RACE THE POWER OF AN ILLUSION
Episode III: The House We Live In
Transcript Available: http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00-Home.htm
(Go to: "About the Series," then "Episode 3: The House We Live In," then click on Get Transcript.)
Video Viewing (Essay Responses)
1. prior to the 1952 removal of the racial requirements for naturalization:
(A) Who was and who was not allowed to become a naturalized citizen?
Answer. Prior to 1952, naturalization was allowed without any limitations for free white citizens, white Europeans and was approved for the African American citizens on the basis of votes and respective decisions from the jury comprising of all white Americans. Other colored-skin races like Asians, Fillipinos, and Syrians, Chinese, Japanese and Korean migrants were also treated under the racially prejudiced requirements for naturalization.
(B) What rights and privileges did citizens have that non-citizens did not have?
Answer. The non-citizens were denied of any rights to claim ownership to a property in the country and were not allowed to leave the country as per their will. On the contrary, the citizens were given all the benefits of exercising their citizenship to own property and even travel beyond the country.
(C) What were the consequences for those denied citizenship (Reference and Cite: Ozawa and Thind cases)?
Answer. The petitioners who were denied citizenship by the Supreme Court were treated as aliens and denied of claiming ownership or even leasing any land for commercial and agricultural use. In case of Ozawa he claimed to have “white skin similar to that of Caucasians” and Thind petitioned the court for himself being “white because he was an Indian descendent from Aryans who were white skinned”. However, both of them were denied citizenship and even other people of their race were deprived of any right to ownership of their properties.
2. How did European ethnics become White? What made this possible?
Include in your response the roles of: a) U.S. Supreme Court AND b) Levittown.
Answer. The European ethnics blended in the American land due to their white skins and came under the US Supreme Court’s rule which granted naturalized citizenship status to the white immigrant and they had significant contribution to the American economy model. The US policy of giving house loans at low interest rates and for over 30 years tenure made places like Levittown as the most important zones for white immigrants to afford a house in America. The new suburban housing locations like Levittown gave more segregated neighborhoods and eased the resultant social blending of European Americans with white Americans.
3. How did federal housing policies institutionalize segregation and wealth disparities?
Answer. The federal housing administration was formed in 1930’s to form an affordable housing policy for the average American. They practiced racial segregation by allocating a distant housing facility for the blacks and other minorities and even provided a separation wall in places where these communities were close to white American housing. The housing facility was made specifically as per economic and racial status of the residents and different locations within the city were allocated to them. Thus, the above given incidents show how the racial segregation based on wealth disparity was practiced by the Federal housing policy.
4. Why do property values go down when a neighborhood changes from White to Non-White? Who plays a role in this?
Answer. The Federal Housing Association (FHA) had real estate evaluating officials who used to assess the properties and used the racial factor as an important consideration while assessing the properties. The property values were depreciated for the non-white people because they were denied of proper ownership rights in the American land and the property evaluation for white Americans was as per prevalent standards.
5. What happens to measures of racial disparities in places like education and welfare rates when groups of similar income AND wealth are compared?
Answer. The white Americans were trusted to afford the basic amenities like education and welfare as they were assessed on the basis of their real estate ownership. However, the blacks and other racially segregated minorities were assumed to have a relative instability in spite of being similar in wealth because they were divested of their property ownership. This shows how the blacks suffered due to racial disparities for assessment of their worth in spite of being at par with white Americans in terms of their wealth and income.
6. Given the present day ethnic stratification within the U.S., explain how adopting a "color blind society" policy could potentially perpetuate racial disparities.
Answer. The Color blind society can be an ideal policy for solving the presently prevailing social menace of ethnic and racial discrimination as the skin color is the prime mode of differentiation between people of different races. African Americans and other minorities in America have suffered because of extremely biased racial opinions prevalent among people regarding the skin color of non-white Americans. Further, the example of European Americans from the documentary shows that proper efforts to involve co-living and harmonic social establishment between all the races in America could have solved the problem in the past.
