasoli or meat.
In the summertime Indian families would come and camp at
our ranch while they worked harvesting the apricots and almonds.
I used to watch them cooking and eating. They always seemed
to have such a good time visiting with each other.
Once we had a family of Indians come in from the desert to
work for us. They had had little contact with whites. They
came the first two years with pack horses and riding horses for
the father and oldest boys. The mother and younger children
walked. The third year they appeared with a wagon, and all
rode. They were getting educated. This particular family used
to make dresses for the mother and oldest girl. I believe another
reason I felt an interest in the Indians was because my mother's
people were among those who crossed the plains, arriving here.
in 1853. They were among the first settlers in the San Gorgonio
Pass.5
7. A rationalized philosophy of life that judges people on
the basis of personal worth and social achievement rather
than on racial connections guarantees dependable racial
attitudes. This tendency leads one to seek the racial under-
standing through the study of facts and of their deeply
human meanings. A training in anthropology and ethnology
that has led one to live with many races and to understand
their history, their struggles, and their shortcomings is
important. "Being a member of an oppressed group," says
a Negro, "I have been reared to respect racial suffering."
A Jewish young man recalls that his parents have instilled
in him the belief that there are no racial characteristics
that should cause hatred by other races and that ill feelings
and prejudices are the result of not knowing each other's
point of view. "That there are individual characteristics
which make for good and bad in all races has always been
clear to me." A Negro reports that, if it hadn't been for
5 Social Distance Studies.
154
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
his careful training, he would have developed a distinct
dislike for the white race, because of the mistreatment
which his race has received. As a boy and youth he was
never told of the prejudices of white people against his
race, and hence he has been able to stave off a dislike for
the white race.
If there be different degrees of changelessness, the first
two (negative) and the third (positive) are least likely
to be modified seriously. The first two are "fixed" in
adverse and defensive emotional patterns organized about
the urge for security; the third is a form of ethnocentrism
"fixed" in dogmatic beliefs centering about the wish for
recognition. The fourth and fifth types are the most open-
minded of all and most likely to have their stability upset.
The sixth and seventh have vulnerable spots that are most
easily reached by a series of experiences that would under-
mine status.
PROJECTS
1. Compare static unfavorable with static favorable attitudes
regarding race.
2. Compare the static favorable and unfavorable race attitudes
with the static potential attitudes.
3. Compare the merits and demerits of possessing a highly
developed and fixed race loyalty.
4. Analyze the strong and weak phases of having a strong and
settled race prejudice.
5. Discuss the chief factors leading to a racial superiority
complex, such as the Nordic complex.
6. Describe the process whereby a person develops a cosmo-
politan race attitude.
STATIC ATTITUDES
COOLIDGE, MARY R., Chinese Immigration, Chap. XXII. Holt,
1909.
FAIRCHILD, H. P., The Melting-Pot Mistake, Chap. IX. Little,
Brown, 1926.
STATIC ATTITUDES
155
MILLER, H. A., Races, Nations and Classes, Chap. XII. Lippin-
cott, 1924.
MINITER, EDITH, Our Natupski Neighbors, Chap. V. Holt, 1906.
PRICE, M. T., Christian Missions and Oriental Civilizations, Chap.
II. Shanghai, 1924.
STERN, E. G., My Mother and I, Chap. X. Macmillan, 1919.
THOMAS, W. I., AND ZNANIECKI, F., The Polish Peasant in Europe
and America, Vol. IV, pp. 87–138. Badger, 1920.
PART III
VARIATION
:
REGIONAL AND CULTURE CONTACTS
Racial attitudes vary according to region. The case
materials upon which this chapter is based come from a
number of different regions in the United States, for ex-
ample, New England, New York City, the South, the Middle
West, and the West.¹ In this consideration of race atti-
tudes on a regional basis only those cases have been included
where the extraregional factors are similar; that is to say,
only those studies have been used where factors such as
age-period, educational training, racial grouping, religious
grouping are uniform. The chief remaining difference is
region, and thus the relation of region to race attitudes may
be examined. The racial attitudes of a total of 1725 persons
have been treated in this regional study.
PERCENT
MARRIAGE
AS CHUMS
AS NEIGHBORS
AS OCCUPATIONISTS
AS CITIZENS
AS VISITORS ONLY
AS EXCLUDED ENTIRELY
--
··
CHAPTER XII
10
20
30
M
40
50
60
70
REGION
80
90
TOWARD NEGROES
by Nation
by South
GRAPH I
Comparison of attitudes of 1725 Americans from various parts of the United
States with 200 Americans (white) from the South.
Regional Factors. At the outset the thought may be
advanced that region may make an important difference in
1 The writer is now engaged in gathering data from other countries,
and hopes at a later date to treat the question of social distance
between races upon a world regional basis.
159
160
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
racial attitudes. The classic illustration of regional varia-
tion in race attitudes is the South. In taking the first 200
case studies made in the South and comparing them with the
national total of 1725 studies, differences may be noted.
Graph I, using the social-distance exercise,2 shows the na-
ture of some of these differences. In the South, for instance,
there are fewer favorable reactions to intermarrying with
Negroes than in the United States as a whole, to admitting
Negroes to the white man's social clubs, and to admitting
them to the white man's neighborhoods.
Again, if the case group of 200 white persons in the South
whose racial reactions have been studied be examined with
reference to reactions toward the Negroes, Orientals, and
Mexicans, interesting differences crop out. As indicated by
Graph II, a more friendly feeling is expressed toward the
PERCENT
MARRIAGE
AS CHUMS
AS NEIGHBORS
AS OCCUPATIONISTS
AS CITIZENS
AS VISITORS ONLY
AS EXCLUDED ENTIRELY
--
- A
2
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
REGION
BY SOUTH
Toward Orientals & Mexicans
Toward Negroes
90
GRAPH II
Comparison of attitudes of case groups of 200 Americans (white) from the
South toward Orientals and Mexicans, and Negroes.
Negro than toward Orientals and Mexicans. While there
is antipathy shown toward the Negro, the people of the
South know the good traits of the Negro and feel a real
need of him economically. The Oriental, on the other hand,
sometimes brings up a traditional image of "a Chinaman
with a pigtail and a long knife" or of a "shrewd, aggressive
Jap, the secret agent of the mikado." Mexicans, likewise,
2 Described in Chapter II.
REGIONAL AND CULTURE CONTACTS
161
are often viewed in terms of "bandits." Spatial proximity
plus economic necessity versus spatial distance account for
certain of these differences in cultural attitudes.
A second observation is that regional differences are
accompanied by widespread similarities in attitudes. For
instance, all the main regions of the United States express
marked aversions for the Turk and good will for the Scotch.
Taken by and large, and considering regional reactions to
peoples of forty different racial groups, similarity rather
than difference in racial attitudes prevails. When we con-
sider the attitudes of the different regions of the United
States toward well-known races, such as Italians or Nor-
wegians, the correlations in the main are high and the
standard deviations low.
A third consideration is variation in regional distance.
The greater the spatial distance between regions, the greater
MARRIAGE
AS CHUMS
AS NEIGHBORS -
AS OCCUPATIONISTS
--
PERCENT
AS CITIZENS
AS VISITORS ONLY
AS EXCLUDED ENTIRELY
--
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
REGION
80
90
TOWARD NEGROES
WZZZ by West
by South
GRAPH III
Comparison of attitudes of case groups of 200 Americans from the West and
200 Americans from the South (white).
the likelihood of finding differences in race attitudes. In the
various regions of the South, for instance, the attitudes of
the white people toward the colored do not vary greatly.
The correlations of the race reactions of the citizens of
Florida with those of Tennessee are high. On the Pacific
Coast the attitudes expressed toward the Negro in Washing-
ton and in California are similar. But when the race
162
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
reactions of two regions, as far apart as Florida and the
state of Washington, are compared, noteworthy dissimilar-
ities are evident. By case studies of the race attitudes of
400 persons (200 from the South and 200 from the Pacific
Coast) who represent similar age periods, educational levels,
racial descent, religious reactions, it has been possible to
chart attitudinal differences (Graph III). Moreover, it
has been feasible as shown by Graph III to measure these
differences. These data are confirmed by the personal
interview materials. The coast takes a somewhat friendlier
attitude toward the Negro than does the South, as is to be
expected, but the extent of this greater friendliness is much
less than many "Northerners" would surmise.
PERCENT
MARRIAGE
AS CHUMS
AS NEIGHBORS -
AS OCCUPATIONISTS
•
AS CITIZENS
AS VISITORS ONLY
AS EXCLUDED ENTIRELY
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
REGION
80
90
TOWARD MEXICANS
7777 by Southwest
by South
GRAPH IV
Comparison of attitudes of case groups of 200 Americans from the South
(white) and of 200 Americans from the Southwest.
The differences in these regional reactions are shown by
the personal experience data to be due to differences in
social contacts, not to personal superiority; that is, if the
white people of the coast could exchange places (in both
the regional and social contact senses) with the people of
the South, there would soon be a complete interchange of
race reactions.
By the same methods of analysis, it appears that Florida
and Tennessee react similarly. But the first similarity is
noticeably different from the second (see Graph IV).
REGIONAL AND CULTURE CONTACTS
163
Kansas and California are in the Mexican immigrant belt;
they are extensively agricultural, and need Mexican im-
migrant labor. Moreover, where present even in large
numbers, Mexicans have been docile, nonaggressive, have
invaded nobody's status, and hence arouse little antagonism.
They are not competitors with white labor; they do not
disturb the social status of any group. The economic need
for them is persistent, and friendly attitudes toward them
flourish.
The personal experience materials show that in the South,
on the other hand, the Mexican is not viewed as econom-
ically essential. The need for him is not strong. Moreover,
his worst traits are "played up" in the public eye; the
less reputable Mexican becomes the standard type of
Mexican. On occasion, the Mexican is classed with the
Negro. In comparing the South and the Southwest in their
attitudes toward Mexican immigrants, true regional and
ecological factors function more or less directly.
In the fourth place rural regions are different in racial
attitudes from urban, but the connections between region
and racial attitudes are obviously indirect. In rural dis-
tricts the racial reactions are personal. "Likes" and
"dislikes" rule. There is community uniformity and the
range of "invading " races that will be accepted is smaller
than in the city with its many varieties of regional cultures.
The poorer urban districts, occupied by "downtrodden"
races, do not mind the advent of one more such race even
in considerable numbers. In the wealthy urban districts
the racial reactions are more largely against a "race" as
such. Again, cultural distinctions account for many varia-
tions in regional differences.
A fifth observation is that regional variations in racial
attitudes may depend on differences in racial invasion. A
clear-cut illustration is afforded by the materials of the
Pacific Coast Race Relations Survey. A few years ago
164
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
Florin, California, reacted vigorously against the Japanese;
at the same time the near-by community of Livingston
reacted in friendly ways. In the former the Japanese were
allowed only one main contact with Americans (by Ameri-
cans of course): namely, the economic contact, and that
in a limited way. In the latter they became stockholders
in the bank, members along with Americans in a coöperative
society, attendants at the Y. M. C. A., members of the
American parent-teachers' association, sharers in financing
the community baseball team, the band, the chautauqua,
and so on. No objections have been raised in the schools
of Livingston to Japanese children, except by newly arrived
teachers.
66
What were the differences in the "invasions "? (1) In
Florin the Americans came first, but were later outnum-
bered. In Livingston, the Japanese as a group settled first
and are now outnumbered five to one. Competition" is
far less in Livingston; the numbers are not disturbing.
(2) In Florin the Japanese are of a lower cultural and less
desirable type than in Livingston; the percentage of illit-
eracy is greater. (3) In Florin the Japanese have little
leadership; in Livingston they have had a former Japanese
teacher of agriculture in Japan as a leader. He is a broad-
minded person, anticipating conflicts, and giving considera-
tion to American points of view, instead of just blindly
pushing into the community. These variations in race
invasion are partly, it will be noted, of a cultural nature.
Race invasion itself is sufficient to upset a region's estab-
lished racial mores. If the invading race is likely in any
way to lower the status-social, economic, or otherwise-
of the citizens, then a whole region's race attitudes will
change for the worse, or at least will not manifest
friendliness.
3 For fuller statement see Bogardus E. S., The New Social Re-
search, pp. 227 ff. J. R. Miller Press, Los Angeles, 1926.
REGIONAL AND CULTURE CONTACTS
165
91. Ten years ago I was not particularly interested in the
Japanese one way or the other. About that time a Japanese
family moved into our neighborhood. They had bought their
home in the name of their baby boy. The neighbors naturally
were much opposed, and the quarrel resulted in two or three law
suits. In both of these, the Japanese people were successful
because of the fact that their son was an American-born child.
I was very much interested in the case and, of course, resented
the fact that made it possible for them to become our neighbors.
Although they improved their home very much and were the
tidiest of people, all the other people ignored them completely.*
Coupled with racial invasion as a factor creating regional
differences in racial attitudes is racial competition. As
racial competition varies in different regions, so racial
attitudes vary.
In the southern states the presence
of masses of Negroes is disturbing, while in the Pacific
Coast regions the competition by Japanese immigrants
prior to 1924 upset normal racial attitudes. In New York
City the "competition" of the Irish and the Jews has
created serious disturbances in the race attitudes of the
"natives."
Region and Culture. It appears impossible to separate
regional and cultural factors in accounting for differences
in racial attitudes. If the cultures 5 are similar in different
regions, then the racial attitudes are likely to be similar.
If the cultures are different in the same region, dissimilar-
ities in racial attitudes are likely to be found. A culture
containing a definite race mores may become so embedded
in a region that to separate the two is impossible. Cultural
complexes as the home into which children are born may
lead to such generalizations as "once a Southerner, always
a Southerner," and "what has been born and bred into you,
cannot be removed." Region and culture are complemen-
tary and inseparable.
M
4 Pacific Coast Race Relations Survey.
5 Used in the social anthropological sense and refers to all the ways
of doing and thinking of a social group.
166
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
92. Perhaps the key to the whole situation, that is, to my
feeling concerning the Negro, is that practically all of my life
thus far was lived in the South; and, of course, one who has been
born, bred, and reared in the South is inclined to have a personal
dislike for the Negro.
However, a bit more of explanation may show sufficient cause
(the average Northerner would deny that there is a sufficient
cause) for my feeling. In the majority of the southern states,
the Negro knows that there is a so-called line of distinction
between the white and black race, and he (the Negro) recognizes
the fact that overstepping the line would doubtless cause diffi-
culties; so he knows his place and keeps it even though it may be
against his will. After having come North, I found an entirely
different condition existing and one which it is indeed most diffi-
cult for me to become accustomed to: namely, that of the Negro
considering himself on a par and even sometimes superior to the
white. It even "goes against the grain" for me to have to sit
in the same university class that a Negro is in. In fact, a Negro
associating himself with the whites "leaves a dark brown taste
in my mouth.”
change
Of course, I am attempting to overcome that feeling and to
suppress that prejudice; but when it is "born and bred in," it is
not so easy to put it off. In not all cases is this true, but at least
in the majority of cases it will be found that as to the feeling
toward the Negro, once a Southerner, always a Southerner."
(6
When one sees with a prejudiced mind, it is exceedingly difficult
to get him to see otherwise. I plead "guilty" on race prejudice
-against the Negro-but perhaps if I live to be as old as
Methuselah and stay in the North all that time, I will be able
to erase that race prejudice.6
The rôle of culture in accounting for regional differences
is seen in such variations in racial attitudes as is represented
by northern California and southern California. The
former, with its "native-son" consciousness and strong
labor organizations, and the latter, with its "back-east"
consciousness and its absence of organized labor conditions,
have reacted somewhat differently toward Japanese im-
migration. Labor unions in the north turned quickly
• Social Distance Studies.
REGIONAL AND CULTURE CONTACTS
167
((
against cheap labor from Japan, while the employers in
the south have remained more or less friendly. The or-
ganized “native-son" consciousness of the north with its
keen sense of California loyalty responds sooner (unfavor-
ably) than does the unorganized "back-east" conscious-
ness. In the north a common danger such as racial
invasion" is sensed sooner, produces more vigorous feeling
reactions, and is more likely to be exaggerated than in the
south. In both regions, however, there is the larger
national loyalty that is quick to resent a serious racial
invasion.
An important question arises: What is the connection
between region and the origins of a given regional culture?
Apparently there is a direct relation between a region
and its peculiar culture traits, and in this way region is an
indirect and important factor in the race attitude variations
that are found in different regions.
Inter-Region Migration. The attitudinal significance
of regional and cultural variations is especially clear when
case studies are made of the effects of moving from one
region to another. After a person moves, he usually finds
himself in conflict with racial attitudes that are at least
partially new and strange to him. He is likely first to
resent expressions of new attitudes, then " to explode against
them." In the explosion he displays attitudes originating
from the regional culture from which he has emigrated.
A white woman from the South went to Colorado and
was employed in a hotel where a colored boy was taking
care of the linen. An altercation over a minor matter
occurred between them, whereupon the white woman de-
manded of the landlady: "Either get that coon out of here
or me. We don't work under the same roof." Another
white woman from the South, residing in a western city,
went to the front door to answer a call. A colored woman,
introducing herself as Mrs. Brown, said she was answering
168
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
an "ad" for work, whereupon the white woman replied:
"All right, Brown, you just go right to my back door, and
I'll talk to you." The old regional attitude maintains
itself in new regions. The chief exceptions occur if one be
young enough, tolerant enough, and mentally versatile
enough.
A Southerner going North is shocked by the freedom that
the Negro is given and that he "assumes." Under northern
conditions the Negro is continually getting "out of place,"
from the standpoint of the Southerner. Under these re-
gional conditions where the Negro acts "abnormally," the
Southerner also reacts "abnormally." Increased antipathy
toward the Negro is kindled. The friendly feeling toward
the Negro "in his place" in the South changes to a hostile
feeling against the Negro in the North, for “tramping on
your feet in the street cars and punching your clothes off
of you and even punching you off the sidewalks.”
A given race's actions may be different in one region
from its actions in another. Its status may be higher. If
a member of the culturally dominant race in the first region
moves to the second, he is naturally shocked by the "airs "
that the lower race, culturally speaking, assumes. Race
prejudice increases.
93. I have acquired a feeling of repulsion toward the Negro
race. Before I moved to L., I saw few Negroes and had no feeling
of enmity toward them. In fact, I rather liked the Negro. I
read Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery and a few books
of like nature, and felt strongly in favor of more toleration for
the Negro. I believed that race prejudice was useless and rather
foolish.
Then I moved to L. Daily I was thrown in contact with many
members of the race on street cars, on the streets, at school.
I saw evidences of great rudeness, almost insults, of many Negroes
toward the whites. On street cars many Negroes, especially men,
would rush to get a vacant seat before some white woman could
get to it.
This hard feeling on the part of the Negro is said by many
REGIONAL AND CULTURE CONTACTS
169
people to have been caused by unjust treatment on the part of
the whites. I believe that, if the Negroes would keep their
distance, the whites would meet them half way regarding just
dealing.
There is so much talk about the Negro question and so much
argument that I believe the effect is to influence people in the
opposite way and build up in them a feeling of hatred toward
those for whom they wish to banish race prejudice."
Again, when a person moves from one region to another,
he may acquire new antipathies. The different conditions
which he finds in the new region seem to justify him in
"falling into " the antipathies that he finds. However, he
may fight against the latter for a time, but he is likely
to succumb. His chief recourse is to withdraw to some
other region where conditions are more favorable.
An idealistic set of attitudes is quickly shattered by
making a change in one's environment. A Northerner says
that before he moved to Texas he thought of Mexicans at
their best. He envisaged "dark-skinned beauties, señoritas
with ruby lips and flashing teeth, dancing the fandango
to wile away the hours that they do not spend in luxurious
siestas." He also thought of Mexicans as playing serenades
on soft-toned guitars. Then he moved to El Paso and
before long became acquainted with "Spiks," the Texas
word for neighboring Mexicans. He saw only the poor and
degraded class of Mexicans, but had he come in contact
with only the best and educated Mexicans his increasing
dislike of Mexicans would never have occurred. "They
(Mexicans) were a constant source of annoyance; they
were thieving and fighting all over our part of town.
Although my present dislike is unfair, I cannot help it."
94. I have a distinctly less favorable opinion of the Japanese
race at present than I had ten years ago, or even five years ago,
for several reasons.
7 Social Distance Studies.
170
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
First of all, in Birmingham, Alabama, where I lived for about
ten years, there was only a handful of Japanese, and as a result
they were looked upon more as curiosities by the whites than with
any other feeling. A Japanese family lived several blocks away
from my home, but I felt no opposition to that; on the contrary,
I often walked by to see them, out of curiosity.
But about four years ago I came to A. and immediately began
to hear of the Japanese "menace." In my first term in high
school here, I heard a long and serious talk by one of the in-
structors on this "menace," and he asserted that the next war
would be a racial one - the entire white world against the yellow.
He pointed out the cleverness and craftiness of the Japanese, and
I believed every word. Immediately I became alarmed, being
in the "danger zone," for was not California
" with
the Japanese, and the first place that Japan would naturally
attack?
overrun
Since that time I have heard more opposition against the race,
although not always so strong. Of course, my
(( alarm" caused
by that talk of several years ago has passed entirely, yet I hold
faith in what the man said. And although I wish to be broad-
minded and fair, I have retained a rather suspicious attitude
toward the race.
((
I admit that I have had very little personal contact with the
race. In fact, it is difficult for me to distinguish between the
Japanese and the Chinese. And by the way, here is another race
for which I have almost the same feeling, based practically on
the same reasons.8
95. In my earlier years I had formulated no particular dislike
for the colored people. For one thing, they did not come to my
attention enough for me to bother about it. Then again, every
one else merely accepted them for what they were and showed
no outstanding prejudice for them or against them; they seemed
to have just as good a right to be here as the rest of us, and as
long as they were peaceful they would be let alone.
I took a trip to Texas about a year ago, and I learned a whole
lot about the Negro — against him, of course. I learned that his
skull was much thicker than a white person's, that he had no
sense of morality and that he really desired to remain in subjection
rather than to rise to a more elevated standing. I feebly argued
about the clause in the Constitution setting us all on an equal
basis; I even cited the case of a Negro, holding office in Washing-
8 Pacific Coast Race Relations Survey.
REGIONAL AND CULTURE CONTACTS
171
ton to which they replied, "Yes, the President considers that
all right; but if he had a daughter and the Negro would pay
her attention, we would see what the President really thought
about Negroes." The party I was talking to had always wanted
to visit California, but after I told him that we allowed the Negro
to sit by us in a street car, he was utterly disgusted and said
that a Southerner could never endure the tolerant attitude we
manifest here.
I must confess that my own attitude toward the Negro began
to change little by little upon seeing them herded together in
a street car and upon seeing the utter disregard for them mani-
fested by the Southerners. Every time I would protest against
the treatment accorded the poor colored people, I would be cited
an instance where the Negro really desired to stay in his present
state of subjection and resented any attempt to help him out of
his rut.
After being talked to in this manner and after hearing of the
atrocities against society committed by the Negro, my opinion of
the colored person began to change by degrees until I probably
would be as extreme in my dislike as the average Texan if I had
not returned to the atmosphere of tolerance characteristic of the
West. However, I believe that the average Negro in the North
and West is of a higher type than those in the South. They are
not so looked down on; they have more freedom and greater rights
and their social position is very much superior than in the South.
This is a big factor in causing the higher status of the Negro in
the North and our consequent lack of abhorrence for all Negroes
in general.
I have overcome my antagonism to a large extent, as I have
already explained, but my opinion has, nevertheless, suffered al-
teration towards the Negro, which will probably be overcome as
the years pass on and my Texas experience becomes a thing of
the past.⁹
Sometimes, in moving, a person finds more friendly atti-
tudes prevalent regarding a race than he had hitherto
known. If residing in the new region affords him favorable
experiences with members of the race in question, then
ultimately he may be expected to become more friendly.
The process, however, usually operates very slowly.
9 Social Distance Studies.
172
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
96. Ever since my early recollections, I can recall how my family
was very prejudiced against the French. I grew up in that en-
vironment and learned to hate the French because of the attitude
my parents had for them. Every time that I would come in
contact with one, hatred was the first thing that entered my mind.
In my opinion, the French were detestable.
Later in life, I moved to a different community where I became
very well acquainted with a French family. A son and myself
became very good pals, and later came to college together.
Through him, I came in contact with many other French people
whom I admired, and gradually my prejudice against them was
overcome.10
The part that region plays in the development and
changes in racial attitudes is usually indirect, subtle, and
many-sided. It operates through the culture differences
and contacts that it affords. Its significance is often com-
pletely hidden from the persons affected by it. When a
person migrates from one region to another, he is subjected
to the impact of new regional stimuli. The more nearly
similar these are to the old stimuli, the more immediate
is the favorable response. If they be decidedly different,
the first results are a series of "shocks," but in time a
person grows calloused and may later adopt the ways that
originally were shocking.
SEAR
If the migrating person be a native moving from one
part of his country to another locality, the "shocks” relate
to the new rôles which he finds that immigrants are playing.
He may quickly shift from favorable to unfavorable reac-
tions concerning immigrant groups, or more or less slowly
from unfavorable to favorable attitudes. At any rate, the
impact of the new regional stimuli sooner or later produces
results. But these changes vary greatly according to the
ages of the persons involved a theme which will be
considered next. Differences in age usually imply signifi-
cant variations in life organization.
10 Ibid.
M
REGIONAL AND CULTURE CONTACTS
173
PROJECTS
1. If you have lived in two or more regions, compare in detail
the race attitudes of each toward selected races, giving illustrative
materials.
2. When you moved into a new region, what were your reactions
to the new race conditions that you found? Describe fully any
change in attitudes that you underwent.
3. Choose five specific attitudes of your own or of other persons,
and search out the regional origins of each.
4. Compare and contrast the race attitudes of a rural region
that you know with the race attitudes of a large city.
5. Compare the attitudes of two different regions of a given city
toward selected races.
REGION AND CULTURE CONTACTS
DANIELS, JOHN, America via the Neighborhood, Chaps. I, II.
Harper, 1920.
MILLER, KELLY, An Appeal to Conscience, Chap. III. Macmillan,
1920.
PANUNZIO, CONSTANTINE, The Soul of an Immigrant, Chap. XV.
Macmillan, 1921.
Immigration Crossroads. Macmillan, 1927.
PARK, R. E., AND MILLER, H. A., Old World Traits Transplanted,
Chaps. VII, VIII. Harper, 1921.
SPEEK, P. A., A Stake in the Land, Chaps. I, V-VII. Harper, 1921.
THOMAS, W. I., AND ZNANIECKI, F., The Polish Peasant in Europe
and America, Vol. V, pp. 29–92. Badger, 1920.
CHAPTER XIII
AGE VARIATIONS
Children do not react at first to races, as such, but to
persons. They first respond to others as individuals rather
than as groups. The world is, to the child, a blurred theater
of human beings irrespective of race, until he is told dif-
ferently or until his experiences widen and he generalizes
on his limited data. A small colored child does not as a
rule discriminate against a white child unless he learns
from his elders to do so, or unless he suffers adverse
experiences.
97. As a child, my first recollections of races were entirely gen-
eral. I used the terms "German,'
German," "Swede," and "Irish," long
before they had any meaning except as a kind of second names
for certain neighbors of ours in Iowa. Germany, Sweden, and
Ireland had no meaning for me. I thought of Theodore, Andrew,
and Eddie first, and then of their racial names. The one and only
question in my mind was: What kind of a playmate is this boy
or that? 1
98. As a small boy, I liked to play with little children of any
race. We lived for a time in a mixed neighborhood, one in transi-
tion. There were several races represented, even a few Negroes,
and I played with all the children. The only exception was a little
Italian boy, and I didn't like him because the teacher had to wash
his head one day. The children in that family also had the scarlet
fever, and that kept me away from them too.2
Aversions among children usually develop because of
what may be called "personality clashes." They may arise
between two white boys or between two colored boys, as
well as between a white and a colored boy, for, at first each
2 Ibid.
1 Social Distance Studies.
174
AGE VARIATIONS
175
new child who appears in a social situation is viewed as a
strange individual and is judged on his own merits and
demerits.
Personality clashes between children of different races
may find various expressions. For instance, a very young
child may cry with fear upon seeing a child of another race,
apparently for the same reason that he cries when he sees
a strange adult of his own race. An older child of a dom-
inant nature may react variously to a "foreign" child, for
example, by making fun of the latter, by tantalizing him,
by taking his toys and keeping them - in fact, as he would
toward a younger brother, but "more so."
An adolescent boy, particularly one in the "gang" stage,
delights in tormenting a smaller boy whom he "does not
like." With his own gang behind him, his tantalizing
methods know no limits. A boy of foreign parentage, if
his language, his clothes, or his actions be peculiar, is
especially likely to be a victim. If the local community
conditions be ripe, a fight between two youths of different
races may "set off" a race conflagration.
99. Last night there was a fight down in front of one of the
theaters on C. Street between the Negro and the white boys. It
is rumored that they are going to finish it tonight; down there
among the pipes they are going to have a regular gang fight. I
(playground worker in the district) always try to watch out for
that. Last night the members of each race called each other names
although only boys took the part of their respective races. When
a white boy recklessly called a Negro boy a dirty name, he little
knew that he started a race riot. Did you see the big headlines
in the extras today? This whole part of the city is stirred up,
and it'll not be safe to go out on C. Street tonight.³
Unfriendly race attitudes of children toward children of
immigrant races develop at various ages beginning at eight
or younger. A western school principal, quoted by Bruno
Lasker in The Inquiry, says that race hostility appears
3 Boys' Work Survey of Los Angeles, 1925.
176
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
among children from eight to twelve years old. "In the
younger children I see no planned aversion, only what I
think is a natural one. As the child gets older, the tendency
to cruelty changes to ridicule, and unfairness becomes more
subtle." These attitudes undergo changes, perhaps a pro-
gressive evolution " from one form of adverse race attitude
into another." Mr Lasker concludes from studying a num-
ber of reports by school teachers and principals that " in the
very young child an adverse race attitude usually takes the
form of fear, that this later develops into hostility in which
the element of fear gradually recedes and those of cruelty,
patronage, unfairness and ridicule in other words, the
active elements of reaction, the attitude expressed in
conduct come to the front."
ddddd
Friendly attitudes between children of different races
also begin to develop naturally on the basis of personal
rather than of race relations. The personal considerations
outweigh the race factors when the latter are first men-
tioned and before the pressure of the child's own group
opinion is felt.
J
100. The parents had been at the Christmas "assembly" at
school proudly to watch five-year-old Johnny. It was natural that
at dinner afterwards the celebration was discussed. One of them
remarked on the fact that Henry, a classmate of John's of Jewish
parentage, seemed to have enjoyed the singing of the hymns and
a little religious address by one of the teachers quite as much as
the Christian children. All at once John flared up, "Don't you
call Henry a Jew — he is a friend of mine." 4
Shifts to Racial Generalizations. There soon comes a
time in the child's life, in pre-adolescence, and certainly
by the beginning of adolescence, depending on locality and
culture conditions, when the child is likely to hear his
parents speak against certain races. The poison arrows of
prejudice and hatred find easy marks. An antipathy-
4 From an unpublished manuscript by Bruno Lasker, The Inquiry.
AGE VARIATIONS
177
charged home atmosphere is naturally absorbed by the
child, and he begins to make distinctions on race rather
than on personal bases. Moreover, the racial distinctions
do not arise out of his own experiences but from the gen-
eralizations of parents. When a white boy declares at home
that he has made a new friend who is a colored boy, the
ordinary white home promptly disapproves and reacts ad-
versely to colored children as a race. An exception to this
rule is so unusual that it seems astounding.
101. Toward the end of January, there was a discussion at the
supper table one evening which involved some reference to colored
people. The boy remarked quite casually, "My best friend . . .
is a colored boy." No one of the household had known of this
before. His mother said afterward that she realized that one
smile, one exclamation, one surprised question, would have done
more harm in instilling a consciousness of there being something
unusual in the situation than hours of platitudes about its being
very nice for him to have a little colored friend, etc., could have
undone. She said that of the rather large household not one
"quivered an eye-lid" or made the slightest sign of surprise, and
the intimacy has continued to be spoken of in exactly the same
way.5
In addition to the home there are the playmates who
influence the child in his development of race antipathies,
in changing from friendly personal judgments to adverse
racial judgments. The influence of the child's playmates
may be even greater in this direction than the influence of
his parents, and equally unscientific.
102. A little white son of Ohio was visiting in a southern city.
One day he was somewhat noisy in his play on the street, near a
sanatorium for colored women. The Negro physician in charge
came out and asked him to play less boisterously. Next day, the
lad was again passing the place, this time accompanied by a little
white southern boy. Both were shouting. Suddenly, the northern
boy remembered the request of the physician. We must be
quiet," he said, "or we'll disturb the sick ladies in the hospital.”
(C
5 Ibid.
178
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
His companion was dumfounded. He stopped short, sat down
on the curbstone, rested his check on his hand and assumed an
air of the utmost disgust. "Say," he ejaculated, "you make me
sick! Calling niggers ladies." 6
103. My playmates made fun of me when they caught me talking
to a colored girl one day at school. I used to walk part way home
with two colored boys. They were so carefree and were fine boys.
I liked their company, but I had to quit being seen in their com-
pany or else lose the respect of the white boys and especially of
the white girls. To talk with them sometimes and to turn a cold
shoulder at times when I was likely to be " seen " disturbed me,
and I was forced to drop their acquaintance altogether. This was
when I was about fourteen, I should say."
The data at hand show that under certain conditions
adolescents may express race antipathies more definitely
than do adults. Many take their parents seriously and
even enlarge upon the latter's reactions. Where the parents
through religious beliefs or otherwise express a racial cos-
mopolitanism and an international idealism, the children
will respond likewise, if there be good rapport between
parents and their children.
Oftentimes a community happening will demonstrate the
responsiveness of children to the race antipathies of parents.
In a junior high school on the Pacific Coast some years ago
a capable and worthy Japanese boy was elected over-
whelmingly as student-body president. Presently, within
a few days, a recall against the newly elected Japanese was
proposed, before he had had an opportunity to show what
he could do. The recall plans spread throughout the school,
and the children upon being questioned regarding their
erratic action explained that when they had gone home and
told how they had elected J. president, the parents
had "blown up," asserting that "we don't want any Jap
to be leading our children." The reponsiveness of the
innocent children to their parents' strong race feeling
7 Social Distance Studies.
6 Ibid.
AGE VARIATIONS
179
became so general that it had to be heeded by the school
authorities.
Case-Group Studies. In a regional study where chil-
dren and adults from the southern states have moved to
Los Angeles (where northern race attitudes prevail), the
data show that nearly all the changes in attitudes toward
the Negro on the part of the white people studied were
among the young. Practically no change of attitude, cer-
tainly not of increased friendliness, was found among the
older people.Ⓡ
A study of white and colored boys shows that they may
play together, and yet race distinctions may exist. The
beginnings of a caste status may be developing. The two
groups may play together in friendly ways, but with the
tacit understanding that one is "superior" and the other
"inferior."
C
Advance reports of the strike of fourteen hundred white
boys and girls in Gary, Indiana, September, 1927, when
twenty-four colored boys and girls were assigned to their
school by the school authorities indicate that the strike was
successful because the parents of the white young people
stood more or less solidly behind the strike. Without
parental encouragement and support the strike doubtless
would have failed.
In a test case the racial attitudes of two hundred and
twenty-five adolescents show interesting variations when
compared with the race reactions of adults. Graph V
indicates, for instance, that the given adolescents are less
friendly toward Germans. Interviewing brings out the
fact that the adolescents are still laboring under the in-
fluence of anti-German talk that they heard in 1918 when
they were small children. The stories of German atrocities,
such as mutilation of children, made a vivid and lasting
impression. The more friendly attitudes toward Germans
8 From an unpublished manuscript by Charles Amlin, Los Angeles.
180
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
that the American adults now express is due to rationaliza-
tion upon the war and postwar conditions. This ration-
alization has not affected their children to the same degree,
at least not sufficiently to enable them to overcome the
emotionally vivid reactions of early childhood.
IMARRIAGE.
AS CHUMS
AS. NEIGHBORS - -
AS OCCUPATIONISTS
AS CITIZENS
AS VISITORS ONLY
AS EXCLUDED ENTIRELY
··
PERCENT
·
MARRIAGE
AS CHUMS
AS NEIGHBORS
AS OCCUPATIONISTS
AS CITIZENS
AS VISITORS ONLY
AS EXCLUDED ENTIRELY
PERCENT
··
--
10
..
MESS
•20
GRAPH V
Comparison of attitudes of case groups of 225 adolescents and of 500 adults
toward Germans.
10
30
Graphs VI, VII, and VIII indicate other definite ten-
dencies. The adolescents are more friendly toward the
Jews, Japanese, and Negroes than are the adults in primary
group relationships (notice columns 2 and 3) and less
20
40
30
50
60
40
70
AGE- TOWARD GERMANS
by Adults
by Adolescents
50
80
60
90
70
80
90
AGE--
TOWARD JEWS (RUSSIAN)
by Adults
by Adolescents
GRAPH VI
Comparison of attitudes of case groups of 225 adolescents and of 500 adults
toward Russian Jews.
friendly in the larger and more impersonal group relation-
ships. Adolescents react chiefly in terms of primary groups.
The mature and aged react racially in either one of two
AGE VARIATIONS
181
ways. They easily grow confirmed in their race prejudices.
These fixations are exceedingly difficult to change, and their
nature is indicated by such expressions: "You never can
trust the Irish "; " once a Jap always a Jap"; "the nigger
can't change his skin."
MARRIAGE
AS CHUMS
AS NEIGHBORS
AS OCCUPATIONISTS
PERCENT
AS CITIZENS
AS VISITORS ONLY
AS EXCLUDED ENTIRELY
--
MARRIAGE
PERCENT
AS CHUMS
AS NEIGHBORS -
AS OCCUPATIONISTS
A
--
10
AS CITIZENS
AS VISITORS ONLY
AS EXCLUDED ENTIRELY
………………MNA
20
10
30
20
40
GRAPH VII
Comparison of attitudes of case groups of 225 adolescents and of 500 adults
toward Japanese.
30
50
104. I'm beyond the allotted three score and ten and still hate
the Turks and always shall. I never could trust them as a race.
Their persecution of Christian Armenians, their religion, their
harems, their repulsive customs and habits-oh, why go over
40
60
70
50
AGE--
TOWARD JAPANESE
by Adults
by Adolescents
60
80
70
90
AGE--
-
80
90
TOWARD NEGROES
7 by Adults
by Adolescents
GRAPH VIII
Comparison of attitudes of case groups of 225 adolescents and of 500 adults
toward Negroes.
their deceitful ways further? There's no use arguing with me, not
a bit
the more you talk, the more time you are wasting on me.
When I get to Heaven, I hope there will be no Turks there.⁹
9 Social Distance Studies.
182
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
The second reaction type is one of mellowed friendship.
As a person grows older he views life in a new perspective;
a more universal and perhaps theoretical oneness of life
develops. Race distinctions recede. Life ends as it begins,
in reactions to persons rather than to larger group units.
105. I see things in a bigger way than I once did. There was a
time when I despised the Japs, because I thought that some day
Japan might eclipse the United States; but I now say, let the best
race win. That is a strange statement for me to make, I know,
but I have thought it all through and mean it. Of course, I still
think that Americans are the ablest people on earth, and so
perhaps I'm not as generous as I sound; and yet if the Americans
sink low and become mere gluttons, then let some better race
take their place. Perhaps it will be the Chinese. Who can tell? 10
As practical daily contacts grow fewer, prejudices either
remain fixed, or mellowed philosophizing develops. The
determination of which of these two tendencies will develop
depends on temperament, previous race experiences, and
philosophy of life.
Racial reactions run an age gamut. At first they are
individual, not racial at all. Then parents and playmates
introduce racial generalizations. Parental antipathies play
a large rôle. Idealistic attitudes may be encouraged in
college days. Later, in middle life, a practical viewpoint
based on occupational experiences, often of a competitive
nature, develops. Antipathies easily become fixed. Old
age sees a continuation of antipathy fixations, or else
mellowed reflections of broad tolerance.
PROJECTS
1. Write out in detail your first recollections of races besides
your own, drawing comparisons. What races were viewed favor-
ably, which unfavorably, at what ages, under what conditions, and
accompanied by what personal experiences?
10 Pacific Coast Race Relations Survey.
AGE VARIATIONS
183
2. Trace your own reactions by age periods concerning any
three selected races.
3. Make a first-hand study of the circumstances under which
native children react favorably and unfavorably to immigrant
children.
4. Make a similar study concerning the race reactions of immi-
grant children toward "native" children.
5. Describe from observation and analyze the different kinds of
social situations in which children of different races in your com-
munity are in contact.
6. Describe the social situations in which children manifest racial
reactions of (a) fear, (b) hatred, (c) cruelty, (d) unfairness,
(e) patronizing attitude, and (f) ridicule.
AGE VARIATIONS
ABBOTT, EDITH, Immigration, pp. 468–473. University of Chicago
Press, 1924.
BRECKINRIDGE, S. P., New Homes for Old, Chaps. II, VI. Harper.
HASKIN, FREDERICK, The Immigrant, Chaps. XVII, XX. Revell,
1913.
Reports of the Immigration Commission, Vols. XXIX-XXXIII.
Washington, 1911.
SMITH, W. C., "The Second Generation Oriental-American," Jour.
of Applied Sociology, Vol. X, pp. 160–168.
THOMAS, W. I., AND ZNANIECKI, F., The Polish Peasant in Europe
and America, Vol. V, pp. 294-339. Badger, 1920.
CHAPTER XIV
SEX DISTINCTIONS
In what ways are men distinguished from women in their
racial attitudes? Sex contrasts in racial attitudes are many.
In the first place, racial relations data show that in the main
women are more reserved than men in making racial con-
tacts. They seem to give more personal attention than do
men to racial distinctions. A member of an immigrant race
is viewed by a woman as a different person; by a man, as a
laborer, a possible competitor in business, or a new
prospect." Women are more affected than men by un-
pleasant sense stimuli, and hence develop antipathies.
Both men and women react against immigrants who become
social or economic competitors, and thus develop prejudices.
As a rule, women are somewhat slower than men in en-
tering into racial intermarriage. A leading variation from
the general rule is the woman who out of sympathy be-
friends immigrant peoples. But in befriending the men of
immigrant races, a woman often discovers that many such
men, especially if they be unmarried, are prone to think in
terms of matrimony. This realization often comes to
American women as a shock. Women religious workers,
social workers, night-school teachers, and others report
many interesting experiences. Occasionally, a racial inter-
marriage results.
(6
When the definite suggestion is made to American women
that they marry men of other races, they react more quickly
against the idea and in a larger percentage of cases than
do men to marrying women of other races and religions.
The risk is considered greater; mistakes are more serious.
184
SEX DISTINCTIONS
185
The wish for security is aroused more definitely, and
ostracism is more likely.
99 1
In large cities, as contrasted with smaller communities,
the situation is changing, and racial intermarriage of women
with men of other races is apparently increasing. In exam-
ining the statistical data regarding marriages in New York
City (1908-1912), Dr. Julius Drachsler concludes: "The
ratio of intermarriage for women is slightly lower than that
for men." He accounts for this result on the ground of
"the relatively greater mobility and aggressiveness of the
man, and the greater conservatism of the women.' If
Dr. Drachsler's data had come from rural districts in the
United States or from the smaller cities and towns, "the
greater conservatism of women" (because of stronger con-
ventions and less mental mobility) would be more evident.
General Racial Reactions of Men and Women. A
tangible method is experimentally possible for comparing
the racial attitudes of the two sexes. Graphs IX-XIII are
constructed from the recorded racial attitudes of two case
groups of one hundred native American men and of one
hundred native American women, representing the first two
hundred out of a total of 1725. The members of both
groups reside in the same regions of the United States, they
possess similar degrees of education, they represent the
same age-levels, they possess similar race ancestries and
religious attitudes. Each group is the first hundred taken
from their respective sex classifications.
When the racial attitudes of these men and women toward
fourteen selected races 2 are studied, the degree to which
women are more reserved in their reactions regarding mar-
riage and also in the choice of chums is indicated (see
columns 1 and 2 in Graphs IX, X, XII, and XIII. Graph
K
-
1 Democracy and Assimilation, p. 109. Macmillan, 1920.
2 Armenians, Chinese, English, Filipinos, French, Germans, Hindus,
Italians, Japanese, Jews (Russian), Mexicans, Negroes, Spanish,
Turks.
186
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
XI is an exception that will be discussed presently.)
Women, however, are somewhat more friendly than men
in the larger group relationships of life (columns 3, 4, 5,
Graph IX); they are less likely to relegate foreigners to
the status of " visitors only," and to wish to exclude for-
PERCENT
MARRIAGE
AS CHUMS
AS NEIGHBORS
AS OCCUPATIONISTS
•
AS CITIZENS
AS VISITORS ONLY
AS EXCLUDED ENTIRELY
PERCENT
MARRIAGE
AS CHUMS
AS NEIGHBORS
AS OCCUPATIONISTS
10
---
***NENBER
AS CITIZENS
AS VISITORS ONLY
AS EXCLUDED ENTIRELY
20
10
*******
30
20
40
GRAPH IX
Comparison of attitudes of case groups of 100 men and 100 women
toward 14 races.
eigners entirely (see columns 6 and 7). Women as a class,
therefore, would seem to be somewhat more pronounced
than men in certain of their race attitudes. The total
30
50
40
60
50
70
80
SEX--
TOWARD 14 RACES
60
by Women
by Men
90
70
SEX--
80
90
TOWARD ARMENIANS
by Women
by Men
GRAPH X
Comparison of attitudes of case groups of 100 men and 100 women
toward Armenians.
number of reactions to immigrant races by women is less
than the number by men. The explanation is that women
have less opportunity than men to make racial contacts.
The differences in opportunity and in experience would
account for a part of the difference in race attitudes.
SEX DISTINCTIONS
187
Specific Racial Reactions of Men and Women. If the
reactions of men and women to particular races be con-
sidered, interesting variations may be noted. Toward Ar-
menians the women are decidedly more reserved (Graph X,
columns 1, 2, and 3) than are the men, and at the same
time less antagonistic where antipathy would most likely
be revealed (columns 6 and 7). They report a greater
reluctance to marry or to chum with Armenians than do
men, but do not reveal so vigorous an antipathy.
The reactions toward the Chinese (Graph XI) show an
abnormal tendency on the part of the American men:
PERCENT
MARRIAGE
AS CHUMS
AS NEIGHBORS
AS OCCUPATIONISTS
··
AS CITIZENS
AS VISITORS ONLY
AS EXCLUDED ENTIRELY
10
20
40
50
60
70
SEX--
80
TOWARD CHINESE
ZZZZ by Women
by Men
90
GRAPH XI
Comparison of attitudes of case groups of 100 men and 100 women
toward Chinese.
namely, an unusually low degree of friendliness (columns
1 to 5 inclusive) and marked antagonism (columns 6 and
7). The women are more friendly than the men, chiefly on
the basis of sympathizing with a race without high status.
There are few matrimonial advances on the part of the
Chinese men, unlike the attitudes of the men of some other
races; hence the friendliness of American women operates
unhindered.
In regard to Mexicans (Graph XII) the American women
are more willing to grant them admission to occupational
and citizenship status than are men, and less pronounced
in debarring the Mexicans from residence in this country.
On the whole, the women take a larger and more wholesome
188
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
view. The attitudes are somewhat different toward Russian
Jews. The women hold back more than men in their
friendly attitudes (columns 1 to 5 inclusive). On the other
hand, they are not so pronounced in the "exclusion "
attitude.
MARRIAGE
AS CHUMS
AS NEIGHBORS
AS OCCUPATIONISTS
AS CITIZENS
AS VISITORS ONLY
AS EXCLUDED ENTIRELY
---
··
PERCENT
··
MARRIAGE
AS CHUMS
AS NEIGHBORS
AS OCCUPATIONISTS
-
--
---
PERCENT
10
---
AS CITIZENS
AS VISITORS ONLY
AS EXCLUDED ENTIRELY
BER.
-------
20
10
30
GRAPH XII
Comparison of attitudes of case groups of 100 men and 100 women
toward Mexicans.
On the whole, therefore, the women under consideration
are more reserved than men in their racial attitudes in-
volving marriage and chums, and more friendly in the
20
40
30
50
40
60
70
50
SEX--
TOWARD MEXICANS
by Women
by Men
60
80
90
70
80
90
SEX--
TOWARD JEWS (RUSSIAN)
by Women
by Men
GRAPH XIII
Comparison of attitudes of case groups of 100 men and 100 women
toward Jews.
larger group aspects of racial reactions. This latter point
is also supported by a lesser tendency on the part of women
than of men to exclude immigrant races.
In the further consideration of differences in sex reactions
SEX DISTINCTIONS
189
((
to race, it should also be noted that men's reactions to the
men of immigrant races is different from their reactions to
the women of those races. Differences" in the men of
immigrant races produce aversive effects on American men,
while "differences" in the women of other races are likely
to be attractive, although distinctions in culture levels are
important. These situations are paralleled in reverse form
in the reactions of American women. They view foreign
women of culture levels similar to their own somewhat com-
petitively and hence with prejudice, but foreign men of
the same culture level as themselves are often attractive,
if not "captivating," on occasion.
106. As a man I am frank to say that my feelings toward
Spanish women are kindlier than toward Spanish men. The latter
seem to me to be smart Alecks, and always playing up to women.
To be sure they are daring at times, but because their women folks
want them to be that way. Nearly all Spanish men that I know
are fine dancers, which after all is a mark of a lady's man. In
company I cannot begin to do the "gallant " things that they do.
Beside them at a party I seem stupid. But toward Spanish women,
I think differently. I'm not sure that I'd want to marry one, but
they do captivate me. They have certain sex charms that are
hard to get away from. I like to watch them dance, for they are
so bodily supple. No, I don't feel the same toward Mexican
women, but the ones that I know are not educated and are pretty
plain. They aren't in my "set," that's all.³
107. If you had known the nice French men that I have, you
would rave about them too. I'm thinking of one right now who
knows how to treat a woman right. He is so thoughtful, but not
like American men, who are so studied and stiff in everything they
do. He is just naturally nice, no effort, knows just what to do for
you, before you even think of your own needs. I admire the
Frenchman's eyes; they are so sharp and black and flashing. The
Frenchman is witty, too. I would be willing to marry one, but for
one thing. I would positively draw the line on going over there
and living with French women. They don't do anything except
dress and dress, and seek the attention of men. I have never seen
such a superficial lot as were at R.'s house in Paris last summer.
³ Mexican Immigrant Survey of the Southwest.
190
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
They did nothing but talk about men they had danced with. It
was positively disgusting. It makes me sick to think about it.ª
When changes in racial attitudes of the two sexes are
considered, other distinctions appear. Table X gives the
races toward which both sex groups, in the case studies
already described, have experienced the greatest increases
in race antipathy during the past five to ten years.
Japanese
Chinese
Italians
Russians
Turks
Reported by 100 American men
toward
Mexicans
French
Jews, Russian
•
Jews, German
Negroes
Germans
Hindus
15 other races
TABLE X
•
INCREASES IN RACE ANTIPATHY
18
16
16
15
*²==RA
15
13
11
11
10
10
8
8
32
Total 183
Reported by 100 American women
toward
Chinese
Japanese
Germans
Negroes
Turks
Jews, German
Jews, Russian
Mexicans
Greeks
Russians
Filipinos
Hindus
12 other races
• •
•
•
18
16
15
15
14
11
11
10
6
6
5
5
26
Total 138
The similarities in these lists are striking. The French
and Italians alone are relatively high in the men's list, but
do not appear in the women's column. All races toward
whom women have grown more antipathetic, however,
appear in the men's list. Increases in antipathy are ex-
pressed by the men toward 27 races (out of a possible 40)
and by the women toward 23 races. A total of 183 adverse
changes are reported by the men as compared with a total
of 138 adverse changes by the women. A somewhat wider
range of direct daily contacts on the part of men accounts
for this difference, as indicated by the case-study materials.
4 Social Distance Studies.
SEX DISTINCTIONS
191
In the consideration of increases in racial friendliness,
it will be seen from Table XI that there are marked varia-
tions in the men's and the women's reactions. Six races
in the men's group do not appear in the women's list, while
eight in the latter list do not appear in the men's column.
At any rate there is greater variation than in the men's and
women's lists of increases in racial antipathy. All told,
the men report increasing friendliness toward 31 races; the
women, toward 29 — a small increase in the numbers of
races as compared with the numbers toward which both
sexes reported increases in race antipathy.
*
-Germans
Japanese
Swedish
Reported by 100 American men
toward
•
INCREASE IN RACIAL FRIENDLINESS
21
13
11
10
Chinese
-French
Italian
10
10
10
-Spanish
-Filipinos
-Russians
8
8
7
-English
-Czecho-Slovaks
6
Indians (American).. 6
19 other races
54
Total 174
TABLE XI
•
•
~∞∞
Reported by 100 American women
toward
Japanese
Negroes
Jews, German
Chinese
Jews, Russian
Indians (American)
Italians
Armenians
Mexicans
Canadians
Norwegians
Swedish
17 other races
•
•
•
• •
•
•
•
.
25
BOKRE
18
17
16
13
11
10
9
9
8
∞
8
44
Total 196
The men cite 174 friendly changes; the women, 196-
a difference in favor of the women. This fact correlates
well with the fact that these same men and women reported
totals of 183 and 138, respectively, of increases in antipathy.
These reports for the 200 persons in question, as judged by
research interview data, may be interpreted in two ways:
(1) that the women have had a smaller number of contacts
with immigrant races than the men have had and (2) that
192
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
the women have by nature a more social nature than men
possess.
Taken altogether, the data indicate that women react
more sympathetically toward immigrants than do men,
that they are less favorable toward intermarriage, that
women are more subject to adverse sense impressions of im-
migrants than are men, that women show more antipathy
and less prejudice than do men, that women are more
favorably responsive to immigrant men of their own or of a
higher culture level and less favorably responsive to immi-
grant women of their own or of a higher culture level than
are men.
PROJECTS
1. Interview a man and a woman of your acquaintance con-
cerning their experiences regarding two or three specific races,
and write up the two descriptions.
2. Compare in detail the differences involved when a man and
woman each marries "out of his or her race."
3. Study the differences in attitudes toward racial intermarriage
on the part of women in rural communities and of women in two
or more different areas in a city of size.
4. Analyze the relations between the differences in race attitudes
of men and women and their differences in culture (including the
differences in each sex as subject to social controls, such as con-
ventions).
5. Analyze the differences in the reactions and experiences of
any man (or any woman) with reference to the two sexes of a
foreign race.
SEX DISTINCTIONS
ABBOTT, GRACE, The Immigrant and the Community, Chap. III.
Century, 1917.
HASKIN, FREDERICK, The Immigrant, Chap. XIX. Revell, 1913.
JOHNSON, CHARLES W., An Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man,
pp. 197-210. Knopf, 1927.
KAWAII, Y., "The Japanese Family," Jour. of Applied Sociology,
Vol. VII, pp. 19–22.
LIU, CHIANG, "Chinese versus American Ideas Concerning the
Family," Jour. of Applied Sociology, Vol. X, pp. 41-45.
STEINER, J. F., The Japanese Invasion, Chap. IX. McClurg, 1917.
CHAPTER XV
OCCUPATIONAL COMPLEXES
Persons in different occupations make different racial
contacts. In certain occupations one immigrant race is
more frequently found than in another. Temperament and
other inherited behavior patterns, for instance, permit the
Slavs to work in steel mills, but keep the Jews and Italians
out. An American who works in a steel mill will have
first-hand experiences with Slavs, but only hearsay or de-
rivative impressions of Italians or Jews. His attitudes
toward all Slavs will be built out of contacts with unlettered
Slavs; hence, race misunderstandings may grow out of the
fact that one culture level of a given race may be employed
in unskilled occupations while another level of the same
race is engaged in business and the professions. One person
may get his impressions of Slavs as fellow workers, whereas
another person may contact them as customers in his
store. The priest will contact them as worshippers; the
teacher will not contact them, but their children. Thus
the same group of unlettered Slavs may be contacted in a
dozen or more different connections and become the source
of as many different impressions of them. Hence, Americans
in the different occupations in which Slavs figure in one
way or another will develop different sets of attitudes to-
ward Slavs, and no one of these sets of attitudes will be
more than partial. Each will be biased. No one will be
entirely representative.
It is not possible or necessary here to discuss the
racial attitudes characteristic of each of the six, seven,
or more hundred occupations. Only a few occupational
193
194
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
types will be selected; for example, the unskilled worker,
the business man, the social worker, the teacher, and the
preacher.
Unskilled Labor Contacts. An American professional
man, a business man, or an American woman of middle
class or higher status is likely to gain an unfavorable im-
pression when first contacting an unskilled immigrant la-
borer. To the extent that the latter is uncouth and unkempt
humanity in the rough, so far will there be unfavorable
reactions. Moreover, his point of view in many things is
likely to be narrow and hence repelling. If he has developed
"defeat" psychology and has become disgruntled, he
makes an unfavorable impression.
a
-
Moreover, even Americans of unskilled labor status will
turn against him because of his "foreign" ways, his queer
European or oriental customs, his broken English, his garlic-
tinged breath, or his wife-beating habits. If the immigrant
"works longer hours for less money" than the native-born
workman, then the latter's status is invaded, and the im-
migrant becomes especially repulsive.
Sometimes, the unskilled American works for immigrants
who have suddenly or otherwise become wealthy and who
display the worst phases of their nature in their contacts
with him. Such experiences are especially repelling, for the
status of a native who must needs submit to arbitrary
control by immigrants is often held in question by his
fellow natives.
Unskilled labor contacts frequently lead to racial preju-
dice because (1) of cultural differences and (2) of invasion
of status. People of a higher culture usually harbor feelings
of superiority and hence of vertical distance toward those on
lower culture levels. An unskilled immigrant labor supply
will sooner or later be viewed competitively by native work-
men, and thus fear of loss of economic and social status will
arise. An American workman reports that he had a job
&
-
OCCUPATIONAL COMPLEXES
195
where Negroes were employed and that he was asked to
work beside a Negro at the same bench, but that the partic-
ular Negro's attitude of arrogance and superiority soon
turned him against the Negro. "His low ideals of morality
as evidenced by the stories and experiences he told gave me
the impression that all Negroes were bad." An American
employed in a mountain recreation camp came in contact
as a waiter with a number of "got-rich-quick" Jews. His
prejudice was aroused against them, because they were "far
from backward and would monopolize every evening of the
week with their silly rabblings if they were permitted, and
were continually fussing about their accommodations and
about getting their money's worth." The manager could
not talk to them, " for they were so wishy-washy that they
would squirm out of everything." Thus the account runs
and reveals a rising tide of antagonism towards all Jews.
108. For three summers I worked on a section gang of the
Chicago and Northwestern Railroad; so naturally I worked with
a lot of Mexicans and Italians. It was during these two summers
that my dislike for the Mexicans arose. They are, in the first place,
very dirty. Their cars are never clean. Their women are not only
immoral but just as dirty as the men. At least, this is the case
with those with whom I have had some association. I do not
mean to say that there were not some good Mexicans, but I believe
that the general run of them that migrate to the United States
are of the type I have known. One summer, that of 1925, I
worked in a wire mill at Sterling, Illinois, where I again worked
alongside of Mexicans and had a chance to see their living condi-
tions. They were the same as the ones I noted in the section gang.
There is another reason why I don't like them; they are very
illiterate. They do not learn English any more than they have to.
Their women will learn just so much, enough so that they can tell
the butcher or grocer what they want.¹
109. As long as I can remember, my father has always taught
me never to draw the line between any of the races or creeds,
mainly because we are of a persecuted race and because men should
be judged by what they are worth as men rather than by their
1 Mexican Immigrant Survey of the Southwest.
196
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
race. Therefore, it is a difficult task for me to tell of my increased
dislike for any race in the last five years.
This summer my father gave me a job in his plant as a common
day laborer to work by the side of all types of men and races.
While working I came to care less for the Mexicans than I did
before. It was for this reason: They knew I was a boss's son who
was on their own plane during the working period and that in
many cases I had to take advice from them, so they saw to it that
they would demonstrate to me how clever they were as compared
to me. If I had a job to perform with a Mexican, he would grab
for the easiest the first thing and force me to struggle with some-
thing he knew more about than I.
I would not have noticed this in them if all the men in my
father's shop were that way, but the white men always told me
in a pleasing manner and sought to show me the ways and means,
whereas the Mexicans always sneered at me and wanted me to
know I was subordinate to them. As a matter of fact, I never
minded the whole situation, because I had a purpose in my work,
that of learning the routine at bottom, and also a chance to size up
men. My conclusion was that I am not as prone to trust the
peon " Mexican as I was before this summer.2
..
Business and Employer Contacts. - Business men con-
tact immigrants on levels of trade where each party looks
out for himself, where each thinks in buying or selling, where
material interests are usually in the foreground. Conse-
quently the American business man does not always gain a
fair impression of immigrants. It is as a profit-maker that
he makes his contacts with them, and hence they do not
always disclose their best nature to him.
Business men in dealing with immigrants who are in
business often report unpleasant relationships. American
customers in trading with immigrant merchants often react
against them. Jews, Syrians, Armenians, and others are
criticized for having two or more prices for the same piece
of merchandise. " They have to be jewed down, you cannot
trust them, they are 'foreigners.'" In these remarks, great
social distance is evident. There has been little or no at-
2 Ibid.
OCCUPATIONAL COMPLEXES
197
tempt to understand the immigrant's culture and the reasons
for his "many prices." Moreover, Americans who have
worked for immigrant merchants have turned against the
"shrewd" type. The immigrant in business situations is
easily misunderstood, and is likely to show his "worst"
nature, or perhaps unwittingly creates antipathy against
his race.
Competition, underselling, and loss of business status are
often experienced by American business men when the im-
migrant sets himself up in business. Considerable prejudice
against the Jewish business man arises in this way. On the
whole, however, the main factor figuring in wide racial dis-
tances that develop in business relations is difference in
cultures.
AL
110. I actually hate to see the majority of them (Jews) come into
the store. They expect you to wait on them first, and let the
others go. No matter what you do for them they are never
satisfied. They enter the store with a sarcastic expression on their
faces that makes you want to throw them out. They usually get
excited and become very insulting.
The most puzzling of all to me is the fact that they can't get
along among themselves. I may have been rather hasty in forming
this opinion; but I have lived all my life in one racial group to
which I belong, and my bitter experiences with the Jewish people
this winter have forced this conclusion upon me.
I have many Jewish friends that I like very much, but the group
that I have criticized is the race as a whole as I see them and deal
with them every day. I hate to hold such a feeling toward any
race and I hope that time will overcome it.³
3
111. It was my experience while working for a concern that I
came in contact with the Russian Jews, and because of this I have
formed a very unfavorable opinion and dislike for them. My
acquaintance with the Russian Jews happened to be in the grocery
business at L. Their peculiarities are very similar to the regular
type that most of us have come in contact with at one time or
other. They are very shrewd in business, especially in the buying
part of the business. If you could show them a profit or give them
3 Social Distance Studies.
198
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
a discount, you could always sell them by explaining in detail the
principle of profit. Their temper was very easily aroused, and
one would have to use tact in order not to say anything that dealt
with their nationality or with their personal nature. They are
not a pleasant people to carry on a conversation with, because they
never have anything to talk about, except business and their hard
luck. They lack sociability and are backward in adopting new
customs.
The Russian Jews appreciate service but never return it. Serv-
ice and profit are the two things which can gain their confidence.
Once having their confidence, you can carry on very successful
business dealings.
These Jewish people generally have three or four children play-
ing in their place of business, and the parents are very strict
regarding the obedience of their children. They are very religious
and never fail to live up to their customs and traditions. The
Russian Jews are very unneat in appearance and lack the principles
of hygiene. The main objection of having them in this country
is that they control most of the large manufacturing concerns and
that the American merchant cannot face their competition because
of their close dealings.*
Still another angle is represented by the business man
who breaks across social distances and learns to understand
the immigrants with whom he deals. Where rapport is once
established, then the merchant-immigrant contacts become
freer, defense mechanisms are relaxed, and race attitudes
become favorable. Behind these favorable reactions, as a
rule, are behavior patterns of race friendliness. Many busi-
ness men are accustomed to treat all comers on a racial
brotherhood basis and to overlook or to discount racial
peculiarities. A business man of broad outlook and kindly
insight reports that he has sold Ford cars to many Japanese
and that, in dealing with them, he finds that on the whole
they are very serious and that they try hard to meet their
payments. When they have a crop failure, they come at
once to him and ask for an extension of time. "At no time
in the past years of my business connections and dealings
▲ Ibid.
'OCCUPATIONAL COMPLEXES
199
with them, have I known a Japanese to run away with a
car or in any way to try to escape paying the bill."
112. Although I have not had very close contact with Japanese
in southern California, they have impressed me as being a far
better race than they are credited with being. Arriving in Los
Angeles six years ago, I was told about the attempts of Japanese
to obtain a foothold in southern California. I pictured them as
aggressive land-grabbers who were seeking to drive out the Cali-
fornians through trickery. I now have much respect for the
Japanese who come to this country.
I began to reverse my attitude towards the Japs when I was an
employee for a laundry company during the summer months. I
delivered to many Japanese and Mexicans, besides Americans.
In
collecting bills the Japs were always prompt and honest; they
wanted to pay all they owed. The Mexicans, however, avoided
their bills and often attempted to cheat me. The honesty of the
Japs soon became apparent.
I have watched the Japs work in their fields; they are hard
workers and are deserving of every cent they make. Americans
would never work as the Japs do. Vegetables raised by Japs are
cheaper, too, than those raised by Americans.
A few months ago, in a time of great need, I was obliged to call
on a Japanese girl to do some work for me. I had been warned
previously that the girl was lazy and would not be of much use.
I decided to take a chance on her. After telling her the importance
of haste and quality in her work, I put her on her own initiative
and encouraged her to use her own ideas. The result was that the
girl did her work on time and did more than she was asked. I
found her as fine a co-worker as any American girl could have
been. I found the Jap girl to be as human as any of my own race
and that by giving my best to her she was more than willing to
give her best to me.5
113. Probably the most vivid experiences were with the Greeks
whom I came in contact with in business relations. Last year I was
out of school and worked in a grocery store of a small Kansas town
of seven thousand inhabitants. Now there were in the town two
Greek-owned confectionaries, one Greek café, and two Greek-
owned billiard parlors.
In the course of my clerking I found ready and shrewd customers
5 Ibid.
200
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
in the owners of this café, who to my surprise were willing to
purchase canned goods and vegetables of the better qualities if
the right price were quoted to them. And, too, as I sold goods to
these patrons, I soon realized that it was the rule at their café to
buy the best for their money.
So when I would wish to eat out at some café, I would go to their
café to eat and soon grow to understand the much-abused Greek
and found that he is ardently persistent in attempting to learn
our language and to become an American citizen; he is willing to
do many favors for any one who aids him.
Then, too, I learned also that the Greek, contrary to popular
opinion, is always willing to back community enterprises and boost
the town by aiding financially and otherwise in the promotion of
civic festivities.
As for the actual household trading with the Greeks who ran
the confectionaries and cafés, I also found the Greek willing to try
to adapt himself to the American standard of living, though he
seems to have a particular liking to vegetables and fruits in pref-
erence to canned goods. Contrary to what people generally think,
the Greek even in his household trading, seems to prefer quality
before quantity.
And too, in course of conversations with the Greeks while doing
their trading, I found that they were quite normal, though shy,
and resented very much any reference to the fact that the posting
of their old national flag and emblems in their businesses with Old
Glory meant that they still owed their allegiance to their
"Fatherland." 6
Social Work Contacts.
Social workers, engaged in what
is primarily a "nonprofit-giving" occupation, are, on the
whole, of a friendly sort. The immigrant when in need is
in a receptive, not in a defensive mood. The social worker's
contact with him is, as a rule, on a more favorable side than
the business man's contact. He is seen in a suppressed,
defeated rôle, needing and responding to help. He reacts to
the social worker somewhat in the same way that a sick per-
son does to a physician. Thus, the social worker develops
favorable racial attitudes. Moreover, the social worker goes
out to meet his clients, with friendly expectancy. His pre-
6 Social Distance Studies.
OCCUPATIONAL COMPLEXES
201
vailing attitudes, barring accident, will naturally arouse
friendly responses.
On the other hand, the social worker may be taken ad-
vantage of by pseudosocial immigrants. A certain percent-
age of charity recipients are " fakers" and deliberately seek
to take advantage of the social worker. In immigrant cases
of this type the social worker is likely to react adversely.
Hence the social worker's contacts with immigrants may
lead to race antipathy.
114. Since childhood I had a fixed notion that all Mexicans
were bad. As I grew older, "Mexican " to me meant "undesir-
able." Since coming to California three years ago, I have con-
cluded that the only excuse for my opinion of these people was my
ignorance. One of the first things that impressed me in working
with the Mexicans is the wonderful loyalty they show toward the
family or friends in trouble. Another thing, while they never
save a penny, the majority make some provisions for the rainy
day, through small insurance or in buying a home. As a rule they
have "grit," too; they will stand a lot of pain without a groan.
As compared with other classes there are few cases of child deser-
tion; they are devoted to their children, although they may be
ignorant of ways for promoting their health and happiness. And
so after three years observation I must say the Mexican has more
good in him than I ever thought."
115. Upon coming to California, I believed the Mexicans to be
immoral and lazy and dirty. In my five years as social-case worker
my vision has become more tolerant. In fact I am fond of the
race "with all their faults I love them still." To me they are a
race of emotional, brown people who bury their emotions partly
from pride and partly from shyness of the Americans. Great
loyalty and love of family are manifest, with the men caressing
and caring deeply for their children, sharing their last tortilla with
even a stranger in the home.
A large percentage of my Mexican mothers are clean house-
keepers, but they do not feel it necessary to rally themselves to
any effort outside of their simple home duties. They like to use
spare time crocheting elaborate and useless tidies, but of course
that is due to their protected home life, no matter how poverty-
stricken they may be.
7 Mexican Immigrant Survey of the Southwest.
202
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
One great surprise this winter was given the welfare bureau
when our unemployed Mexican men came regularly and promptly
at 8 A.M. to go to the city wood pile for work in exchange for their
food and rent. A surprising issue in two instances where the men
were particularly reticent is that we learned that they were
sensitive because they had to receive relief. We often believe these
people have but little humor, but there is a keen sense of clean,
wholesome humor in their lives.8
""
non-
Teacher Contacts. Teachers are not only in a
profit-giving" occupation, but they are dealing chiefly with
children rather than with adults. As contrasted with social
workers who often give money and temporary relief and
thus may be deliberately "worked," the teacher usually has
only instruction to give. The teacher in dealing with chil-
dren gains more favorable race impressions on the whole
than if he were working with the rank and file of adult im-
migrants. Children are developing, while parents are more
likely to have fixed habits.
-
page
Immigrant parents are grateful to teachers for the interest
that the latter take in their children, and thus teachers may
easily develop favorable racial attitudes. Little children
whatever their race are often judged "cute" and interesting,
and hence teachers may receive appreciative expressions
from almost any race and in turn develop friendly attitudes
toward that race. In their occupational training and out-
look, teachers develop friendly behavior patterns. These
serve as excellent mechanisms for making friendly responses
to immigrants.
A teacher reports that she has the most friendly feeling
toward the Japanese because of her fondness for Japanese
children. "Their cuteness appeals to me." Later, she had
some Japanese boys in her room at school and found them
66
most easy to work with and so willing to study their les-
sons. A teacher just can't help loving a child who always
tries to get his lessons." Later she became acquainted with
8 Ibid.
OCCUPATIONAL COMPLEXES
203
adult Japanese; and although they do not have "that lik-
ableness in them that there is in the children, they do all
they can to please you, and you soon find as I did that they
are very desirable friends." Of all occupational groups
public-school teachers report the greatest fondness for im-
migrant children. Immigrant children of certain races, such
as Japanese children, are more courteous than American-
born or American-reared children, and consequently teachers
respond to them more extensively.
A public-school teacher suddenly found herself in charge
of a room of twenty-nine Mexican and two Russian children
in a sixth-grade classroom. Up to that time she had never
given Mexicans any thought and had no particular reactions.
They were foreign to her past life. She soon became fond
of her Mexican children, at first on the grounds of pity more
than for any other reason. When she visited their homes
and found a family of ten living in one small room which
contained one old bed, an old broken-down stove, and no
other furniture, she was moved to help them out. They
seemed very appreciative and showed that appreciation by
doing things for the school in return. They were found to
have a “peculiar" disposition, but "if one learns how to
handle them, one can make true friends of them." In this
statement notice that the wish to make friends with them is
present. "I guess that just coming in contact with these
people, becoming acquainted with the families, working with
them, has made me like them."
116. The first Japanese child I became acquainted with was
a Japanese boy who was about fourteen years of age. He arrived
at school one morning able to speak only a few words of our lan-
guage. He was a fine-looking lad, very muscular and indeed
physically well fit. The teacher who was very young was indeed
having a new experience in teaching, as I know this was her first
attempt in teaching a foreign pupil from Japan. The boy was here
to learn, to become a citizen, and to be a loyal American man right
from the start, because the first thing he wanted our teacher to do
204
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
was to give him an English given name; and she did. She named
him George. George started in at first grade and within a short
time was in high school. It seems like a fairy tale but a true one,
as he had that spirit of success that will make any one gain in this
work if the right perseverance is ever present. George was a
perfectly normal boy, not a bookworm but of that type who works
when he should work and plays when he should play. He became
a brother to us all. He entered in all our games. We children
never even thought that he should play by himself and live in a
place in the world away from us. This racial conflict did not
enter into our lives. He helped and respected us, and we helped
and respected him. I can always remember George as a true and
faithful worker, because, if our teacher ever wanted anything done
in the school room or school grounds, George's hand was one of
the first to be noticed.º
117. I had an unfavorable attitude toward the colored popula-
tion until I was assigned to teach a colored class in an evening
school. I had expected the class to be of foreigners; and when
the principal told me that it was of colored people, I should have
resigned had I not wanted the salary too badly. It was hard to
keep the tears back at first. Then I overheard one woman say
to another, "I'se says to her." It brought to me recollections of
the soft drawl of mother's old colored coachman. I had delighted
in his society as a child. Surely I could find some element of
interest in this colored class.
I deliberately set to work to unlearn all the lessons my mother
had taught me about the Negroes. They were so responsive that
they stimulated me to further efforts in their behalf, and before
I realized it I was supremely happy among "my people" in the
night school.
There were a group of colored boys in the neighborhood who
had served in the last war. They had gotten away from their
local neighborhood and had become accustomed to something
better. It was decidedly distasteful to them to return to their
previous occupations and unsanitary ways of living. Together
we made a survey of the kinds and qualities of occupations open
to colored men in L. at that time. Civil-service positions as post-
men seemed to offer the brightest future. Therefore, my class
definitely took up the task of preparing those boys to pass the
civil-service examinations for such positions.
Today I often meet one of " my boys" in the uniform of a
› Pacific Coast Race Relations Survey.
OCCUPATIONAL COMPLEXES
205
United States postman. It is difficult to tell which of us is most
delighted by such a meeting.10
The rôle played by basic behavior patterns of type is seen
in the following case. The sudden contact with repulsive
living conditions of the given immigrants was fatal to fa-
vorable responses. The unfavorable reactions became "fix-
ated." Behind this fixation was, of course, a narrow life
pattern.
118. I have the most dislike for the Mexicans, and I believe the
reason for this is that, when I was doing my cadet teaching in the
normal school, I was sent to A. Street School one and one-half
hours daily to do my practice teaching. My training teacher be-
lieved I should have a variety of experiences. I had a B1 class of
fifty, mostly Mexicans, a few Russians, etc., mixed in, but not a
single white. Part of my daily work was to go to the homes of the
absent ones and look up the reasons for such, and never in my life
did I see such filth and poverty — children sleeping in heaps of
dirty rags on floors with rats running across, and not a single
window for ventilation, and babies chewing crusts and dirty bits
of food picked out of the gutters. Well, after these visits, I cer-
tainly felt like a thorough cleaning up for myself. Back at school,
once each week, I had to help scrub the little ones, get them out
of their clothes in which they were sewed-up, de-animalize their
heads by various methods, etc. I suppose now I am glad for
those early experiences and a look into the seamy side of life, but
it has turned me against the Mexicans for all times. Of course, I
see many nice clean ones, but cannot help thinking of my first
experiences with the race. They seem to be a people who do not
wish to be bettered much. They live from hand to mouth, and are
good beggars, and will accept all you give them, and then some.
They are very childlike and dependable, and are quite contented in
their filth and poverty. I do not feel we can do much for them.11
The racial reactions of a case group of young clergymen
are the most favorable of all. The actual experiences of the
young minister with immigrant races may be very limited,
but in such as have occurred, he has approached the im-
10 Social Distance Studies.
11 Boys' Work Survey of Los Angeles, 1925.
206
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
migrant in a markedly idealistic attitude. The immigrant
has responded with special deference. To him a religious
representative is one to bow down before, or else to keep
entirely away from. Thus the contacts of the minister have
often occurred when the minister has been most idealistic in
his behavior and the immigrant has been most deferent.
Each meets the other on a superior plane of conduct. The
young minister's friendly attitudes are especially noticeable,
but these are partly explained by a desire to study the im-
migrant or possibly even to proselyte him. The limited
antipathy is an expression of the brotherhood-of-man doc-
trine and of an unwillingness to exclude from one's country
a whole race purely on racial grounds. The rôle that minis-
ters' opinions, as contrasted with their attitudes, has played
in these cases has not been easy to determine.
Occupational divisions and racial cleavages often occur
along the same lines. The members of the races against
which prejudice is most frequently expressed are debarred
from certain occupations, particularly from the professions.
As a result, they first grow discouraged and then antago-
nistic toward the social order that is holding them back.
About the best, for instance, that a colored boy may look
forward to in many cities is that of being a janitor or an
elevator boy at eighty or ninety dollars a month; but "if
there is any family at all, this income is not sufficient, and
the wife must work while the children go to the devil.”
119. The colored boy comes back worse oftener than better.
The reason for this is that the white boy is taught a trade, but the
colored fellow is taught to be a cook or a porter on the pullman.
This does not appeal to the colored boy. He wants to do the same
thing that the others do; and when he can't, he loses heart and
gets discouraged, and goes from bad to worse. He gets indifferent
to punishment or to social disapproval, and when he gets out he is
reckless. Prison has no terrors for him. Why should he worry?
There is no future for him anyway.12
12 Ibid.
OCCUPATIONAL COMPLEXES
207
120. There's very little advancement for me. A chum of mine
has been working for years for an air compressor company. He
started out as a delivery boy, and never worked up. He is an
expert mechanic, but he is still at the salary of a delivery boy.
The boss tells him when there is an opening next time he'll be
promoted, but many next times have come and gone and he is
still a delivery boy. Oh, education is all right at any time; but
I think that when I graduate from high school, I'll go in business
with my father and brother. I work after school, but the only
thing I can get working for a white man is washing cars. You
have no idea how it feels to know that people look down upon
you. I don't always remember it. I don't carry it with me all
the time, but it stares me in the face, and people demonstrate their
prejudice in many ways.13
As the demand for laborers varies, the racial reactions
vary. As unemployment increases, competition develops
and prejudice multiplies. Restrictions are made on racial
bases.
121. There are a number of reasons for the unemployment.
Whenever work for the whites becomes scarce, they crowd over
and take our jobs and put us out of work. Many of our positions
are now filled with white men and women. The maids in the big
department stores used to be Negroes, but are now white girls;
the waiters in the big restaurants used to be colored, but are now
white, and so on through the list. We do not complain, but it is
very hard not to be able to get work to buy food to eat.14
As occupations vary, so racial attitudes are different. In-
vasion of the status of natives is an offense that any ambi-
tious immigrant is likely to commit-without knowing it.
As the types of social relationships vary from occupation to
occupation, so special or peculiar racial attitudes will crop
out. To understand and to cope with these attitudes ade-
quately, it is necessary to know the occupational attitudes
and values characteristic of each occupation. Racial atti-
tudes are often to be accounted for in terms of the occupa-
14 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
208
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
tional contacts of natives with immigrants. It is not the
immigrant per se so much as it is the occupational relation-
ships which he holds to the natives that explain his racial
prejudice or friendliness.
PROJECTS
1. Interview a number of persons in a selected occupation con-
cerning their new experiences, and analyze the results.
2. Compare occupational variations in race attitudes with re-
gional distinctions in as many ways as possible.
3. Compare the occupational attitudes of a business man whom
you know, at as many points as possible with those of a college or
university teacher, also of your acquaintance.
4. Choose some one person, and analyze the relationships be-
tween his occupational and his domestic or family attitudes.
5. Analyze the connections between a selected person's occupa-
tional and religious attitudes of life.
6. Select an occupation not discussed in this chapter, and make
a study of occupational attitudes peculiar to it.
7. Choose a definite occupational attitude of a selected person
and write its "life history."
OCCUPATIONAL COMPLEXES
CHICAGO COMMISSION OF RACE RELATIONS, The Negro in Chicago,
Chap. VIII. University of Chicago Press, 1922.
DANIELS, JOHN, America Via the Neighborhood, Chaps. X, XI.
Harper, 1920.
DAVIS, JEROME, The Russian Immigrant, Chap. III. Macmillan,
1922.
JENKS, J. W., AND LAUCK, W. J., The Immigration Problem,
Chap. XII. Funk and Wagnalls, 6th edit., 1926.
LEISERSON, WILLIAM M., Adjusting Immigrant and Industry.
Harper, 1924.
MACLEAN, ANNIE M., Our Neighbors, Chaps. III-V, VII.
Macmillan, 1922.
STEINER, E. A., From Alien to Citizen, Chaps. XIII, XVIII, XIX.
Revell, 1914.
- The Japanese Invasion, Chap. VII. McClurg, 1917.
When the racial attitudes of people are compared accord-
ing to their religious divisions, differences are evident, but
these are not as extensive as might be expected. Among
1725 Americans whose racial attitudes have been studied
the larger religious divisions are represented-Protestant,
Catholic, Christian Science, Jewish. Moreover, a large per-
centage or approximately one-half of the total number
profess no religious connections.
CHAPTER XVI
RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES
Specific Distinctions. In studying the racial attitudes,
for instance, of the Protestants and Catholics as case groups,
we observe that the former are as racially friendly as the
MARRIAGE
AS CHUMS
AS NEIGHBORS -
AS OCCUPATIONISTS
PERCENT
--
--
AS CITIZENS
AS VISITORS ONLY
AS EXCLUDED ENTIRELY
10
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
RELIGION--TOWARD IRISH
by Protestants
by Americans
90
GRAPH XIV
Comparison of attitudes of a case group of 100 Protestant Americans and
a total of 1725 Americans.
latter toward the French (Catholic). Similarly, the Catho-
lic group is almost as friendly as is the Protestant group
toward the English (Protestant). Graph XIV visualizes
the similarity in the racial relations of 1725 Americans and
of a case group of the first 100 Protestants of the 1725, whose
racial attitudes toward the Irish (Catholics) were studied.
209
210 IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
Personal interview materials secured from the case group
afford explanatory data. The questions raised by a Prot-
estant regarding a Frenchman, or by a Catholic concerning
an Englishman, usually are, in effect: "What kind of a
person is he?" "Is he reliable?" "Can he be trusted?"
Outside of certain situations involving church competition,
the world plans of the pope, or the special Ku Klux Klan
activities, the question of religion ordinarily takes a second-
ary place, or else it is counterbalanced by other factors.
There are, however, some persons who, for instance, have a
strong anti-Catholic or anti-Protestant complex and who
raise the religious question first and the personality question
second.
The large numbers of persons who profess no religion
make few distinctions regarding the religious beliefs of dif-
ferent races. They do not seem to care about what a man
believes so much as what he does and how he behaves in
social situations. They have strong prejudices against re-
ligious zealots of any race.
When a case group of the first 200 Protestants and Catho-
lics (equally distributed) are taken from the 1725 Ameri-
cans and their racial reactions are compared with the
reactions of the 1725, the results do not show outstanding
distinctions. The 1725 Americans are about as friendly (or
as antipathetic) to Negroes, for instance, as are the Prot-
estant and Catholic Christians taken as a single group.
Surprising as it may appear, religious attitudes do not play
the rôle that might be anticipated, or else they are neutral-
ized. Religious attitudes seem to be often dominated by
other factors. Life history materials indicate that the pro-
fession of religion by many persons is largely "opinion
rather than " attitude." When the test comes, no one in the
South and few if any persons in the better "white" neigh-
borhoods of the North want a Negro family "to move in
next door." "66 Property depreciates." "Other Negroes will
"}
RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES
211
come in." "I'll have to move out." These are responses
given by both Christians and non-Christians alike. Certain
social and economic factors (environmental) often consti-
tute pressures that dominate religious motivation. Much
of the religious feeling of brotherhood and of Christian duty
operates better at a distance than it does with reference to
"undesirable next-door neighbors."
Religious Antipathies. In regard to attitudes toward
Turks, the reactions of the group of 200 Protestants and
Catholics are on the whole less friendly than the reactions
of the 1725 Americans (Graph XV). The persecutions of
PERCENT
MARRIAGE
AS CHUMS
AS NEIGHBORS -
AS OCCUPATIONISTS
AS CITIZENS
AS VISITORS ONLY
AS EXCLUDED ENTIRELY
10
20
30
*******ZZA
40
50
60
70
80
RELIGION
TOWARD TURKS
ZZZZZ by Protestants & Catholics
by 700 Americans
90
GRAPH XV
Comparison of attitudes of a case group of 200 Protestant and Catholic
Americans with a total of 1725 Americans.
the Christian Armenians by the Mohammedan Turks have
influenced American Christians to fear all Turks. They
have quite naturally become less socialized (and less
Christian) than non-Christians in their attitudes toward
the Turks.
Moreover, there are many Christians to whom the term
"Turk" visualizes "Mohammedan," the enemy of Chris-
tianity. Mohammedanism is thought of as a bloody re-
ligion determined to make its way to world domination by
the sword. Hence, to such Christians, the Turk is symbolic
of a religious movement that is a powerful competitor. The
Christian fears a loss of status for his religion whenever in
person or in image the Turk appears.
212
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
On the other hand, there are Americans, mostly non-
Christians, to whom the Turk does not stand as a religious
competitor at all. He is viewed merely as a member of
another race and hence less antagonistically than if con-
sidered as a competitor. There are some American non-
Christians who through travel or otherwise have come to
think highly of Turks. They prefer them to Armenians
and Greeks. Such persons lower the average antipathy
rating given the Turk by the 1725 Americans.
Again, there are less friendly reactions expressed toward
the Japanese by the group of Protestants and Catholics than
by the total group of Americans (Graph XVI). The life
PERCENT
MARRIAGE
AS CHUMS
AS NEIGHBORS
AS OCCUPATIONISTS
AS CITIZENS
AS VISITORS ONLY
AS EXCLUDED ENTIRELY
--
---
#####
40
50
60
70
RELIGION
TOWARD JAPANESE
ZZZZZZ by Protestants & Catholics
by 1725 Americans
GRAPH XVI
Comparison of attitudes of 200 Protestant and Catholic Americans with a
total of 1725 Americans.
histories show that many Christians, while professing race
friendliness, waver when it comes to viewing the Japanese
as citizens of the United States, as neighbors on the same
street, and so forth. Some declare that "the Japanese im-
migrant is a Buddhist," and as such must be kept at a dis-
tance at all costs, even of religious profession. The Japanese
is viewed as a religious competitor by many Christians and
thus is placed at a greater social distance than by non-
Christian Americans.
Many of the latter type of Americans raise no objection
to the Japanese as Buddhists. Some even think that Bud-
RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES
213
dhism would make a better religion for America than Chris-
tianity, and hence do not react on religious grounds against
the Japanese as do Christians.
Religious Conflicts. Persons of Christian beliefs, par-
ticularly Christian leaders, are making strenuous efforts to
overcome the racial prejudices that are felt and expressed
within Christian ranks. But even when they do their best,
the problem bobs up.
122. I am a Christian leader, member of a church, and trying to
live the teachings of Christ, but I don't want a big, burly Negro
to sit down beside me in a street car or even in church. I feel like
getting up and moving, even if I know that I ought not to.
Ashamed, yes, but I'd rather contribute to social work among the
Negroes than to do it myself. When the members of my boys'
club ask me if I would want Negroes for neighbors, I blurt out,
'No," and then hasten to explain that I wouldn't mind, but it is
other people who compel me to protest. Not long ago it was
reported that a Negro family was moving in, and I secretly gave
aid to those protesting, although I did not sign the petition. I
explained how my position would not permit me to sign. And yet
I am a Christian, from northern Ohio.¹
"C
123. A group of six colored Hi-Y fellows from the N. Branch
of the Y. M. C. A. attended the Hi-Y Camp at C. They were six
out of one hundred ten boys. All the others were white. In trying
to break the isolation, the camp director placed the Negroes around
with the other white fellows in the various tents. On the surface,
everything was all right, but underneath everything was wrong.
These colored boys were socially isolated at the camp. Every
white boy tried to make the colored boys feel as one of them, but
it was impossible. There was a barrier that couldn't be broken
down.2
The wide differences in point of view of persons of various
religious faiths is repeatedly indicated when our race atti-
tude data are studied comparatively. Every religion has
narrow-minded racial bigots; likewise each has world-
minded spokesmen. Statements from a cosmopolitan Chris-
tian and a Buddhist illustrate the latter point well.
1 Social Distance Studies.
2 Ibid.
214
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
124. As an immigrant I have seen several religions in operation
in different countries. As a soldier in the World War, I have seen
three or four religions tested out. As an adopted citizen of the
United States, I would like to see Christianity win out, but let
people of all religions come, even Buddhists, Mohammedans, and
the rest, and let all have a fair show. My childhood days were
spent in a Congregational home, and I believe that Congrega-
tionalism will ultimately become the world religion at least,
deep in my heart, I hope so.3
S
125. Individuals differ in every aspect. There must be as much
difference in religion as in individuals, to suit their minds. I do
not believe that there is only one religion which is perfect and best.
The truth is one, but the way to attain the truth is not a single
path.
The thing I want to mention here is that I often meet persons
who firmly believe that Christianity is the only right religion.
They consider the persons who are not Christians as wrong beings.
They show an antagonistic attitude to the non-Christian groups.
I know this is not the world ideal of religious freedom. No broad-
minded people accept one religion for all, but, in fact, I do not
meet such persons in Christian people, who are very narrow-
minded. I am sure there are just as narrow-minded persons in
the Buddhist groups also, and I believe this is the greatest weak-
ness of us to feel the superiority of our own group.*
Racial attitudes when coupled with religion vary accord-
ing to the degree to which a person's religion faces competi-
tion. Even a religion founded on broad race principles
becomes exceedingly narrow and intolerant when its back is
against a wall. As a person's religious attitudes sometimes
shift according to the fight which he is making for social
status, so his racial attitudes likewise respond. The fight
for status may overrule religious ideals and even destroy
racial tolerance.
PROJECTS
1. Study the life history of a selected person, and analyze all
the relations of religious factors to racial attitudes.
2. Compare religious factors with (a) occupational and (b) with
regional factors in their influence on racial attitudes.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES
215
3. Compare the conditions under which religious attitudes are
coupled with narrow racial attitudes, with conditions when re-
ligion and broad racial attitudes are found together.
4. Analyze carefully and compare the experiences of two persons
where race attitudes are contrary to religious principles that are
professed.
5. Compare three or more well-known religions, with reference
to both favorable and unfavorable racial attitudes that have been
carried into action by the representatives of each during the past
centuries.
RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES
BABCOCK, K. C., The Scandinavian Element in the United States,
Chap. IX. University of Illinois, 1914.
DAVIS, JEROME, editor, Christianity and Social Adventuring, pp.
319-331. Century, 1927.
PRICE, M. T., Christian Missions and Oriental Civilizations, Chap.
I. Shanghai, 1924.
REUTER, E. B., The American Race Problem, Chap. XIII. Crowell,
1927.
SPEEK, R. A., A Stake in the Land, Chap, X. Harper, 1921.
STEINER, E. A., Against the Current, Chaps. XVIII, XIX, XXIII-
XXV. Revell, 1910.
"
Nationalizing America, Chap. VIII. Revell, 1916.
On the Trail of the Immigrant, Chap. XXII. Revell, 1906.
PART IV
ADJUSTMENT
1
CHAPTER XVII
PERSONALITY AND RACE PROBLEMS
After all, racial problems are personality problems. They
originate in personal experiences, either direct or derivative.
They begin and end in social situations with persons the
main actors. They involve changes in the racial attitudes
of persons, reversals in these attitudes, development of new
or augmentations of old attitudes. Adjustments of racial
problems imply changes in personal attitudes. The reduc-
tion of these problems depends upon an intensive under-
standing of the disturbing centers of all human attitudes:
namely, personality clashes.
A clash may be defined as the coming together of two
dissimilar forces. A personality clash may be thought of as
the contacting of two human beings possessing antagonizing
behavior traits. The general type may be illustrated by the
case of the thin, angular, freckle-faced, dirty immigrant boy
who walked into a public-school classroom at the beginning
of the school year. The teacher was a prim, precise spinster
who had been accustomed only to “cultured children." She
looked critically over the room and saw the uncleanly lad.
She noticed his unkempt hair, and his yellow teeth. He
glanced at her, heard her strange, snappy voice, and shifted
uneasily in his seat. Like Skeezix of cartoon fame, on one
occasion, "he felt that he was going to be the cause of
impending trouble."
The personality clash was on, though neither teacher nor
boy had said a word to the other. Neither even knew the
other by name, but each had experienced an unpleasant,
disagreeable picture of the other. Earlier unpleasant fixa-
219
220
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
Temperament and Culture.
tions on the part of both may have been aroused, and with-
out rationalization, mutually antagonistic feelings were set
in motion. The clash assumed overt proportions on slight
provocation, and a long-term conflict became established.
A personality clash may
often be traced back to differences in standards of physical
appearance, of body care, and of culture status. The origins
may be similar to a child's dislike for particular foods, in-
volving bio-chemical factors. The processes are opposite to
those of "falling in love." "To fall in hate " is as normal
as "to fall in love." A study of either process will throw
light on the other.
Again, a personality clash may arise out of normal social
situations. An illustration has already been given of one
common type of situation; namely, that involving immi-
grant children and the public school. Another common
situation is that in which immigrant children clash with
native-born adults, thus creating "neighborhood rows." An
immigrant boy was innocently standing on a neighbor's lawn
one Saturday afternoon. The neighbor made a petulant re-
mark to the boy, and the boy's Italian temperament "fired
up." The neighbor replied angrily, seeing in the boy numer-
ous disagreeable traits. The boy then began to act " mean,
and the neighbor yelled something about "Dago kid." The
boy was off his guard, and the neighbor was having an off-
day. A boy's restless energy and a man's previous expe-
riences of being annoyed were important factors. In other
words, the setting for a personality clash was complete. The
necessary conditions had been operative for some time, and
on the given day, the juxtaposition of temperament and
conditions for a clash was perfect.
Personality clashes of a neighborhood variety are often
due to differences in racial temperament and culture back-
grounds. "Those horrid R.'s-they throw ashes out into
the street - I'd like to teach them a lesson." But the su-
""
PERSONALITY AND RACE PROBLEMS
221
perior way in which the "instruction " is given brings more
ashes out into the street. Consequently the police are sent
for. Mrs. R. knows who telephoned the police, and a whole
set of personality clashes become "fixed." In the European
peasant village from which the R.'s came, they had been
required to put ashes in the street (as a substitute for pav-
ing); in this country they had done likewise with a calm
assurance that had been unduly jarred by the superior" in-
structions” from their American neighbor.
Personality clashes between members of different races
may be accounted for by the exhibition of sheer disagreeable
attitudes on the part of one or the other party to the conflict.
"He was a smart Aleck," said an American, after trading
with a Japanese vegetable dealer. "Those remarks of his
were uncalled for. I'm not going there again. I can't help
it, and I know that it isn't fair, but I think of the whole
Japanese race in terms of him and his disagreeableness." A
man trading for the first time at a certain German store,
referred to the proprietor's gruff manner and said: "I'll not
go in there again, not even if the goods are superior."
126. Where we used to live there was a Greek store in the
neighborhood. It was filthy and untidy, but we often traded with
them because it was the only fruit stand near by. Several times
they short-measured our things, but we said nothing. One time
they short-pounded me about one-half of a pound of peas, and I
thought then it was time to say something. He was very dis-
agreeable so that I felt that I was not wanted in his store anyhow.
After that I traded there as little as possible, but when I did he
gave me the feeling of dislike. He made me feel that he was doing
me a favor, whereas I was doing him a favor by trading there.¹
The loss of one's status is often sufficient to lead to a per-
sonality clash, especially so if the loss has been caused by
the activity or success of a "foreigner." A broad-minded
American youth felt a liking for a capable, well-mannered
1 Social Distance Studies.
222
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
Japanese boy, until he was defeated by the latter in a
swimming match. He could not bear to think he had been
defeated by a " Jap," nor could he bear to hear the cheering
for the Japanese boy. This cheering caused a “violent feel-
ing of hatred to rise in my breast against him. His smile
aroused my hatred all the more." The American boy
avoided meeting the Japanese student, and the latter in
turn ceased to pay any attention to the former. They have
not spoken to each other for two years.
Racial differences in temperament are causal factors in
personality clashes. The talkativeness of the members of
one race is poison to a quiet-demeanored people. Reticence
on the part of immigrants is misinterpreted as "subtleness,"
grouchiness," or plain stupidity. By virtue of these false
interpretations of personality traits, human patience is un-
necessarily tried to the point of creating conflict conditions.
66
127. He approached me in a fine spirit and told me how far he
had come to see me. He was well dressed and showed an active-
mindedness that pleased me greatly. He is going to be my star
pupil, I soliloquized. In class he sat near the front, which pleased
me. He was Greek, and so could contribute a great deal to the
class discussion. Presently, however, the other students began to
protest against his "talkativeness" and his tendency to "argue."
(6
He bores us to death," they said, and I wondered what could be
done. I asked him, along with the others, to make an investigation
in a field in which I thought that he would be particularly in-
terested, but he declined. He grew disappointed in the class and
I in him. He wanted to talk and argue, and I wanted him to do
research and present the findings - without "talking and argu-
ing." That was fifteen years ago, but I have had the situation
almost literally duplicated several times since, although my last
Greek was not of this type at all, but a scientific investigator.2
Personality clashes occur within immigrant homes, be-
cause the children often represent new world ways, while the
parents maintain old world patterns. These differences lead
2 Social Distance Studies.
PERSONALITY AND RACE PROBLEMS
223
to misunderstandings and personality clashes. The chasm
widens.
An immigrant boy may become a conscious and self-im-
portant leader in the home, and the training process may be
reversed. He will take no orders from his "ignorant par-
ents," who lose complete control over him. If he earns
money, he feels still more independent. He makes rapid
strides in learning " undesirable " American ways. The in-
terests of the boy and his parents grow far apart, and they
become strangers within the same home. A personality
clash reaches the point where the parent despairingly says:
"He's no good. We can do nothing for him."
Social distance is created by the children's rising tide of
knowledge of the American's language, amusements, and
other customs. The very land which the immigrant parents
look forward to as giving their children opportunities which
they did not have, steals these children from them, and
many of them spend their last days in isolation from their
own children. The children turn against their parents be-
cause the parents have become" old fogies." One immigrant
boy bluntly says: "My parents don't know anything. I
am under no obligations to them, and why should I submit to
ignorant authority?" A Jewish social worker reports that in
her district nearly every Jewish home has a car, even among
the poorer people, where they have second-hand Fords, but
even these tend to separate the children from the parents."
The motion picture likewise tends to create a disrespect for
parental authority, for the blunders of the "old folks " are
made fun of. "Parents have their European ways so defi-
nitely ingrained that they cannot change a great deal. The
boys are getting American ways very definitely, and hence
there is an uncrossable chasm for which there is no ade-
quate solution. Differences in the home begin with the
language.” 3
((
3 Boys' Work Survey of Los Angeles, 1925.
224
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
The problem of bridging the chasm between an Ameri-
can-born son or daughter and immigrant parents is most
troublesome. The American-born boy who comes back from
school in his bright sweater with a big letter on it, with
corduroy trousers and an American cap "looks like a wild
Indian" to his parents. At school he is a hero; at home, his
parents shrink from him and ostracize him. He cannot
easily play a dual personality rôle. His school looking-glass
self is stronger than his home looking-glass self. Social
distance rapidly widens.
128. He is the first in the home to represent American democracy
to his parents. He is looked upon with pride by the family. He
becomes a conscious and self-important element in the home, and
the training of the home is reversed. He will take no orders from
his "ignorant parents," who lose complete control over him. If
he helps out financially, he feels still more independent. He makes
rapid strides learning the desirable as well as the undesirable. The
interests of the boy and the parents grow far apart, and they are
strangers within the same home. A RESEARCH WORKER
129. And when the boy leaves school, he has to run around to
find work. Goes downtown and thinks he is master. In Europe
these kids work on the farms for their fathers, and he supplies
them with what they need. Here they decide for themselves, and
most of the time decide wrong. How do you suppose we feel when
the juvenile court officer comes around? I am ashamed. I am
vexed and troubled. As long as they are small, there is no trouble;
but as soon as they are old enough to make friends and run around
with gangs, then they quit minding their parents, and the trouble
begins. They have learned to complain to officials when they are
severely punished, and what can you do? Very few people under-
stand us and take an interest in our troubles. A PARENT 5
S
Intrapersonality Problems. A peculiar but common
personality problem relative to race relations is that of the
person who is in continual "conflict with himself," because
of possessing diverse or even diametrically opposed attitudes
toward specific races. Conflicts in attitudes regarding races
arise to plague many people. Sometimes the direct expe-
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
A
PERSONALITY AND RACE PROBLEMS
225
riences with the members of another race are favorable and
the indirect, derivative ones unfavorable. Then a personal
conflict ensues. The opposite type of situation is far less
common, for, other things being equal, the verdict of direct
personal experiences usually receives the greater weight.
Where derivative experiences have created a friendly atti-
tude toward a race but have been followed by adverse direct
experiences, disappointments are likely to occur. Another
set of experiences leading to personal conflict is expressed
thus: "Those you meet in the university seem to be of the
higher class and are friendly, but those you see elsewhere
and on the street look dubious."
Oftentimes the personal conflict arises from the perception
of cultural differences in a specific race. We react toward
those persons of our own culture level, but against those of a
different level, particularly those of a lower level (unless
sympathy operates strongly), and against those of a greatly
higher level (to which there is little prospect of our attain-
ing). “I am divided on the Jewish race. I have many
Jewish friends whom I like extremely much. They are
smart, big-hearted, good company, well-groomed. I must
like them in spite of myself. But on the other hand, there
is a lower class of Jew whom I detest. He may be rich or
poor, but the lower type in my judgment is always flagrant,
loud-mouthed, overbearing, and a bore."
Oftentimes the conflict takes a more personal turn as in
the case of the individual who had established an intimate
acquaintance with a Japanese and had found him a true and
agreeable friend. But the newspaper reports that the Jap-
anese laborers worked in California for smaller wages than
white men, that they have an excessive birth rate, and that
they would overrun the West if given a chance, were dis-
turbing. A personal affection for an individual Japanese is
overcome by a general fear for the welfare of the nation
based on hearsay evidence.
226
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
130. In order to avoid any possible misunderstanding, it is wise
to discuss American people as I imagined them when I was in
Japan, and then to give my impression after associating with
them for quite a long time. This does not mean that my estimation
of Americans is not as high as that of any other race; in fact, I
still believe Americans are one of the most cultivated nations in
the world.
To be sure, Japanese are ardent followers of democracy; con-
sequently, we students in Japan did not fail to study American
history and American government. As a result, we were thoroughly
familiar with such famous persons as George Washington, Abra-
ham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, etc. Not
only that, but we were also acquainted with what these great men
had done for the United States and for the sake of humanity.
When we thought of George Washington fighting for the inde-
pendence of the American Colonies, Abraham Lincoln shedding
blood for the abolition of slavery, and Woodrow Wilson sacrificing
his life for world peace, we respected American public and Ameri-
can people who were largely responsible for the production of such
geniuses.
Expecting Americans to be such and thinking them to be the
nearest model of Bible teachings, I arrived in San Francisco and
became a member of American society. For a few months, on
account of ignorance and unfamiliarity with real American society,
everything appealed to me as ideal. But I began to learn things
about America and its daily happenings, and my respect for
American people gradually faded away until I began to think of
them as ordinary people, having unbalanced civilization, mate-
rially strong and spiritually weak.
Perhaps it will be interesting to state some of the factors which
shook my confidence in American people as idealistic. First, the
passing of the Anti-Alien Land Law, which aimed to rob bread
and butter from poor oriental farmers who were trying to settle
peacefully and desiring to be assimilated into American society. If
the law had any sound economical reason to support its existence,
then I have no objection; but the passing of the law was merely
based on race prejudice and misunderstanding or ignorance.
Second, the attempt to segregate Japanese children from public
school in Sacramento was not the kind of action that people who
boast of their democracy should take. If the Japanese school
children in that district were subnormal and hindered the progress
of other American children, then their attempt was justified. But
PERSONALITY AND RACE PROBLEMS
227
the investigation proved that that condition was not so; hence no
justification for the action.
Third, that public opinion which made the Japanese consul
general at San Francisco stop picture brides from coming was poor
expression of sense of fairness, for although the coming in of a
great number of brides to this country was not desirable, yet
people should be fairminded enough to give opportunity to those
already settled in this country to establish their respective
families.
Fourth, the passing of the recent immigration law, too, was
undemocratic; for admitting that the restriction of immigrants
is wise policy, we cannot very well agree that exclusion alone of
Orientals is justifiable policy. Any action which is based upon
discrimination and bias is not the kind of action we expect from
people who believe in democracy.
Now, let me recount a few experiences I have gone through in
the past. One day, hoping to get away from the burning sun of
the summer, I tried to go into a certain plunge; but contrary to
my expectation, I was flatly refused. I did not know the reason
then, but later on I was informed that the manager at the plunge
refused to admit me because of my race.
In a certain district, a friend of mine rented a house, but he
was compelled to move a few days later because neighboring
people did not want Japanese in their district. The other day the
building of a Japanese M. E. Church was being planned in a
certain district; but when neighbors heard this, they filed petition
with the city clerk and prevented construction of the building.
If Japanese were asking for admittance to any social functions
and for other similar privileges, then they may be justified in
being refused, but in these cases they were merely asking for the
peaceful settlement and unharmful pursuit of peace. Still, in spite
of these unpleasant experiences, I have no bitter feeling toward
Americans; only I think of them as ordinary nation, no better
than most of other races. Thus I feel less friendly toward them
than I did in the past. 6
Personality differences are of two types. (1) Certain
differences lead naturally and easily to clashes even when all
parties belong to the same race. Sometimes the differences
are purely (a) temperamental and inherited; sometimes
• Ibid.
228
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
they represent (b) different levels of culture development.
Of course, where two or more races are involved, such per-
sonality differences easily generate fire. (2) Sometimes
personality differences represent different races but similar
levels of culture development. Such conditions are a fruitful
source of racial conflicts. Status, competition, and invasion
are usually influential factors.
The adjustment of the personality differences that cause
racial problems is complicated. The adjustment of tem-
perament clashes involves a knowledge of psychiatry, psy-
chology, and sociology, as well as an understanding of how
to apply these disciplines to social situations where two or
more persons are in conflict. The adjustment of the culture
differences that lead to race conflicts is, however, a less diffi-
cult matter, for education can eliminate culture distances.
Public opinion, however, may increase social distances, for
it often "educates " people to look for and magnify per-
sonality differences, to generalize these differences into
racial fears and prejudices, and hence to hinder personality
adjustments.
PROJECTS
1. Describe in detail any two personality clashes that you have
had with members of any race besides your own.
2. Compare and contrast these two personality clashes in as
many ways as possible.
3. Interview some other person, and write out in full a personal-
ity clash that he or she may have experienced with a member of
any race not his own.
4. Analyze the different stages in a personality clash involving
two races.
5. Describe the different types of endings in which personality
clashes may result.
6. Analyze personality traits, making two classes: (1) those
that easily lead to race clashes and (2) those that do not. Give
illustrations of each.
PERSONALITY AND RACE PROBLEMS
229
PERSONALITY AND RACE PROBLEMS
GAVIT, J. P., Americans by Choice, Chap. VI. Harper, 1922.
HOFFMAN, O. F., "The Nature of Life Histories," Jour. of Applied
Sociology, Vol. XI, pp. 147-59.
JOHNSON, J. W., The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.
Knopf, 1927.
MILLER, H. A., Races, Nations, and Classes, Chap. I. Lippincott,
1924.
PANUNZIO, CONSTANTINE, The Soul of an Immigrant, Chap.
XVIII. Macmillan, 1921.
PRICE, M. T., Christian Missions and Oriental Civilizations, Chap.
I. Shanghai, 1924.
PORTEUS, S. D., AND BABCOCK, M. E., Temperament and Race,
Chaps. X, XI, XVII, XVIII. Badger, 1926.
RAVAGE, M. E., An American in the Making. Harper, 1917.
WASHINGTON, BOOKER T., Up From Slavery, Chaps. I-IV. Burt,
1900.
CHAPTER XVIII
PUBLIC OPINION AND RACE PROBLEMS
The solution of racial problems includes more than the
adjustment of personality differences, for the latter occur
in a public opinion medium. As public opinion has prepared
the way, so personality differences multiply or dissolve. In
a real sense the nature of racial problems at any particular
time depends on public opinion. Within the changing cur-
rents and established planes of opinion and thought, persons
of different races clash and struggle, or grow friendly. Per-
sonal opinions grow into antipathetic or friendly racial
opinion.
Racial opinion is a curious compound. It may be studied
at close range in connection with the prevailing opinions of
the people of any local community, it may be observed in
the form of the opinion accompanying any particular race
riot, or it may be considered in terms of the traditional
origins of race mores.
Local Racial Opinion. - Every local community, whether
rural or a natural psychosocial area in a large city, holds
certain more or less vaguely integrated racial opinions.
Whether an admixture or a juxtaposition of races is present
or not makes no differences. Such factors affect the variety
of opinions but not their number.
To study the racial opinions of a local community it is
necessary to go to the community itself, to its written rec-
ords, if there be such, and to its unwritten history, to its
leaders, to its citizenry. Out of these accounts an objective
statement can be woven together. Besides this, there re-
mains the meaning of such racial opinion, that is, its origins
230
PUBLIC OPINION AND RACE PROBLEMS
231
in the community happenings and in the personal experiences
of the community residents.
A remote mountain community usually possesses stable
or fixed racial opinions. "We are superior," and "there is
to be no invasion" are characteristic. Everything is fixed
on the basis of priority and ethnocentrism. A small trickle
of outsiders does not arouse these attitudes, but the appear-
ance of numbers of "foreigners" is usually met with stout
resistance.
A metropolitan area possesses both fixed and changing
racial opinions. Rooming-house areas and districts of social
disorganization have few fixed racial attitudes, but wealthy
residence districts and upper middle-class neighborhoods
possess definite complexes. When invasion occurs, intoler-
ance may become violent. In socially disorganized districts
racial clashes may occur through sheer lack of social control.
In one of the local-community studies of racial opinion
made during the Pacific Coast Race Relations Survey, the
research-interview method was used. Three races, Cau-
casians, Negroes, and Japanese, were living in the same local
community. Systematic interviewing brought out the racial
opinions of each of the three major culture groups repre-
sented.¹ Many of the white people who have remained have
taken a somewhat noncommittal attitude, providing it is
understood that the Negroes shall encroach no farther upon
the white district. They tolerate and on occasion become
neighbors with the Negroes and Japanese. The latter races
are viewed by many of the Americans on their merits as
family and neighbor groups rather than as racial entities.
The Negroes in this area belong to the more educated and
better class members of the race. As a rule they are well-
ordered neighbors. They are allowed freedom in home
1 The interviews were conducted by E. F. Bamford, a member
of the Race Relations Survey staff. A part of the results is reported
in E. S. Bogardus, The New Social Research. Jesse Ray Miller Press,
Los Angeles, 1926.
232
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
Toward the Japanese, the Negro opinion is
that of a fellow sufferer.
building.
friendly
Japanese opinion, on the whole, is thankful. The Japa-
nese in this community are glad to "be let alone "; they are
appreciative of school opportunities, of a chance to worship
as they wish, of homes with yards for their children. Re-
sentment on account of "the unchristian prejudices of
Christian United States" sometimes crops out.
Altogether there is a triracial tolerance. While each race
has its marked differences, there are culture similarities re-
garding home building, economic independence, freedom of
worship, school facilities, obedience of laws. Out of these
similarities of striving peoples arises a common racial
opinion.
Mores and Racial Opinion. — Racial opinion is insepa-
rable from the mores, which pronounces certain social prac-
tices "good" and others " bad." Certain race relations are
forbidden by the mores; certain race proposals, such as in-
termarriage of white and black, are nondiscussible. Such
topics are not allowed to come into the field of public opin-
ion. They have long since been "settled." To allow them
to be discussed is repugnant; moreover, such discussion
might lead to their modification. Ordinarily, the mores do
not come within the range of human attention. Prohibitions
are deep-seated and "sacred."
·
But let the mores be overstepped and woe to the offender.
Public opinion comes to the rescue. Feelings are inflamed,
horrified accusations are hurled, group patriotism and emo-
tions turn into violence and hatred. Competition comes into
the open as conscious conflict and public opinion becomes
"fighting mad."
Children are born into the mores, and thus are satu-
rated" at an early date in their lives with both antiracial
and proracial beliefs. The former are usually accompanied
by strong emotional reactions. Emotional fixations of any
66
PUBLIC OPINION AND RACE PROBLEMS
233
antiracial nature that become established in the uncritical
years of life color all opinions that come after. The mores
thus may become a leading source of a person's prejudices.
Since the mores must not be criticized or even discussed,
person may become unconsciously and hopelessly the victim
of race prejudices. Moreover, these prejudices may easily
become a part of one's personality traits. To have them
questioned is considered a personal insult.
The mores thus furnish an inexorable setting for the rise
of public opinion. It is probably true that, where a turbu-
lent public opinion springs up, the mores in one way or
another have been invaded. If allowed their way, the mores
would keep everything settled and quiet; there would be
little occasion for a powerful public opinion.
Mores are often ritualized; race mores are both taught
and caught. They acquire a "divine " nature, and survive
long under a false cloak. Racial and religious sanctions
may become inseparable and dominate public opinion.
The mores are of a contractual nature. Parents give
their children established codes and standards (mores).
These become encased in sentiment and respect for parents,
and may be observed, for the parents' sake, long after their
inadequate or possible unjust nature has been noted. Many
sons and daughters feel under obligation to parental wish
and carry forward a racial mores that has little scientific
foundation. Parental loyalty thus may hinder the rise of a
new and needed racial opinion.
Myth, Rumor, and News.- Myth is omnipresent in the
formation of racial opinion. As Dr. R. E. Park has said,
a myth is a generalization which cannot be proved. It is,
nevertheless, as effective as though it were demonstrable. It
becomes a symbol that is accepted as the truth. Its very
indistinctness gives it a fear-making quality. It rises like
the green eyes of a beast in the dark. The fear reactions
are all powerful.
234
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
Any wild-cat generalization, as represented by the sym-
bols," terrible Turk," or "yellow peril," is caught up by the
public ear, and broadcasted. It is given big headlines by
the newspapers. The black shadow is accepted for truth.
Myth starts in rumor. Almost any person in a moment
of fear fear for his own social and economic status or for
the status of his group-may impetuously give vent to
startling remarks. If he wishes to secure a hearing, he exag-
gerates or speaks with greater force than the circumstances
warrant. If an atmosphere of racial unrest already exists,
then such exaggerations pass quickly from person to person,
gathering momentum as they go. There is no time or dis-
position for calm inquiry. Research would be considered
preposterous.
A rumor is a currently started and unverified statement;
if it persists, it becomes a myth. Creating and spreading
excitement as it goes, it is readily accepted long after it has
leaped all the bounds of truth. Once started it cannot be
recalled; neither can the harm it does be offset. The killing
of four persons in a riot quickly becomes reported as the
massacre of forty. A Negro severely beaten by a mob of
white hoodlums may live to discover that he "was burned
alive at the stake." Rumors easily float into myths. Racial
opinion acquires new biases and is ready to listen to new
rumors. Thus the vicious circle continues.
131. The director of the civic bureau of the Seattle Chamber of
Commerce, writing to a friend in Chicago, asked for authentic
information concerning the number of Negroes killed during the
riot (Chicago race riot, 1919). He sought the information because,
he said, the industrial editor of the Outlook had told him that
""
more then 2000 Negroes were killed in the riot” and that a
certain labor report placed the number at 1700. Suspecting that
even the latter number was too large, although the police men-
tioned 10,000 wounded and killed, he wrote for information. (The
actual number of Negroes killed was 23.) 2
2 The Negro in Chicago, p. 568. Chicago Commission on Race
Relations, 1922.
PUBLIC OPINION AND RACE PROBLEMS
235
Since news is not an event but an account of an event, as
pointed out by Dr. Park, it is some person's "interpreta-
tion" of an event. The experiences of this person, his racial
prejudices, the racial biases of the given newspaper owner
all these influence the reporter's write-up of news. The
mental patterns of all concerned in the description and in-
terpretation of racial news are more important than the
events themselves. In the newspaper accounts of the Mexi-
can agrarian policy put into effect in January, 1927, the
economic "interests" of the press were clearly evident. All
who do not see as 1. we do " are "Bolshevists." Other news-
paper accounts breathe nothing but praise for the Mexican
land and oil policy and refer to all Americans, "business
and religious " alike, as autocrats. The distortions thus fall
into two opposite extremes, and the truth no one can find
out. In no other field, unless it be the religious, is truth so
likely to be distorted by protagonist observers as in racial
matters. Whenever news is reported by a news organization
that is determined entirely by "private and unexamined
standards," the truth is likely to be distorted and a false
public opinion manufactured. Whether these private stan-
dards are vicious or lofty does not gainsay the fact that
they mold the nature of news and influence public opinion
as much or even more than the actual events that have
occurred.
M
Politicians seeking votes pick up and broadcast a myth
against a race which is denied the right to vote. The public
seeking a thrill, feeds upon myths. If there are some help-
less individuals who can be denounced right vigorously, the
public is easily fooled into thinking that the denouncer is a
hero of the first order, a kind of savior of his country as it
were, one to whom to deny votes would be traitorous. An
unfortunate result is that a prejudiced public opinion
spreads. Oriental immigrants in the United States, having
no votes, have been " the football of politics." To denounce
236 IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
the "Chinks" or the "Japs" has brought wild applause
and thousands of votes, but at the expense of a false and
emotional public opinion.
By "propaganda " is meant news which has been headed
up and interpreted for the purposes of persons or " interests,"
and which may belie the truth it purports to represent.
Propaganda against any foreign race is easily promulgated,
especially if it plays upon the loyalty of natives to their own
people. A race fearful of losing its own status will “be-
lieve" almost any propaganda against other races. Propa-
ganda may play upon a person's emotional nature until the
latter develops pathological patterns. "Race riots " in cities
are partly propaganda made. "Housing wars" including
the mysterious burning of homes are often the outgrowth
of propaganda.
J
Steps in Antiracial Opinion. —"Invasion" is usually
the chief factor in the rise of adverse racial opinions. The
mores prohibit certain inter-race relationships; but when
these are "overstepped," the first or "flare-up" stage of
racial opinion develops. A few persons whose emotions have
been shocked by a disturbance of the mores begin to talk
vigorously. Wild statements and excitement rule.
After the original "flare-up" comes the second or "or-
ganization" stage. The sources of irritation persist.
Countless small group" gab-fests" pass from fickle indigna-
tion exhibitions to a more determined procedure. All are
certain that something must be done. Some one leads the
way in calling a mass meeting, a set of officers is elected,
and a simple organization is perfected. Spellbinders and
orators take the stage. Racial inflammation expresses itself
in denunciation; local patriotism rules.
Then the third or "action" stage follows. It ranges all
the way from posting prohibitory signs to obtaining injunc-
tions. Rioting may ensue, but, on the other hand, someone
may intervene. Some of the more thoughtful persons or
PUBLIC OPINION AND RACE PROBLEMS
237
broad-minded protest. They urge caution. A few coura-
geous souls may flatly "object" to the inhuman procedure.
But they are dealt with summarily, called all sorts of names,
and made to appear as traitors. If they persist, they may
be burned in effigy; they are sent threatening letters and are
ostrasized in social and business ways. Exponents of fair
play are "hooted down and out."
The fourth stage is characterized by fixation of new preju-
dices. No matter what the final outcome of the race con-
flict may be, the enraged emotions "fixate " new prejudices
in the mores. If the invasion persists, many clashes and
riots occur; and if the conflict lasts long, a greatly modified
mores results.
Areas of Racial Opinion. — Racial opinion occurs in
high-pressure areas with low-pressure regions between. The
first express either antipathy or friendliness. The antipa-
thetic areas possess a higher emotional pressure than the
friendliness-pressure areas. In between are the low-pressure
or neutral districts in which high pressures are likely to be
manifested at any time. The high-pressure areas of both
types are relatively stationary. Antipathetic centers of race
opinion subside but remain powerful. Friendly centers of
race opinion ordinarily attract little attention to themselves,
but are more or less lasting.
The antipathetic pressure areas are definitely centered as
a rule in the offices of organizations such as those of exclu-
sion leagues, native sons, and "patriotic " bodies, of local
community organizations, of certain newspapers, or in the
homes of specific private citizens. Strong emotional and
defense reactions focus effort in the distribution of antirace
literature and the planning of propaganda meetings.
The emotional pressure is greater in antirace areas than in
the fair play regions. There is more emotional pressure per
person in the former than in the latter, and hence there is
more activity, excitement, and furor. The former appear in
238
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
explosive lumps; the latter gradually diffuse. A small area
of antirace opinion is likely to make a larger "noise" and
a greater impression than a large area of fair play opinion.
It meets with prompter and more dynamic responses. It is
more aggressive and hence effective.
Antirace opinion is deliberately advertised, while fair play
opinion is not "news." It is "assumed to be normal” and
receives publicity with difficulty. Antirace facts are spec-
tacular, imply a fight, and stimulate the wish for security.
They touch off dislikes. They verge sufficiently on the
pathological to arouse morbid curiosity. They are excitingly
destructive, like a conflagration; fair play opinion is peace-
fully constructive, like the growing of an oak.
The "fair-play" pressure areas are not only more dif-
fused but more rational. Sometimes they center in an or-
ganization for international good will or inter-race relations,
a church organization or a broad-gauge chamber of com-
merce. Sporadic efforts, limited financial supports, frequent
expression of brotherhood ideals are characteristic. The
thinness of "resolutions " is being recognized, and the prac-
tice is passing.
There are fair-play areas with headquarters in the offices
of the various organizations, business, religious, community,
of the immigrant races themselves. Feeling themselves to
be misunderstood and mistreated, they frequently ask
Americans for assistance and coöperation develops between
the native and immigrant fair-play areas. Efforts to spread
"favorable" reports are occasionally varied by "going into
the courts" and asking there for justice.
The regions of dead calm and of small eddies that exist
between the high-pressure areas are occasionally whipped
into a fury by the outreaching whirls of antirace opinion.
Independent flurries may also occur, because of the arrival
of "invaders." If there is no invasion in a competitive
sense, then racial opinion remains dormant.
PUBLIC OPINION AND RACE PROBLEMS
239
132. I live in a community in which there are one hundred
Mexicans - about twenty-five Mexican families. They have been
here for a number of years and are growing slowly. They tend to
their own business and seem to be peaceful enough. They work
for the white ranchers. White people need them, and only a
kindly feeling toward them exists. The only time that there has
been a flare-up was a year ago last winter, when some of them
committed a nuisance. The trouble makers were visitors who
were sent away. Everything has been all right since.³
3
The various areas are " publics "; they are " circles of in-
fluence." Each has its own set of opinions its own "pub-
lic opinion," bubbling up out of its own set of mores and
conflicting with each other. Racial opinions occupy an in-
termediate rôle between the stable group mores and the
fluctuating personal experiences of the day.
At the gigantic task of making over the currents and
planes of racial opinion, education is continually at work.
But education has much that is unscientific to overcome.
It is often governed by the mores, and helpless before de-
structive experiences. In its socially scientific aspects, how-
ever, it is gaining ground, and much may be expected of it
in the solving of racial problems.
PROJECTS
1. Make a case study of any race-conflict situation of which
you have first-hand knowledge in terms of the classes and stages
of public opinion manifested.
2. Make a case study of racial myths in your community.
3. Analyze in full any specific example of race propaganda.
4. Try to develop a new or a changed group opinion on some
race matter, and describe the main phases of the experiment.
5. Start a race rumor among ten friends, and arrange to have
the last report given back to you, noting changes which have
occurred in the rumor and analyzing the origins of each change.
6. Compare and contrast the expressions of public opinion in a
racial conflict with public opinion in a religious dispute.
³ Mexican Immigrant Survey of the Southwest.
240
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
7. Analyze the different concrete ways in which the mores hold
public opinion under control in your community.
PUBLIC OPINION AND RACE PROBLEMS
ABBOTT, EDITH, Historical Aspects of the Immigration Problem,
Sec. V. University of Chicago Press, 1926.
BOGARDUS, E. S., The New Social Research, Chaps. XI-XIII.
Jesse Ray Miller, 1926.
CHICAGO COMMISSION ON RACE RELATIONS, The Negro in Chicago,
Chaps. IX, X. University of Chicago Press, 1922.
COOLIDGE, MARY R., Chinese Immigration, Chap. III. Holt, 1909.
DETWEILER, F. G., The Negro Press in the United States. Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1922.
PARK, R. E., The Immigrant Press and Its Control, Parts I-III.
Harper, 1922.
REUTER, E. B., The American Race Problem, Chaps. VII, XVI.
Crowell, 1927.
THOMAS, W. I., AND ZNANIECKI, F., The Polish Peasant in Europe
and America, Vol. II. Knopf, 1927.
CHAPTER XIX
EDUCATION AND RACE PROBLEMS
Education in the sense of developing and changing human
attitudes is the culminating phase of "immigration and
racial attitudes." Education is the supreme adjustment
process. The discussion of education and racial problems
is essentially a summary of the materials presented in the
preceding chapters with reference to securing new and better
racial adjustments than now obtain. But education is
both unscientific and scientific, with the former predom-
inant. Unscientific education is generally unsystematic and
often propagandistic, while scientific education is usually
organized.
-
Unsystematic Education. Under the conditions that
have existed in the past and that still rule, unscientific and
unsystematic education plays the largest rôle in racial rela-
tions situations. The education that comes through sober
experiences is still dominant. While these experiences work
both constructively and destructively, the latter type un-
fortunately is the more effective. If unfavorable racial con-
tacts lead to racial antipathies, and pleasing contacts to
friendliness, then a sound education program may be built
around the control of racial contacts. To provide social
conditions whereby racial contacts will take place on bases
of full understanding and fellow feeling would solve racial
problems.
Another dynamic educational factor is hearsay and de-
rivative experience as distinguished from direct contacts.
In this connection it is chiefly the unfavorable racial con-
tacts that become broadcasted through gossip. Since un-
favorable experiences travel faster, farther, and become
241
242
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
more exaggerated than favorable ones, a wise educational
program will include attempts to control the spread of gossip
both from person to person and from "yellow journalism"
to its millions of devotees. Some progress is already being
made in educating people to "pass on " deeds of heroism,
kindliness, and fair play by immigrants, and to " hold back"
deeds of cruelty and repulsion of individual immigrants —
at least to the extent of not charging the bad deeds of in-
dividual immigrants to whole races.
The atmosphere which is created when racial experiences
are reported by one person to others is all-important. The
"way in which a thing is said " is effective in developing
true or false attitudes. The attitudes of parents and other
leaders in repeating the ill-advised actions of racialists is
often more significant than the actions themselves.
133. It was Easter morning on the second-class deck of the S. S.
Olympic en route to America. A New England mother was quietly
reading the story of the crucifixion to her three children. In the
midst of the story one interrupted and asked, "So it was a bunch
of Jews who killed Jesus?" The mother started to nod assent
when her eye fell on the occupants of several adjacent steamer
chairs, and, like a flash, she said, "Yes, it happened to be Jews
who killed Jesus, but He Himself was a Jew. If He had been living
in America today, it would have been Protestant Christians like
ourselves who would have killed Him.” 1
Another relationship between education and racial atti-
tudes is illustrated by the spellbinder, or emotional public
speaker. By working up a climax of "terrible word pic-
ture," by painting the worst that may be said about a race
in "hideous images," by shouting with vehemence, for in-
stance, that "the Orientals shall never again enter the
United States," the cheap orator has a wide but dangerous
"educational" influence. Fortunately, there are also many
public speakers who in calm and dispassionate terms are
1 From manuscript compiled by Bruno Lasker, The Inquiry.
EDUCATION AND RACE PROBLEMS
243
doing educational work in behalf of many races. Pulpit,
lecture platform, and radio station may well redouble their
efforts in offsetting untoward racial propaganda.
Still another important educational factor, discussed in
an earlier chapter, is the motion picture. An urgent need
is the elimination of foreigners as " villains" and a change
in attitude by the producers whereby the races of the earth
will be "pictured" correctly in all their interesting social
rôles and whereby culture history will be made fascinating,
somewhat after the manner of pictures published from time
to time in magazines such as the National Geographic.
Paid ethnologists in the service of the motion-picture world
could render widespread service.
The rôle of works of fiction in portraying foreigners as
" villains " is well known, but this type of writing is counter-
balanced by the many immigrant autobiographies that have
recently been published."
"Life histories" of immigrants often make more interest-
ing reading than novels and carry a wide and favorable
appeal. Foundations for publishing carefully selected life-
history materials would serve a useful purpose. Life-his-
tory materials from natives who have moved from one part
of their own country to some other locality would also be
enlightening.
The Particularistic Error. - People generalize upon a
few experiences, either direct or derivative. Upon the basis
of one unfavorable experience with one Japanese and a
general social atmosphere of suspicion regarding Japanese,
a person ordinarily generalizes against all Japanese. Upon
examination the "general social atmosphere" or prevailing
public opinion is found to have been built up unscientifi-
cally. Often it is largely the product of rumor and myth and
isolated experiences. Sometimes one or more unfavorable
2 Well-known illustrations are Ludwig Lewisohn's Up Stream,
Mary Antin's Promised Land, Constantine Panunzio's The Soul of
an Immigrant, Max Ravage's An American in the Making.
244
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
direct experiences are supported by a number of indirect or
hearsay reports. A vivid personal experience or the imag-
inative dramatization of a reported event is effective. "Ac-
quaintance with two Armenians has done much to develop
my feelings against the Turks." Again, "In this terrible
affair (the sinking of the Lusitania) over one thousand
women and children were drowned. This is one thing I will
never forget and will hold against the German race all my
life."
134. The first time that I can remember seeing Japanese, I
formed my opinion of them, and it has never changed. In fact
it has been kindled into a roaring fire of hatred. My first expe-
rience with the Jap was when I was on my way to the Philippine
Islands. At Nagasaki, Japan has a coaling station where we
stopped for a day and a half to get coal. In loading coal, coal
barges come out to the ship that is anchored in the harbor. With
these barges there is a band of Jap laborers. On close observation
we found that these gangs consisted of men and women. When
the barges are tied up to the ship, a line is formed, and large
baskets of coal are passed up into the ship by men and women
alike; these baskets are dumped into the hold and returned to the
barge. This little experience showed me what low standards of
living these people maintained.³
135. I do not like the Englishmen very well, although they have
not done any harm to me personally. My feeling against the
English people was due to an unspeakable instance which occurred
many years ago in Hong Kong, China. One evening while I was
looking out from a window of the hotel, I saw a group of Chinese
waiting eagerly for their friends to come up from a steamboat.
One of the Chinese was trying to get as near to the boat as possible
(as we always do) to welcome his friend. A six-foot English po-
liceman rushed to that innocent Chinese man, who did not know
the regulations of the pier, and said: "No one is allowed to get
near the boat while passengers are landing," knocking him down
with a club, and kicked him on the ribs with his iron-toed boot.
From that time since, when the word " Englishman " is mentioned,
that terrible instance always appears once again vividly in my
mind.4
3 Pacific Coast Race Relations Survey.
4 Social Distance Studies.
EDUCATION AND RACE PROBLEMS
245
Even though a person recognizes the "particularistic
error " as such, and that he is a victim, he is helpless. Even
though he knows his experiences to be unrepresentative and
unfair to a specific race as a whole, he cannot extricate him-
self from the thralldom. A few unpleasant experiences
are more powerful than studied attempts to be tolerant and
broad-visioned.
136. Again my experience with the Jew has prejudiced me in
spite of my trying to be broad and democratic. I have known only
a few Jews, and unfortunately these have not been good represen-
tatives. These Jews would not mix with the Gentiles, nor would
they contribute in any way to help the particular little city where
they were. They had only one aim and that was to make money,
in any manner. These Jews were a representative of uncultured
and rather narrow ideals. I have not been fortunate in coming in
contact with the more desirable and worth-while Jew who, I am
sure, exists. Naturally until I have more desirable experiences,
there will exist that unfair prejudice.5
The particularistic error also operates in building up racial
friendliness. College or university life is favorable to the
development of friendship between native-born and a few
splendid representatives of other races; particularistic re-
sults obtain. In other words, first-hand and intimate ac-
quaintance with high-class, interesting, and dependable
individuals of a given race leads to favorable conclusions
regarding the entire race. This conclusion is a good start
toward, but not a substantial ground upon which to build,
racial friendliness. It may end in disillusionment, or it may
lead a person to overcome derivative antipathies and to
substitute racial friendliness at least of an idealistic sort
for racial indifference or prejudice.
Systematic Education. Textbooks skillfully written
often depict the favorable traits of the given nation and its
peoples without mentioning the worst practices. Concomi-
5 Social Distance Studies.
M
246
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
tantly, they may emphasize the less worthy features of other
races to the neglect of the best traits. Coupled with such
texts there may be "injunctions" issued to the teachers "to
teach the textbooks only" and to raise no "troublesome
questions" in the minds of pupils. In this way systematic
education may distort parts of the truth at the expense of
other parts and promulgate dangerously inaccurate racial
attitudes.
137. Another interesting picture is drawn by a colored woman
who writes: "When I first entered school in the state of Ohio at
the age of five or six years, I knew nothing about a color line. I
was something of a pet, because I was the youngest in the school
at that time. But when I got to be about eight or nine years old,
I began to discover that somehow I was a little different from the
other children. One evening when going home from school, a girl
who lived next door called me a "nigger." We fought it out with
fists and feet. I believe I could go to the very spot now where I
sat on her prostrate body and pummelled her good.
((
A little later on, when I was about to finish the grades, we were
studying the races of men in the geography class, and I remem-
ber distinctly the picture of the African savage that was used as
our representative. I was quite innocent of the fact that I had
the same racial lineages as he. Underneath the picture it said,
Ethiopian he belongs to the most backward race on the face
of the globe." And my white schoolmates turned around to me
and said, “Now, that's your folks." Nothing else was said con-
cerning Negroes in any textbook we used, except that they were
slaves. This made a profound impression on my mind and re-
sulted, many years after, in my touring the country for four years
in a Ford coupé, carrying with me a two-foot shelf of Negro
literature in the hope of doing something to offset the silence of
the textbooks with regard to the achievements of the colored
people.6
138. The southern writer George Madden Martin, in a recent
report on the history of the Negro in public school texts to the
Kentucky Inter-Racial Conference, says among other things:
"In no textbooks that your committee has examined is the
American Negro shown in a creditable sense to the pupil, white
• From manuscript by Bruno Lasker, ibid.
S
-
EDUCATION AND RACE PROBLEMS
247
and colored, as a people, a race group, with a past and authen-
ticated history of their own in Africa. Again, no textbook that
we have examined tells the pupil that practically every people in
the world have been enslaved by some people at some period in
their history; no textbook that we have examined explains to the
pupil, white and colored, that slavery is a condition imposed, en-
dured, not necessarily merited.
S
"Your committee, in a word, has found no school textbook which
first, presents and considers the Negro as a race group, with the
rights and attributes of such a group and, next, as a slave group,
contributory to the economic development of America."7
The emphasis upon the greatness of the United States and
upon "her glorious past" often gives children exaggerated
impressions of their own country and an inadequate back-
ground against which to measure other nations. By con-
trast they think of other nations as inferior, without realiz-
ing that each nation has certain superior as well as inferior
culture traits. An Italian immigrant recalls textbooks used
in his native country where Italy was pictured in the center
of the page as a benevolent giant, while around the central
figure were arranged the other nations playing small and
ignoble rôles. Such an unfairly distorted presentation is
made to the children of each nation. Moreover, this dis-
torted educational influence is rarely.corrected.
-
139. In the study of history and geography in the lower grades
one forms many prejudices against various small foreign countries.
These prejudices are largely a result of overidealizing the United
States and underestimating small countries by comparison with
the United States. Much time is spent studying the utopian
principles of loyalty, freedom, the magnificent business enterprise,
and wealth of natural resources in the United States while the
realism of it all is overlooked. In the meantime, little is said re-
garding the small foreign countries, and as a result one has a
tendency to belittle anything favorable said about them. Later
in school, the subject matter is handled more plainly, and a fairer
estimate may be made of all countries concerned. Furthermore,
7 Ibid.
248
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
one is constantly coming in touch with foreigners and newly nat-
uralized citizens who are quite willing to state their views. Such
magazines as the National Geographic often have articles, en-
lightening in nature, and giving a fair insight into the life of
individual races. The change in the evaluation of these small
countries is largely due to an increased and unprejudiced knowledge
of them and of the actual social place of the United States. These
ideas and prejudices regarding countries are naturally associated
with the races inhabiting those countries, so that, when one thinks
of a country being weak in world affairs, he feels that a corre-
sponding weakness exists in its racial inhabitants.
Greece, for example, is historically a defeated nation, small in
natural resources and population and fairly impotent in world
affairs. It would not be difficult to feel that the Greeks were
representative of their country and likewise weak in world affairs,
but such feeling is purely illusionary in nature. The whole ques-
tion rests on a less general and more specific knowledge of the
people. In this country the Greeks have at once found a place as
restaurant keepers, but their offspring are not un-American
enough to be satisfied with that sort of living. In the United
States these sons of Greeks are interested in law, medicine, and
teaching; and they are not slow to grasp the American viewpoint.
In the meantime, they are offering some of the classic Greek ideals
which are evidently superior to some of our own. I have had the
privilege of hearing Greek men, not well educated as Americans
nor of the low type of Greeks, argue concerning the relative worth
of legal and civic methods in this country and in Greece; they
were quite convincing in showing how well regulated Greece is. I
have read about some of the staid and reasonable methods of
living in Greece, and it is quite apparent that the culture of Plato's
time is still respected by the modern Greeks. To know now that
this small country exists so successfully and independently in spite
of the arrogance of other more powerful nations is very good
reason to hold the Greeks in a much more favorable position than
I did five or ten years ago.8
In the grade and high schools, however, are many teachers
who in the extracurricular contacts as well as in classroom
contacts with boys and girls do much to broaden the latter's
racial attitudes. Some influence pupils in the opposite direc-
8 Social Distance Studies.
EDUCATION AND RACE PROBLEMS
249
tion, but on the whole this influence does not seem to be as
extensive as the constructive type. As an example of the
influence of a broad-minded teacher in changing attitudes,
the following from the experience of a private school in a
northern city is pertinent:
140. A high-school boy was going to give a party to his entire
class but did not dare to invite the one colored member of the
class, because he was afraid that he would not accept and that
there would be some strained situation. He and his mother con-
sulted me, because they were sincerely distressed at the idea of an
omission. I told them by all means to invite the boy, and I would
see to it that he did accept. I went to the colored boy and said:
Now you colored people, in your effort not to seem obtrusive,
frequently make it very difficult for white people to treat you with
the exact equality that they would like to do, because you defeat
their efforts by withdrawing. You are going to be invited to this
party. If you go, there may be some painful experiences for you,
but I believe it is your duty to go and have just as good a time as
you can rather than give the whole class a chance to say, 'Of
course, he was in school with us, but when it came to a party he
had to be left out." The boy and his parents coöperated per-
fectly, and the party turned out to be a great success, the only
problem being caused by a girl who made herself somewhat un-
happy by working up indignation over the situation. Everyone
else took the matter in exactly the right spirit.-A TEACHER ⁹
9
If a boy, for instance, leaves high school "to go to work,"
not much change in racial antipathies is likely to occur in
his later years. Even if he goes into a professional school
with only a brief liberal arts exposure, he still is not likely
to undergo much change in racial antipathies. The first two
years of study in a liberal arts college does not affect him
greatly, but in the upper-division years, if he elects socio-
logical courses, changes in the direction of increased race
friendliness are likely to take place.
A large background of knowledge protects a person from
generalizing too quickly. It leads one to insist on knowing
9 From manuscript by Bruno Lasker, ibid.
250
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
"both sides" before coming to a conclusion; it insists that
scientific inquiry precede ethical judgments. If one's educa-
tion includes courses in social anthropology, ethnology, and
sociology, then definite and measurable results may be noted.
141. On coming to the university and after taking up a course
in elementary sociology, I soon discovered that my race prejudice
was based upon unfounded " facts." Lack of education and super-
stition were the reasons given for the conduct of some Negroes.
Facts were presented to me, and the question was raised that, if
the Negro was given the same opportunity as the white man un-
der the identical conditions, wouldn't he attain the same results?
If the white student was forced to battle against the same adverse
conditions as the Negro to gain his education, would he get as far
as the Negro does?
It was probable that my white friends had based their views
entirely on public opinion in the South and not on any specific
causes. It was possible that they had developed a hatred for one
or two individuals and judged the entire race on these views.10
((
In courses of this character where students have recorded
their race reactions at the beginning of the course and again
some months later at the end of the course, the results show
limited changes toward increased race friendliness. There
is generally noticeable a distinct decline in the wish "to
exclude other races from the country entirely " and also a
lesser tendency to cut down on the reaction to admit certain
races as visitors only." On the other hand, no particular
effects are discoverable in the attitude toward marrying
members of " other races," and the percentage remains low.
There is, however, an increase in the tendency "to admit
members of other races into one's own groups of chums."
But this tendency is not due apparently to an increase in
real racial friendliness so much as to an increase in racial
curiosity and an aroused attitude to know other races first-
hand a sound basis, to be sure, for substantial racial
friendliness. There are also increases in the tendency "to
10 Social Distance Studies.
EDUCATION AND RACE PROBLEMS
251
admit immigrants to one's street as neighbors" and "to
one's country," but these are rarely idealistic and not well
stabilized.
Representative reactions include: "In the case of certain
races I found myself hesitating this time, whereas before I
was certain that I disliked them. Last time I put them at a
distance; this time I did not make any marks." Again, "As
a result of the reading that I have been doing I have been
broadened considerably and have changed my race attitudes
noticeably." Not only college courses but college contacts
count. The latter are by far the more important in an
emotional sense, while the former rank higher as intellectual
factors.
142. Probably the outstanding reason for this statement is that,
up to the time I went away to college, the only representatives of
the race that I came in contact with were those of the lower class:
namely, butlers, chauffeurs, waiters in hotels, valets, and the like.
As servants they performed their duties efficiently, but their servile
attitude aroused a contemptuous feeling within me, and I failed to
appreciate their good qualities. If such a thing as class distinction
can be made, they belonged to the lower strata of society, and as
such I ranked them.
In preparatory school I happened to meet a Japanese boy on
whom I at first looked with scorn; but as time went on, he not
only excelled in his studies but also was a top notcher in athletics,
a good mixer, and one of the best sports in the world. I opened
my eyes and began to think that maybe there was something in
this Japanese after all. Courteous always, willing to give one the
benefit of the doubt but strong enough to always stand up for his
rights, I began to admire him. Soon we became rather good
friends. But this was only one representative of the race.
I went to college, and as things went along and time went on I
came into contact with many Japanese who proved the new set of
standards I had set up within myself for them. Racial prejudice
runs strong in the South, and it was there that I was reared. This
may account to some extent for my early feeling. Even though I
have come to admire the Japanese and respect them, I do not
believe in the intermingling of races, because there is always an
inevitable clash as to customs and ideals.
252
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
National prejudice has also been a factor that has set many
people against them. Militaristic propaganda, introducing the
idea that Japan will some day without a doubt “take a fall out
of the United States" and grab our Pacific Ocean possessions and
overrun our country has been at the bottom of it. There may be
something to it, I don't know, but I cannot quite see the idea of
arousing national hatred for the sole purpose of keeping the army
in a job.11
The effects on instructors of racial-relations courses are
noteworthy. Sometimes there are no effects or even “ hard-
boiled" reactions. Occasionally, there is fine discrimina-
tion, as in the case of the teacher who states that a sense of
the importance of his position and the fact that his pupils
swear by what he says keeps him impartial. His reading
of immigrant autobiographies has extended his sympathies,
although a critical study of intelligence tests and eugenics
makes him wonder if there are not hard and fast lines of
superiority and inferiority between races. He feels that he
has overcome race hatred and that he can discriminate be-
tween the constructive and destructive traits of the mem-
bers of different races on the bases of personal worth. "I'm
against some Turks, some Mexicans, some Jews, and so on,
but for the same reason that I despise some Americans."
Exchange studentships and fellowships, cosmopolitan
clubs, international houses, the widespread study of the
cultures of all races by each member of each race-all
these enterprises naturally lead to the development of broad
racial attitudes. To overcome racial prejudice in America
against the Turk, for instance, it has been suggested that
Turkish students be brought to America and distributed
among all the colleges and universities. The proposal of an
American college to admit a number of properly qualified
students from the various races of the world and to limit
American students to a small proportion of the total number
would be a unique experiment in racial relations phenomena.
11 Ibid.
EDUCATION AND RACE PROBLEMS
253
Systematic or academic education under broad-minded
and well-trained teachers in culture history and racial prob-
lems is, after all, the outstanding factor in a sound educa-
tional program. Actual living with races different from
one's own, provided one has ethnological training and re-
tains a fair degree of human sympathy, is the best educa-
tional procedure of all. Most important of all is the need
for more and better racial relations surveys and studies
throughout the world.
PROJECTS
1. Outline a nation-wide program for multiplying the growth of
constructive race attitudes.
2. Outline a world policy for building constructive race attitudes.
3. Compare unsystematic with systematic education relative to
cultivating helpful race attitudes.
4. Describe a procedure whereby a person might protect himself
from the evils of "the particularist error" in race matters.
5. Prepare a syllabus of the culture traits of two races besides
your own, and make a comparative study.
6. Imagine yourself a member of some distinctly "foreign
race, and make a syllabus of the culture traits of your real race.
Then compare the results with the findings of the preceding
exercise.
7. Outline a complete procedure for a given race relations
survey.
""
EDUCATION AND RACE PROBLEMS
ABBOTT, GRACE, The Immigrant and the Community, Chaps. XI,
XII. Century, 1917.
BOGARDUS, E. S., Essentials of Americanization, Part IV, 3rd edit.,
Jesse Ray Miller Press, 1923.
CLARK, JANE P., "International Social Service," Jour. of Applied
Sociology, Vol. IX, pp. 362–5.
INQUIRY, THE, All Colors. New York, 1926.
- And Who is My Neighbor? New York, 1924.
LEISERSON, W. M., Adjusting Immigrant and Industry, Chap.
XVI. Harper, 1924.
MACLEAN, ANNIE M., Modern Immigration, Chaps. XIII, XVI.
Lippincott, 1925.
254
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
PARK, R. E., "Methods of a Race Survey," Jour. of Applied
Sociology, Vol. X, pp. 410-5.
PRUDDEN, ELINOR, " An International Migration Clinic," Jour, of
Applied Sociology, Vol. X, pp. 548–55.
THOMAS, W. I., AND ZNANIECKI, F., The Polish Peasant in Europe
and America, Vol. IV, Part II. Badger, 1920.
THOMPSON, F. V., Schooling the Immigrant. Harper, 1920.
WISSLER, CLARK, Man and Culture, Part II. Crowell, 1923.
CHAPTER XX
SOCIAL SERVICE AND RACE PROBLEMS
Assisting immigrants to adjust themselves to new condi-
tions and to reorganize their personalities represents one
phase of social service. Such assistance ranges all the way
from doing neighborly things for immigrants to rendering
psychiatric and mental hygiene aid of a professional sort.
It also refers to remaking the social and economic order so
that immigrants may secure justice in labor, comfort in
housing, and joy in home making.
In many communities where unassimilated immigrants
are located, there are generally a few natives who are in-
terested in the immigrants, who are disturbed because the
immigrants do not become assimilated and because other
natives are antagonistic toward the newcomers under the
guise of being patriotic and loyal. The few natives who are
thus disturbed make friends with the immigrants and try
to excuse the prejudices of their fellow natives, but are at a
loss to know what to do to dissolve the race conflict or to
prevent it from becoming a race clash or riot. In showing
themselves friendly toward the immigrants, they are labeled
traitors by their fellow natives, and their efficiency as im-
migration workers is hampered. A fundamental procedure
for workers with immigrants to follow is to make careful
and painstaking studies of the local situation and to develop
adequate programs based on such studies.
Making Surveys. -For one studying the local situation,
a pathfinder survey of the facts regarding the immigrants is
the first thing to undertake. Such a survey should secure
data, such as number of immigrants and of their children by
255
256
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
age periods; the details of their mortality rates, the facts
concerning their housing and living conditions, their working
conditions including wages, hours of work, accident rates,
and their social disorganization as revealed through their
poverty and behavior problems.
A social survey of this character will logically be followed
by additional research, recording the attitudes and opinions
of immigrants on their various personal and social problems.
If the delinquency rate of their children is high, what are
the attitudes of the parents regarding this matter? If their
naturalization rate is small, what are their attitudes regard-
ing naturalization? And so forth.
Such research calls for a complementary study of the race
prejudices of the natives against the immigrants. By trac-
ing such prejudices back to their origins, they may be made
intelligent to the broader-minded among both the natives
and immigrants. Every one truly interested will be able
thus to obtain an idea of what the immigrants are up against,
and of some of the things that they may do in order to pre-
vent the rise of new prejudices against them. Workers with
immigrants may well take stock, of course, of their own
racial attitudes; they may well examine their own racial
prejudices and analyze their own weaknesses as good-will
representatives.
If the social distance test, as described in Chapter II,
could be taken in a bona fide way by representative groups
of immigrants and of natives, and by the workers with im-
migrants also, a fairly good picture would be obtained of the
assimilation problem that exists. Such a test would indicate
what changes in attitudes and opinions the natives would
need to undergo in order to give the immigrants a square
deal, what changes the immigrants must make, and where
racial conflicts are likely to take place.
In the next place social workers need to be equipped with
a full knowledge of the culture traits of the given immigrants
SOCIAL SERVICE AND RACE PROBLEMS
257
and of the origins and development of these in the past cen-
turies of immigrant group history. The immigrants'
destructive culture traits will receive plenty of attention
automatically, through the press, through local demagogues
and through gossip, but not scientifically. Both these and
the immigrants' constructive culture traits will require
scientific consideration.
Still more important is an understanding of the immi-
grants' conflicts and problems. Life histories treated in a
social case-analysis fashion will be revealing. A picture of
the immigrants' longings, thwarted wishes, and unfulfilled
hopes is essential. In securing these survey and research
materials, success will depend upon the degree to which cer-
tain immigrants participate and coöperate in finding and in
interpreting data.
Most important of all, workers with immigrants will ren-
der the best service if they master the principles of the
acculturation process, that is, the process by which people
change their culture traits. Delicate human adjustments,
fine sentiments, emotional upsets, the development of new
behavior patterns are involved. The process by which im-
migrants give up their loyalty to one set of values and ac-
quire a loyalty to values that are strange and foreign is
complicated, deep-seated; it cannot be engineered well by
amateurs or zealots. Understanding and zeal both are
needed; either one alone is inadequate if not harmful.
When the local racial survey is completed, classes for the
study of immigrants, of the community in which the immi-
grants live, of the acculturation process, of the local race
problems, may be organized under church, club, or com-
munity auspices. The knowledge of the few regarding the
immigrants may be disseminated among all the natives of
the community, and an intelligent public opinion generated.
Organizing Language Classes.- Classes are needed for
all immigrants who cannot use our language. Without a
·
258
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
common means of communication, immigrants and natives
cannot expect to understand each other; the immigrant can-
not protect himself from exploitation; he cannot become
acquainted with the new culture; and the acculturation
process is hampered, if not defeated.
Distinctions need to be made between writing, spelling,
speaking, and reading vocabularies for immigrants. The
writing vocabulary used by an immigrant is usually small,
being confined to the need for writing letters to friends and
relatives. The spelling vocabulary is also limited, being
closely related to the writing vocabulary. The speaking
vocabulary is represented by daily conversations with fel-
low workmen and employers, and with friends. It can be
learned best through speaking. The reading vocabulary
needs to be the largest. At first it is limited by the content
of letters and of newspapers, but later it expands to include
magazine and book materials. Immigrants, like natives,
need a much larger reading vocabulary than they do writing,
spelling, or talking vocabularies.
Night-school classes and classes in factories during the
daytime or at the close of the day's work are essential for
immigrant men. Day classes for immigrant women held
wherever it is most convenient for them to come together
are likewise important. It is necessary that the education
of the parents enable them to read, write, and speak the new
language sufficiently well, so that their children, being edu-
cated in the public schools, do not become ashamed of them
and do not cease to respect them. It is charged that the
public schools educate the children of immigrants away from
their parents, and thus break up the immigrant's family.
The only adequate reply is to be found in more education
for the parents.
In teaching the immigrant the new language, the native
must not feel that the immigrant is to give up his own lan-
guage. An immigrant who speaks English is a bilinguist and
SOCIAL SERVICE AND RACE PROBLEMS
259
hence valuable as a culture medium. He comes bringing a
different culture from ours. When he learns our language,
he is able to contribute the best of his culture to the best of
ours and thus to enrich ours.
To teach immigrants, a person need not speak their lan-
guage. Other things being equal, such a person will be more
successful than if he knows and uses the language of the
immigrants. In the latter case he will be repeatedly tempted
to make explanations to the immigrants in their tongue, thus
relieving them of the necessity of thinking in our tongue.
Day-time classes in factories, or on part-factory time for
immigrant men give them a better chance than classes held
at night. They are not so tired. Their education is not
relegated entirely to a second place in the day's work. Edu-
cation as a spiritual asset deserves to be placed ahead of
material and commercial values.
-
Appropriate textbooks, methods, and equipment will re-
pay any additional expenditure that may be involved. A
text labeled English for New Americans has a much better
psychological effect on the immigrant than one entitled Eng-
lish for Foreigners. Classes which meet around tables are
much preferable to those in which adults sit in formal class-
room seats made for children.
Home-teaching work is generally needed for the immi-
grant mother. She is usually the most isolated member of
the immigrant family. She often needs training in household
economics, in economical ways of buying food and other
necessities, in scientific ways of preparing food, in sanitary
science and personal hygiene. For natives to be invited into
the immigrant's home and to give helpful assistance in the
care of children and household management is of greatest
importance.
Training Immigrants for Citizenship. — It is not enough
that immigrants cram for naturalization examinations. It
is worse, however, if they develop a dislike and a sense of
260
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
reproach for their adopted country. At least a three months'
course, generally under the auspices of the public school, is
essential in helping the alien to catch the meaning of citizen-
ship in a new land.
Education for naturalization is a delicate process. The
immigrant cannot be lectured or threatened into becoming a
"citizen." Workers with immigrants must remember that
naturalization is denaturalization for many immigrants, in
the sense that the immigrant must give up his loyalty to his
native country and to a degree to his race. If he comes from
a nation of which he is proud, then denationalization or the
giving up of his nation loyalty is very difficult; he cannot
become truly naturalized in his adopted country without
wrenching loose some of the deepest loyalties that were
developed in him in his pre-immigration days.
Every naturalization worker, whether voluntary or other-
wise, who has not first learned the nature of the process by
which a person gives up certain loyalties and acquires new
ones is likely to do both the immigrant and his country more
harm than good. In the same way that an American who
goes to a foreign country" to make more money" reacts in
favor of his native country when blunt attempts are made
to get him to throw away his loyalty to the Stars and Stripes,
so an immigrant may react in favor of his native land if
Americanism becomes too blatant.
To get an immigrant to develop a new nation loyalty is an
indirect and involved psychosocial process. Direct measures
usually fail. The best procedure to follow is to see that the
immigrant's living and working conditions become more
attractive. If wages increase and if chances to move into
""
a better community " are afforded, then a new nation loy-
alty will automatically develop, and the old nation loyalty,
unless challenged by the natives in the new land, will
gradually take a secondary place.
To arrange for public citizenship exercises on the Fourth
SOCIAL SERVICE AND RACE PROBLEMS
261
of July or some similar occasion for those immigrants re-
cently admitted to citizenship is excellent, providing such
exercises are kept on a dignified plane and convey a genuine
spirit of welcome, the inner and deeper meanings of citizen-
ship, and an opportunity for the immigrant to begin par-
ticipating in and contributing to the community life.
Participation, after all, is the keynote of any sound citizen-
ship program for immigrants, but it must be participation
in building up community life, in bettering economic and
social life, and in creating a more artistic and wholesome life.
Standards of admission to citizenship need to be put upon
and kept on a high level of personal worth and achievement
and then to be applied to all who can qualify, irrespective
"of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Ad-
mission to the country may well be placed on the same level.
Since "race" is now recognized by nearly all ethnologists
as a myth, and since every person is entitled to treatment on
the basis of worth and achievement rather than on accident
of birth, a sound program requires fair play be accorded
each person as such. No nation, of course, can afford to be
overrun by what it may regard as " the scum of the earth";
but the personal test, if placed high enough, and adminis-
tered adequately, will render protection to the nation, guar-
antee justice to the immigrant, and not disturb international
good will. The "personal tests," however, should not be
primarily of an industrial character; that is, an immigrant
should not be admitted chiefly for the work he can do, but
rather for the citizen he can become.
Working with Immigrants by Example. - Example is
more important than precept in dealing with immigrants, as
with any one else. The immigrant worker, or any native
for that matter, who rides into a peasant-immigrant district
with wealthy show, who "preaches " one-hundred-per-cent
patriotism but violates speed laws, income tax laws, or even
the moral code, or who "pities" or upbraids the immigrant
262
IMMIGRATION AND RACE ATTITUDES
for his shortcomings, arouses in the immigrant adverse re-
actions of an indelible nature. No kind deeds by a volunteer
immigration worker can overbalance the oaths hurled by
"bosses" at slow-moving immigrant peasants. To allow
immigrants to be taken advantage of in our land, either by
natives or by their own countrymen, cancels years of sound
social welfare work.
In politics, the party boss who buys up the votes of immi-
grant citizens cheapens "democracy" almost beyond recall.
To lecture the immigrant on his duties as a citizen or to put
him in jail for voicing earnest protests, while allowing native
wealthy Americans not only "to get around the law" but
to boast about doing so, is fatal to assimilation.
The best kind of work with immigrants is that which sets
them constructive examples in citizenship under pleasant
circumstances, which gives them opportunities for economic
and social advancement, which draws them out spontane-
ously in contributing the best of their culture and personali-
ties to their adopted land, and which enables them to
participate constructively in the local community life and
development.
PROJECTS
1. Map out a program for meeting the first time with a group
of immigrants who wish to learn our language.
2. Outline a program concretely for making a thorough study of
an immigrant colony in your community, using two paid workers
and untrained, volunteer workers.
3. Prepare a budget for the above-mentioned study, covering a
period of six months, including the writing and the publication of
the report and incidental items.
4. Make out a program for naturalization exercises in your com-
munity for forty immigrants belonging to a number of races.
5. Study the housing conditions of an immigrant colony, and
indicate the economic and other changes needed to put the group
on a socially satisfactory basis.
6. Examine the labor conditions of an immigrant colony, and
SOCIAL SERVICE AND RACE PROBLEMS
263
make all recommendations for putting it upon a socially satisfac-
tory basis.
7. Analyze the family life, organization, and problems of an
immigrant colony.
SOCIAL SERVICE AND RACE PROBLEMS
BERKSON, I. B., Theories of Americanization. Teachers College,
Columbia University, 1920.
BOGARDUS, E. S., The New Social Research. Jesse Ray Miller, Los
Angeles, 1926.
BRECKINRIDGE, S. B., New Homes for Old. Harper, 1921.
BUTLER, F. C., Community Organization, United States Bureau of
Education, Bulletin No. 80, 1919.
DANIELS, JOHN, America Via the Neighborhood. Harper, 1920.
DAVIS, M. M. JR., Immigrant Health and the Community.
Harper, 1921.
FAIRCHILD, H. P., Immigrant Backgrounds, Chap. I. Wiley, 1927.
ROBERTS, PETER, English for Coming Americans. Association
Press, 1909.
Civics for Coming Americans. Association Press, 1917.
INDEX
Buddhists, 212
Business contacts, 196
Butler, F. C., 263
Abbott, Grace, 12, 117, 183, 192,
240, 253
Acculturation, 96
Adjustment, 218, 228
Adolescent, 175, 176, 179
Adults, 178
Adverse reactions, 111, 177
Age variations, 174 ff.
Aggressiveness conditions, 54-57
Americans, 15, 24, 33, 53, 58, 60,
61, 71, 79, 82, 100, 108, 112, 164,
1
184, 193
American-born Japanese, 143, 144,
165
Amlin, Charles, 169
Antin, Mary, 243, 117
Antipathy, 10, 15, 30, 43 ff., 77,
94, 102, 107-113, 160, 169, 176,
177, 184, 190, 237
Armenians, 15, 53-54, 57
Asiatic races, 26
Assimilation, 6, 7, 9, 135, 136
Associates, 67
Attitudes, 19, 107 ff., 118 ff., 135 ff.,
148 ff., 159 ff.
Attitudinal differences, 162
Augmentations, 107 ff.
Autobiographies, 243, 252
Aversions, 174
Babcock, K. C., 215
Bamford, E. F., 231
Behavior patterns, 3, 13, 78, 81,
107, 118, 121, 149, 205
Behavior traits, 78
Berkson, I. B., 263
Boaz, Franz, 29
Bodily insecurity, 50 ff.
Boys
Work Survey of Los
Angeles, 175, 205, 223
Brandenburg, B., 134
Brawley, B., 146
Brenckenridge, S. P., 92, 183, 263
Bridges, H. J., 106, 134
California, 161, 163, 164, 166, 167,
201
Canadian, 79
Carroll, Joseph C., 29
Case studies, 14, 162
Catholics, 210
Changes in attitude, 107 ff.
Chicago Commission on Race
Relations, 40, 64, 208, 240
Children, 174, 175, 202, 232
Children, immigrant, 8
Chinese, 16, 46, 61, 69, 99, 114,
123, 126, 187, 244
Christian Century, the, 91
Christianity, 214
City, the, 185
Clark, Jane P., 253
Clergymen, 206
College contacts, 98 ff., 125, 250,
251
Commons, J. R., 117
Competition, 8, 38, 77, 91, 164,
165, 184, 197
Competitive, 55, 112, 163
Conflict, 6, 55, 167, 225
Converts, 145
Coolidge, Mary R., 76, 134, 155,
240
Correlation, 161
Cosmopolitanism, 177
Counter-attitudes, 135 ff.
Crisis, 5
Cultural attitudes, 161, 225
Culture, 3, 4, 7, 43, 95, 165 ff., 172
Daniels, John, 106, 173, 208, 263
Davis, Jerome, 12, 29, 208, 215
Davis, M. M. Jr., 263
Dependability, 84
Dependable, 98
265
266
INDEX
Derivative experiences, 43, 44, 65,
66, 69, 78, 118, 119, 126
Detweiler, F. G., 76, 146, 240
Direct experiences, 43, 66, 78, 119,
121, 125
Disappointment, 6
Discrimination, 62, 174
Dissimilarities, 162, 165
Distinctions, 177
Drachsler, Julius, 185
DuBois, W. E. B., 29, 40
Ecological, 163
Education, 239, 241 ff., 260
Ellsworth, Juanita, 137
Emotional pressures, 237
Employer contacts, 196
English, the, 7, 15, 17, 79, 92,
103-105, 244
English language, 258
Eurasian, 133
European races, 26
Evans, Gordon W., 64
Exchange fellowships, 252
Factory classes, 258
Fairchild, H. P., 76, 134, 155, 263
Fair play, 32, 238
Family, 65, 75
Fear hatred, 149
Fiction, 243
Filipinos, 33, 82
Finot, Jean, 29, 64
Florida, 161, 162
Foerster, R. F., 40
French, 66, 124, 172, 189, 190
French Canadian, 62
Friendliness, race, 10, 77 ff., 94 ff.,
113-115, 118, 164, 171, 176, 182,
191
Furman, Lucy, 106
Gang, the, 175
Gary, Indiana, 179
Gavit, J. P., 29, 93, 117, 229
Geography, 247
General hearsay, 73
Geniality, 81, 82
German Jews, 20, 136
Germans, 62, 67, 68, 71, 79, 149
Good will, 10, 77, 91, 94, 98, 107,
114, 115, 152
Greeks, 58, 199, 221, 222, 248
Gustatory conditions, 46
Haskin, Frederick, 173, 192
Hatred, 149, 176
High school, attitudes in, 249
Hindu, 35, 47, 49, 53, 59, 62
History, 247
Hoffman, O. F., 229
Homes, 94, 177
Home teaching, 259
Immigrants, 53, 55, 57, 58, 70, 79,
81, 84, 87, 95, 98, 99, 119, 135,
172, 259
Immigrant survey, 256
Immigration Commission, Re-
ports of, 183
Indian, 152-153
Industry of immigrants, 9
Inferior-culture conditions, 62,
63
Injustice conditions, 60
Inquiry, the, 93, 106, 253
Intermarrying, 160, 184, 185
International idealism, 178
Inter-region migration, 167 ff.
Intrapersonality problems, 224
Invasion, 37, 38, 163, 164, 165, 167,
231, 236
Irish, 79, 80, 81, 165
Italians, 48, 60, 65, 82, 89, 128, 161,
190, 193, 247
Iyenaga, T., and Sato, K., 146
Japanese, 35, 38, 52, 55, 61, 69, 73,
82, 88, 97, 123, 128, 131, 165, 169,
178, 199, 204, 212, 221, 226, 243,
244, 251
Jenks, J. W., and Lauck, W. G.,
12, 40, 208
Jews, 19, 26, 28, 47, 54, 59, 86, 100,
119, 122, 126, 165, 196, 225, 245
Johnson, Charles W., 76, 192
Johnson, J. W., 229
Justice traits, 84
Kansas, 163
Kawaii, Y., 192
Kentucky Inter-Racial Confer-
ence, 246
Kindness, 81, 123
INDEX
267
Language classes, 257
Lasker, Bruno, 176, 177, 242, 246,
249
Legal status, 30
Leiserson, William M., 208, 253
Life histories, 243, 252, 257
Life patterns, 77
Lipsky, A., 134
Liu, Chiang, 192
Los Angeles, 88, 179
MacLean, Annie M., 208, 253
Martin, George M., 246
Media of antipathy, 65 ff.
Men, attitudes of, 184
Mental conflicts, 6
Metropolitan area, 231
Mexican Immigrant Survey of
the Southwest, 7, 10, 45, 72, 83,
89, 91, 97, 102, 195, 201, 239
Mexican labor, 163
Mexicans, 6, 8, 20, 35, 36, 44, 47,
68, 71, 82, 85, 89, 97, 101, 127,
160, 163, 169, 187, 195, 201, 203,
239
Miller, H. A., 147, 155, 229
Miller, Kelly, 173
Miniter, Edith, 155
Mohammedanism, 22
Mores, 34, 164, 165, 232,
Motion picture, the, 69, 243
Mountain community, 231
Mulatto, 21, 27, 56, 137
Mutations, 118, 119, 121, 125
Muzumdar, H. T., 50
Myth, 233
National Exclusion Act, 32, 33
National Geographic, 243, 248
National prejudice, 252
Naturalization, 260
Negro, 21, 26, 27, 32, 34, 36, 44,
46, 51, 56, 59, 67, 82, 85, 88, 92,
112, 120, 129, 135, 137, 151, 153,
160, 165, 170, 195, 204, 207, 213,
246
Negro in Chicago, the, 234
New York, 165, 185
Night-school classes, 258
Noncompetitive, 91
Nordic superiority, 34
Northerner, 162
Norwegians, 123, 161
Neutral attitude, 151
Obtrusiveness conditions, 53, 54
Occupational complexes, 193
Occupations, 33
Olfactory conditions, 45, 46
Oppressed race, 85, 87, 88, 153
Orientals, 160
Origins, 43 ff.
Opinion, 230
Pacific Coast, 161, 162, 165
Pacific Coast Race Relations
Survey, 6, 34, 61, 69, 89, 98, 129,
133, 143, 163, 165, 170, 182, 204,
244
Palmer, A. W., 93
Panunzio, Constantine, 29, 64,
134, 147, 173, 229, 243
Park, Robert E., 12, 29, 40, 76,
233, 235, 240, 254
Park and Burgess, 40
Park, R. E., and Miller, H. A.,
117, 173
Parents, 178, 202, 223
Participation, social, 261
Particularistic error, the, 243, 245
Persecution, 87, 88, 95
Personal considerations, 176, 177
Personality, 4
Personality clashes, 174, 175, 219,
225
Playmates, 177
Poles, 48, 122
Politicians, attitudes of, 235
Politics, party, 262
Porteus, S. D., and Babcock,
M. E., 229
Portuguese 150
Potential attitudes, 152
Pre-adolescence, 176
Prejudices, 10, 20, 30, 37, 44, 65,
73, 77, 91, 112, 121, 126, 146,
176, 252
Price, M. T., 93, 147, 155, 215,
229
Propaganda, 73, 74, 75, 108, 236
Protestants, 210
Prudden, Elinor, 254
Public, the, 239
Public opinion, 31, 73, 230 ff.
268
INDEX
Public school, 220
Public speakers, 72, 113
Quarrelsome conditions, 57
疆
​Race egoism, 150
Race loyalty, 150
Race relations courses, 252
Racial competition, 165
Racial generalizations, 165, 177
Ravage, M. E., 12, 64, 93, 106,
229
Regional, 159 ff.
Regional antipathies, 169
Regional attitudes, 167, 168, 169
Religion contacts, 95, 96
Religious differences, 209
Repulsion against own race, 63
Reuter, E. B., 64, 215, 240
Reversals, 107, 118 ff.
Roberts, Peter, 93, 263
Rural regions, 163
Rumor, 234
Russian Jews, 136, 198
Spanish, 189
Spatial distance, 161
Saunders, A. J., 117
Scandinavians, 80, 81, 127
School contacts, 98
Scotch, 161
Second generation, 142–145
Segregation, 135–136
Sex distinctions, 184
Similar culture traits, 78, 79, 165
Similarity, 161
Slavs, 150, 193
Smith, W. C., 183
Social distance, 10, 14, 23, 36, 58,
65, 92, 223, 256
Social Distance Studies, 36, 44,
46, 49, 62, 67, 71, 73, 80, 82, 84,
90, 95, 101, 112, 120, 131, 136,
150, 166, 169, 171, 178, 181, 197,
200, 205, 221, 244, 248, 250
Social service, 255
Social status, 30, 163, 164
Social surveys, 255
Social work contacts, 200
South, 160, 161, 162, 163, 165
Southwest, 163
Speek, P. A., 173, 215
Spellbinder, the, 242
Standard deviation, 161
Static attitudes, 148 ff.
Status, 28, 30 ff., 53, 55, 119, 151,
152, 164
Steiner, E. A., 12, 106, 192, 208,
215
Stern, Elizabeth G., 134, 155
Sterry, Nora, 29
Superiority, 66
Systematic education, 245
Tactual conditions, 46
Teacher contacts, 202
Temperament, 81, 220
Tennessee, 161, 162
Textbooks, 245
Thomas, W. I., 29
Thomas, W. I., and Znaniecki, F.,
13, 29, 155, 173, 183, 240, 254
Thompson, F. V., 254
Training immigrants for citizen-
ship, 259
Travel, 102
Turks, 22, 53, 71, 72, 73, 74, 111–
112, 123-124, 161, 181, 211, 252
Unfriendly race attitudes of
children, 175, 176
United States, 160, 161, 247
Unreliability conditions, 57-60
Unskilled immigrants, 8
Unskilled labor contacts, 194
Unsystematic education, 241
Urban, 163
Values, social, 13
Variation, 161, 163, 164, 167
Visual conditions, 47
Vocabularies, 258
Washington, 161
Washington, Booker T., 229
White Negroes, 137-142
Wissler, Clark, 254
Women, attitudes of, 184
Women, immigrant, 8
World War, 124
Young, Erle Fiske, 29
NOV
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
GRADUATE LIBRARY
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OCT? 7 1972
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