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Week 13 · Chapter

Chapter 13 — Immigration, Citizenship, and Belonging Across Groups

Introduction to Ethnic Studies Free sample edition

The module's primary reading · ~35–45 minutes · Objective 8 (trace immigration, citizenship, and belonging across groups through the naturalization and immigration laws from 1790 to 1986, Arab American and Middle Eastern and North African experiences, and the federal categories from 1977 to 2024, taught as the issuing body's categories), Objective 2 (define and distinguish the course's core concepts: race, ethnicity, and nationality; racialization and racial formation; ethnocentrism; prejudice, individual and institutional discrimination, and structural inequality; and intersectionality as distinct from adding identities together), Objective 7 (analyze Asian American and Pacific Islander experiences, from exclusion and the naturalization cases through the incarceration of Japanese Americans and redress, the 1965 law, the Asian American movement, the model-minority image and its critique, refugee resettlement, and Native Hawaiian history) · Read it first this week; the lecture, the slides, the tutorial, the quiz, and the workshop all build on it.

In plain language

This chapter asks two questions that run through every group you have studied: who could become a citizen, and how does the government count people? You will follow naturalization (the legal process of becoming a citizen after birth in another country) from a 1790 law open only to white people to a 1952 law that ended the last racial bar. You will compare two newcomers from the course archive and learn two words, nativism (hostility to immigrants in the name of the native-born) and xenophobia (fear or hatred of people seen as foreign). You will also watch the federal categories (the race and ethnicity boxes on government forms) change in 1977, 1997, and 2024.

Why you already care about this

Think about a form you have filled in more than once (an illustrative case). The first time, it listed four boxes for race. A few years later the same form had more boxes, and one box you had checked before was split in two. Nothing about you changed between those two visits. The form changed.

Every form like that was written by someone, in some year, for some purpose. This week we find out who wrote the federal versions, when, and why they keep changing. We also follow a longer and harder question: for most of the country's history, the law decided who could become a citizen by race. That line was redrawn in 1870 and again in 1952, and each redrawing changed which families could belong.

A word on names before we start. "Arab American" names people whose families trace their roots to Arabic-speaking countries. "Middle Eastern or North African" is the wider federal term from 2024, and many people with roots in the region name themselves by a country or a community first. Not everyone with roots in the region is Arab, and Arab Americans are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and of other faiths. When this chapter talks about people living in the country without the papers the law requires, it uses "undocumented" or "unauthorized", the words the record and the agencies use.

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

  • trace who could become a citizen from the 1790 law to the 1952 law, and place each step on the citizenship thread;
  • explain what the 1924 quotas did, why they were not about Asia alone, and how long they lasted;
  • compare two arrivals from the archive, a 1965-law immigrant and a 1980-law refugee;
  • explain the two things the 1986 law did, and name the current debate without taking a side;
  • define nativism and xenophobia and use each one to read a record;
  • count the federal categories in 1977, 1997, and 2024, and explain why they are not biological groups.

Carry this sentence with you: A box on a form is a decision, not a discovery.

Where we are

  • Already covered: Week 2 separated race, ethnicity, and nationality and first met the federal categories. Week 5 read the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. Week 6 read Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) and the 14th Amendment (1868). Week 9 read the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848). Week 10 read the Jones-Shafroth Act of 1917 and the federal term "Hispanic or Latino". Week 11 read the 1790 rule, Ozawa v. United States (1922), United States v. Thind (1923), and the Immigration Act of 1924. Week 12 read the 1965 law, the archive's E3 and E5, and the perpetual-foreigner stereotype.
  • This week: you lay those pieces on one line and add the laws of 1952 and 1986. You also meet Arab American and Middle Eastern and North African experiences and follow the federal categories from 1977 to 2024.
  • How they connect: the citizenship rules you met one group at a time are one thread, and the categories you met in Week 2 have a history you can date.
  • Where we're going next: Week 14, Intersections: Gender, Class, Language, Religion, and Multiracial Identity, asks what happens when a person belongs to more than one category at once.

Here is what this chapter leans on most. Race is a social classification of people by perceived physical difference, made and changed by societies over time. Ethnicity is a shared identity based on ancestry, language, religion, customs, or a sense of common origin. Nationality is legal membership in a state, which is citizenship. Week 2 asked you to keep these three apart. This week shows what happened when the law did not.

1. Trace who could become a citizen

Imagine a club that writes its membership rule in its very first meeting. The rule lets in only people who look like the founders. Eighty years later the club opens the door a little. Another eighty years pass before the last part of the rule is gone. Every member who joined in between joined under a rule they did not write.

That is the shape of naturalization law in the United States.

  • The naturalization law of 1790 is the first federal law on becoming a citizen. It limited naturalization to an alien "being a free white person". (Alien is the law's word for a person who is not a citizen.)

In 1870 Congress extended naturalization to "aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent". Asian immigrants stayed barred. Week 11 showed how the Supreme Court held that line in Ozawa v. United States (1922) and United States v. Thind (1923). The racial bar for Asians ended only with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952.

Worked example — measuring the line. Use the law-and-case timeline (Dataset B).

  1. The first rule. The naturalization law came in 1790.
  2. The first opening. The extension to persons of African nativity and descent came in 1870.
  3. The first gap. 1870 − 1790 = 80 years.
  4. The last racial bar ended. The 1952 law ended the racial bar for Asians.
  5. The whole span. 1952 − 1790 = 162 years.

In words: the 1790 law limited naturalization to a "free white person". Congress opened it to persons of African nativity and descent 1870 − 1790 = 80 years later. The racial bar for Asians lasted until 1952, 1952 − 1790 = 162 years after the first law. For 162 years, race decided who could become a citizen.

Now read the citizenship thread (Dataset F) as one line. It has eleven dated events, and they touch five groups: African Americans, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans.

The citizenship thread: eleven dated events from 1790 to 1952 and the group each one touched
Year Event Group it touched
1790 naturalization law limited to a "free white person" every immigrant who was not white
1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo lets Mexicans who stayed become citizens Mexican Americans
1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford denies citizenship to Black Americans African Americans
1868 14th Amendment's citizenship clause African Americans, and every later group
1870 naturalization extended to persons of African nativity and descent African immigrants
1898 United States v. Wong Kim Ark holds a son of Chinese parents a citizen by birth Chinese Americans
1917 Jones-Shafroth Act gives Puerto Ricans statutory citizenship Puerto Ricans
1922 Ozawa v. United States denies naturalization to a man born in Japan Japanese Americans
1923 United States v. Thind denies naturalization to a man born in India South Asian Americans
1924 Indian Citizenship Act grants citizenship to Native Americans born in the country Native Americans
1952 Immigration and Nationality Act ends the racial bar for Asians Asian Americans

Read down the right-hand column. No group's path to citizenship was the same as another's. Some gained it by treaty, some by amendment, some by statute, some by a court, and some were refused by a court. In one plain sentence: the citizenship thread shows that the law built belonging one group at a time, and race was the line it used.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

  • (a) Pick two rows of the table that touch different groups. What does setting them side by side show that either row alone does not?
  • (b) The 1790 law used the word "white" but never defined it. Who do you think ended up deciding what it meant, and why does that matter?

Misconception check. Students often use race, ethnicity, and nationality as if they meant the same thing. That is tempting, because the 1790 law itself mixed them: it used a racial line to decide a nationality. But Week 2's three words name three different things, and this thread shows the harm of blurring them. The cure: when a record says who may be a citizen, ask whether it is sorting by race, by ancestry, or by legal membership.

2. Read the 1924 quotas and the 1952 law

Picture a ticket office for a concert. The office decides how many tickets each neighborhood gets by looking at how many people lived there 34 years ago. Neighborhoods that were large back then get many tickets. Neighborhoods that grew since get few. One part of town gets no tickets at all.

That is close to how the 1924 law worked.

  • The Immigration Act of 1924, also called the Johnson-Reed Act, gave visas to two percent of each nationality's number in the 1890 census, and it completely excluded immigrants from Asia.

Every nationality had a quota, European ones included. Asia was shut out on top of that. A quota built on an old count rewards the groups that were large when the count was taken.

Worked example — the age of the count. Use Dataset B.

  1. The law. The Immigration Act came in 1924.
  2. The count it used. The quotas were based on the 1890 census.
  3. The age of the count. 1924 − 1890 = 34 years old.

In words: the 1924 law gave visas to two percent of each nationality's number in the 1890 census, a count 1924 − 1890 = 34 years old. Two percent means 2 of every 100 people of that nationality in the old count.

Then came the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. It did two different things, and they pull in opposite directions.

  • The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 ended the racial bar to naturalization for Asians but kept the national-origins quota system built in 1924.

Worked example — how long the quotas lasted. Use Dataset B.

  1. Quotas begin. 1924.
  2. The 1952 law keeps them. 1952 − 1924 = 28 years of quotas by then.
  3. The 1965 law abolishes them. 1965 − 1952 = 13 years after the 1952 law.

In words: the 1952 law kept a quota system that had already run 1952 − 1924 = 28 years. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which you read in Week 12, abolished it 1965 − 1952 = 13 years later. A person could now become a citizen whatever their race, but how many people from their country could come in at all was still set by the 1924 rule.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

  • (a) Why might a rule that opens citizenship but keeps the quotas feel like half a door to a family abroad?
  • (b) Think of any rule you know that uses an old count, such as last year's numbers, to hand out something this year. Who does that help, and who does it leave out?

Misconception check. Students often think the 1924 quotas applied only to Asia. That is tempting, because the law's harshest line, complete exclusion, fell on Asia. But the quotas were set for each nationality, European ones included, from the 1890 count. The cure: separate the two parts of the law, the quota for every nationality and the exclusion of Asia.

3. Compare two arrivals from the archive

Two students start at the same school in the same year. One transferred because a parent took a new job. The other arrived after the family fled a war. Both sit in the same classroom. They came through different doors.

The course's running archive (Dataset A) is an illustrative, unnamed public library's collection. Its excerpts are constructed for this course, identified by role and decade, and never presented as real people's words. You met these two narrators in Week 12. This week you set them side by side.

E3 is a nurse who arrived in the early 1970s after the 1965 immigration law, interviewed in the 2010s:

"Before 1965 there was hardly a way in for someone like me. After the new law, hospitals here needed nurses, and my training counted. I came alone in 1972. Five years later I sponsored my sister, and later she sponsored her husband. People see our big family now and think we all came at once. It took us twenty years." (E3, illustrative)

E5 is a woman who resettled as a refugee in the early 1980s, interviewed in the 2010s:

"We waited two years in a camp before a church group here sponsored us. I was fourteen. At school they sat me in the back with a dictionary. One teacher stayed after class to help me with English, and by my last year I was translating for my parents at the doctor and the bank. When people ask where I am from and I name this town, they ask again." (E5, illustrative)

Worked example — two arrivals on one line. Walk the five questions every reading asks, and place both excerpts in time.

  1. What they say. E3 came alone in 1972 because hospitals needed nurses and the training counted, then sponsored a sister five years later. E5 waited two years in a camp, came at fourteen with a church group's sponsorship, and learned English well enough to translate for her parents.
  2. Who made them. Each is a first-person account recorded decades later. E3 tells how one family came one sponsorship at a time. E5 tells how a refugee who names her town is asked again.
  3. Whom they affected. E3's sister and the sister's husband; E5's parents, who relied on her at the doctor and the bank.
  4. What they leave out. Neither excerpt names a country, a hospital, a camp, or a church. So their years are checked against the laws:
    • E3's arrival: 1972 − 1965 = 7 years after the 1965 law.
    • The refugee law: the Refugee Act of 1980 came 1980 − 1972 = 8 years after E3 arrived.
  5. What a comparison adds. On the citizenship thread, both narrators could naturalize because the racial bar ended in 1952 and the quotas ended in 1965. Under the 1790 law, neither could have.

In words: E3 came through the door the 1965 law opened for nurses and families, 7 years after it passed, and E5 came through the door refugee law opened, under the Refugee Act of 1980, 8 years after E3 arrived. Both are still asked where they are from.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

  • (a) What is one thing E3 and E5 share that the laws behind them do not explain?
  • (b) What is one thing the dated laws tell you that neither excerpt could tell you?

Misconception check. Students often think everyone who arrived after 1965 came in under the same rules. That is tempting, because both narrators arrived in the same era and live in the same country now. But E3 came under the immigration law's preferences, and E5 came under refugee law, which has its own definition and its own door. The cure: ask which law a person came under before you describe how they came.

4. Read the 1986 law: status and penalties

Think about the first day at a new job. Before you start, someone hands you paperwork to prove you are allowed to work there. The business has to keep it on file. If the business ignores the rule, the business can be penalized.

Rules like that have a history, and one big piece of it is a 1986 law.

  • Undocumented means living in the country without the papers the law requires. The record and the agencies also use the word unauthorized, especially for work.
  • The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, signed in November 1986, offered legal status to undocumented migrants who had entered before 1982 and penalized employers who knowingly hired unauthorized workers.

The law did two things at once. It gave a path to legal status to people already living in the country. It also put new duties on employers. The Library of Congress gives about 3 million people legalized under the law. We say that figure in words and never ask you to memorize it.

Worked example — the entry cutoff. Use Dataset B.

  1. The law. The Immigration Reform and Control Act was signed in November 1986.
  2. The cutoff. It covered people who had entered before 1982.
  3. The gap. 1986 − 1982 = 4 years before the signing.

In words: the 1986 law offered legal status to undocumented migrants who had entered before 1982, a cutoff 1986 − 1982 = 4 years before it was signed. A person who arrived in 1983 fell on the other side of that line.

Here is where this course draws a line of its own. The 1986 law is documented history, so we state what it did plainly. How immigration law should be enforced today is a live public question, and this course names that debate without arguing it.

Named debate, not argued here. People disagree today about how immigration law should be enforced and whether people without status should have a path to legal status. One side stresses the rule of law, border security, and the wages of workers already here. The other side stresses family unity, the work immigrants already do, and humane treatment. Each side has a serious case. The course takes no side, and no quiz or rubric rewards one.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

  • (a) Why might a law put duties on employers instead of only on workers? Answer from what the law did, not from a view about today's debate.
  • (b) A cutoff date puts two neighbors on opposite sides of a law. What questions would you ask about any rule that draws a line by date?

Misconception check. Students often think the 1986 law only legalized people. That is tempting, because the legal status is the part most people remember. But the law did two things at once: it offered legal status to people who had entered before 1982, and it penalized employers who knowingly hired unauthorized workers. The cure: when you summarize a law, check whether it did more than one thing.

5. Name nativism and xenophobia

Picture a corner store (an illustrative scene). A customer mutters that newcomers should go back where they came from, then pays and leaves. Down the street, a shop owner posts a sign saying only people born in the country need apply. The first is a feeling said out loud. The second is a rule that decides who gets a job.

Two words help you read the difference.

  • Nativism is hostility to immigrants in the name of protecting people regarded as native-born. The native in the word means born in the country, not Native American.
  • Xenophobia is fear or hatred of people seen as foreign. It can be aimed at citizens as well as immigrants.

Now connect them to Week 2. Prejudice is an attitude; discrimination is an action. Xenophobia, as a fear or hatred, is an attitude, like prejudice. Nativism becomes discrimination when it is acted on, as with the shop owner's sign. It becomes institutional when it is written into a rule that an organization or a government applies to everyone.

Week 12 gave you one more tool. The perpetual-foreigner stereotype is the belief that some Americans, whatever their birthplace or citizenship, are always from somewhere else. You can hear it in E5's last line: she names her town, and they ask again.

Worked example — reading three moments with the concepts. Use the two scenes above and E5.

  1. The muttering customer. A feeling about newcomers, said aloud, with no rule behind it. Concept: xenophobia, an attitude.
  2. The shop owner's sign. A hiring rule that shuts out people not born in the country. Concept: nativism acted on, which is discrimination.
  3. E5's second question. A town named, and the question asked again. Concept: the perpetual-foreigner stereotype, applied to a person who already belongs.

In words: xenophobia is the fear, nativism is the claim that the native-born come first, and the step from either one to discrimination is the step from a feeling to an act.

These are tools for reading a record, not labels to pin on people. A careful reader asks what a law or an act did, then asks which concept fits it. Here is an honesty note: a concept helps you read a record, but it never proves what a person felt.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

  • (a) Think of a time you heard the question "where are you really from?" or a question like it. What did the second question assume?
  • (b) Why does it matter whether an unfair idea stays a feeling or becomes a written rule?

Misconception check. Students often think the native in nativism means Native American. That is tempting, because the words look alike. But nativism uses native to mean born in the country, and Native nations were themselves the targets of removal, not the people nativism claimed to protect. The cure: read native in nativism as native-born.

6. Meet Arab American and Middle Eastern and North African experiences

Think about a family that shares a holiday meal with dishes from two places. The grandparents came from one country, the cousins from another, and the family prays in more than one way. If you tried to sum that family up in one word, you would lose most of it.

Arab American and Middle Eastern and North African communities are like that, many times over.

  • Arab American is a self-chosen name for people in the United States whose families trace their roots to Arabic-speaking countries.
  • Middle Eastern or North African is the federal category, added as its own minimum category in 2024, for people with origins in the Middle East or North Africa.

These communities include people whose families came from many countries, beginning in large numbers in the late nineteenth century. They are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and of other faiths. So the federal category is not a religion and not one country. It is a region of origin, written the way the issuing body writes it.

Under the 1997 standards the White category included people with origins in "the Middle East, or North Africa". The 2024 revision made Middle Eastern or North African its own minimum category.

Worked example — years counted within White. Use Dataset C.

  1. The 1997 standards. People with origins in the Middle East or North Africa were counted within White.
  2. The 2024 revision. Middle Eastern or North African became its own minimum category.
  3. The span. 2024 − 1997 = 27 years.

In words: for 2024 − 1997 = 27 years under the 1997 standards, people with origins in the Middle East or North Africa were counted within White, and in 2024 they gained their own category.

Here is a fresh, illustrative case. A grandmother with roots in North Africa checked White on a form that followed the 1997 standards, because the form told her that box included her. On a form that follows the 2024 standards, the same grandmother can check Middle Eastern or North African. She did not change. The boxes did.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

  • (a) What might a community gain when it gets its own box on a federal form, and what might it still lose?
  • (b) Why might a person with roots in the region prefer to be named by a country or a community instead of a regional category?

Misconception check. Students often think Middle Eastern and North African people were absent from the federal categories before 2024. That is tempting, because the category is new. But under the 1997 standards they were counted, inside the White category. The cure: ask where a group was counted before its box existed, not whether it was counted at all.

7. Count the federal categories in 1977, 1997, and 2024

Imagine a family that answers the census in different decades (an illustrative case). In one decade the parents check one box each. Twenty years later their grown daughter checks two. Later still the family meets a single combined question with a "select all that apply" line. The family's ancestry is the same each time. What changes is what the form lets them say.

The federal categories are set by the Office of Management and Budget, the federal office that issues them, in Statistical Policy Directive No. 15. It was first issued in 1977 and revised in 1997 and in 2024.

  • A minimum category is a category every federal agency collecting race and ethnicity data must offer at the least; an agency may add more detailed categories beneath it but may not drop it.
  • The combined question is the single race and ethnicity question in the 2024 standards, which lists seven minimum categories together and asks people to select all that apply.

Here are the three versions, written the way the issuing body writes them.

The federal categories in 1977, 1997, and 2024: the race categories, the ethnicity categories, and how each version asked
Year Race categories Ethnicity How it asked
1977 4: American Indian or Alaskan Native; Asian or Pacific Islander; Black; White Hispanic origin or not of Hispanic origin race and ethnicity asked separately
1997 5 minimum: American Indian or Alaska Native; Asian; Black or African American; Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander; White 2: Hispanic or Latino; Not Hispanic or Latino separately; one or more races from the 2000 census on
2024 7 minimum categories: American Indian or Alaska Native; Asian; Black or African American; Hispanic or Latino; Middle Eastern or North African; Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander; White in the same combined question one combined question; select all that apply

Worked example — counting the boxes. Use Dataset C.

  1. 1977. 4 race categories, and an ethnicity category for Hispanic origin.
  2. 1997. "Asian or Pacific Islander" became two categories, so 4 + 1 = 5 minimum race categories, with 2 ethnicity categories beside them.
  3. 2024. The 5 race categories, plus Hispanic or Latino moved into the same question, plus Middle Eastern or North African, so 5 + 1 + 1 = 7 minimum categories.
  4. The dates. 1997 − 1977 = 20 years between the first two versions, and 2024 − 1997 = 27 years between the last two.

In words: the federal categories went from 4 race categories in 1977 to 4 + 1 = 5 minimum race categories and 2 ethnicity categories in 1997. In 2024 you meet 5 + 1 + 1 = 7 minimum categories in one combined question.

Now read what the issuing bodies say about their own boxes. OMB's 1997 notice states that the categories "represent a social-political construct designed for collecting data on the race and ethnicity of broad population groups in this country, and are not anthropologically or scientifically based." The Census Bureau states that its categories "generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country and not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically."

That is a limitation worth naming out loud: a category built for collecting data tells you how the government counts, not what a person is.

Now pull the week together. The 1790 law, the 1924 quotas, the 1952 law, the 1965 law, the 1986 law, and the three versions of the categories were each written by an issuing body in its time. In one plain sentence: the line from the 1790 law to the 2024 categories shows that the government has redrawn who could become a citizen and how people are counted many times, so a citizenship rule or a census box is a decision made by an issuing body in its time, not a fact of nature.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

  • (a) Which change in the table would have mattered most to a family you can picture, and why?
  • (b) The 2024 version moved Hispanic or Latino into the same question as race. What might that change make easier to say on a form, and what might it make harder?

Misconception check. Students often think a census category is a biological fact. That is tempting, because the boxes look official and they come with the word race. But the issuing bodies say in their own words that the categories are social and political, built to collect data, and not biological. The cure: read every box as the issuing body's category, with a year attached.

Key terms

  • Naturalization law of 1790 — The first federal law on becoming a citizen, which limited naturalization to an alien "being a free white person"; Congress extended it to persons of African nativity and descent in 1870, and the racial bar for Asians lasted until 1952. (first used: 1. Trace who could become a citizen)
  • Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 — The federal immigration law that ended the racial bar to naturalization for Asians but kept the national-origins quota system built in 1924, which lasted until 1965. (first used: 2. Read the 1924 quotas and the 1952 law)
  • Undocumented — Living in the country without the papers the law requires for a person's presence there; the record and the agencies also use the word unauthorized, especially for work. (first used: 4. Read the 1986 law: status and penalties)
  • Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 — The federal law, signed in November 1986, that offered legal status to undocumented migrants who had entered before 1982 and penalized employers who knowingly hired unauthorized workers. (first used: 4. Read the 1986 law: status and penalties)
  • Nativism — Hostility to immigrants in the name of protecting people regarded as native-born; the native in the word means born in the country, not Native American. (first used: 5. Name nativism and xenophobia)
  • Xenophobia — Fear or hatred of people seen as foreign, an attitude that can be aimed at citizens as well as at immigrants. (first used: 5. Name nativism and xenophobia)
  • Arab American — A self-chosen name for people in the United States whose families trace their roots to Arabic-speaking countries; communities that use it are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and of other faiths. (first used: 6. Meet Arab American and Middle Eastern and North African experiences)
  • Middle Eastern or North African — The federal category, added as its own minimum category in the 2024 revision, for people with origins in the Middle East or North Africa, who under the 1997 standards were counted within White. (first used: 6. Meet Arab American and Middle Eastern and North African experiences)
  • Statistical Policy Directive No. 15 — The Office of Management and Budget's standard that sets the federal race and ethnicity categories; it was first issued in 1977 and revised in 1997 and in 2024. (first used: 7. Count the federal categories in 1977, 1997, and 2024)
  • Minimum category — A category every federal agency collecting race and ethnicity data must offer at the least; an agency may add more detailed categories beneath it but may not drop it. (first used: 7. Count the federal categories in 1977, 1997, and 2024)
  • Combined question — The single race and ethnicity question in the 2024 federal standards, which lists seven minimum categories together and asks people to select all that apply, instead of asking about Hispanic or Latino origin separately from race. (first used: 7. Count the federal categories in 1977, 1997, and 2024)

Summary

  • For 162 years, from 1790 to 1952, race decided who could become a citizen.
  • The 1924 quotas covered every nationality, and Asia was excluded on top of them.
  • The 1952 law ended the racial bar for Asians but kept the quotas until 1965.
  • E3 came under the 1965 law and E5 under refugee law: two doors, one town.
  • The 1986 law did two things: legal status for people who entered before 1982, and penalties for employers.
  • Xenophobia is a fear; nativism puts the native-born first; acting on either is discrimination.
  • Middle Eastern and North African people were counted within White until their own 2024 category.
  • The federal categories went from 4 race categories (1977) to 5 and 2 (1997) to 7 in one question (2024).

Check your understanding

Work these before looking at the answers — they are ungraded, and the answers (with reasoning) are at the bottom of the page.

  1. An illustrative campus club (not a real one) asks members to pick a home region on its sign-up form. The first version offers 6 regions. The next version splits one region into 2 and adds 1 new region. How many regions does the new version offer, and did the members change?
  2. An invented rule (not a real law) gives a town's parking permits to three percent of each street's households, counted 30 years before the rule. A street had 400 households in that old count. How many permits does the street get, and what is one problem with using the old count?
  3. A classmate writes, "Before 2024, people from the Middle East and North Africa were not counted in the federal categories." Explain what is wrong with the sentence and fix it.
  4. Sort each moment by this week's concepts: (a) a neighbor privately fears people who speak another language at the bus stop, and does nothing; (b) an illustrative bakery's posted rule says only people born in the country will be hired.

Answers (worked reasoning — read after attempting)

  1. Splitting one region into two adds one, and the new region adds one more, so 6 + 1 + 1 = 8 regions. The members did not change; the form did. That is the same reasoning you use for the federal categories, on a fresh, illustrative form.
  2. Three percent of 400 is 400 × 3 ⁄ 100 = 12 permits. The problem is the age of the count: a street that grew in the last 30 years still gets permits sized to its old population, and a street that did not exist then gets none. The same flaw sat inside the 1924 quotas, but this is a fresh, invented rule.
  3. The sentence says these communities were not counted. Under the 1997 standards, the White category included people with origins in "the Middle East, or North Africa", so they were counted, inside White. A fixed sentence: "Before 2024, people with origins in the Middle East or North Africa were counted within the White category; the 2024 revision gave them their own minimum category."
  4. (a) is xenophobia, a fear of people seen as foreign; it stays an attitude, like prejudice, because nothing is done. (b) is nativism acted on: a rule that puts the native-born first and shuts out others, which is discrimination, not only an attitude.

Next up in this module: the Readings & Resources page, the lecture tutorial, the practice set, and the quiz — and next week, Intersections: Gender, Class, Language, Religion, and Multiracial Identity asks what the "one or more races" rule means for a person who belongs to several categories at once.

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