Assimilation Is Supremacy
“Now, then, in order to understand white supremacy, we must dismiss the fallacious notion that white people can give anybody their freedom.” - Kwame Ture (aka Stokely Carmichael)
Tell me if you’ve heard this one before. Some white person is talking about a group of recent immigrants (Mexicans, Somalis, Hmong, take your pick) and they say something along the lines of “oh well the problem with immigrants now is that they don’t assimilate. They come here and still want to be living in their own countries. Our families integrated. If they would be more American, we wouldn’t have [insert problem X].”
This usually comes up whenever there’s a celebration of these people like the Hmong Freedom Festival here in St. Paul or other events around the country. Usually, there is a parade and stuff like that. Lots of non-US flags. And it seems that a lot of people (mostly white) take umbrage with them flying the flags of their native land instead of the American flag. If only these people had more American pride…
Here is where we get to the crux of the issue of white supremacy and how deeply ingrained it is in American culture. The notion that there is something un-American about celebrating one’s nation of birth or familial heritage is nothing more than racism masking itself in patriotism. If you think there is a definition of “American” I’ve got news for you. There ain’t.
What do you picture when you think of America or Americans? Baseball and apple pie? The Statue of Liberty and fireworks? The men and women in uniform? Is an “American” a tall, strapping man with blonde hair and blue eyes? Or do they look a little different in your mind’s eye? If you’re being honest with yourself, when you think of America and American-ness, I bet it’s mostly a caucasian fantasy of what the country should be, could be, or is.
But let’s jump back a few decades.
White people like to blame a lack of assimilation for problems that develop in immigrant communities. Forget that minorities routinely have much, MUCH higher rates of poverty than their white counterparts. Forget that communities of color are harassed and policed much more than similar white ones. Never mind the chasm between white school districts and minority ones, both in terms of financial might, investment, and quality. And let’s not talk about how minorities in Minnesota (but this applies across the country) face a wealth gap where people of color have about 6% of the wealth that whites do. I’m sure this is all a coincidence.
No. This must all be because those darn Mexicans listen to salsa music all the time instead of good ol’ American rock and roll. The fact of the matter is that NOT assimilating is about the most American thing an immigrant community can do.
Have you ever been to the North End in Boston? It’s awesome. The food there is incredible. There’s a place called Mike’s Pastry on Hanover Street that has some of the best cannolis this side of Italy. White European colonizers have lived there since 1646. Some of the biggest names in Puritan New England called it home, like Increase Mather. Yes, that was the dude’s name. Increase. Weird bunch of people those Puritans. The North End remained mostly white and Englishy up until the late 19th Century when a combination of a cholera outbreak and an influx of immigrants (mostly Jewish, Irish, and Italians) pushed the wealthy whites out to Beacon Hill. A second wave of immigration came in the early 1900s, most of them being Italians. In 1934 the completion of the Sumner Tunnel connected East Boston, which was also largely Italian immigrants, to the North End, thus allowing the flow of Italian immigrants to link up.
Many of this first generation of Italians never learned English. They didn’t need to. They lived with and amongst Italians. They shopped at Italian markets. They worked “low-skill” blue-collar jobs that didn’t require a lot of language abilities. They opened businesses that serviced their fellow ex-pat countrymen and opened restaurants, some of which are still around today. Have a look:
And that’s just a five-block radius. There are many, many more Italian joints throughout the city. Man, it’s a good thing them Goombahs didn’t assimilate or we’d be stuck with nothing but fish n chip stands and tea rooms.
The thing is, a lot of those immigrant families are now 4-5 generations deep. They seem as “American” as anything else. It’s like they’ve been here forever, and thus, must be what “America” is. That’s not the whole story. Even though that first wave of Italians didn’t learn English or work fancy jobs, their children did. They went to public schools where they were taught the three Rs. Those children (and their children) were able to go to college, many during a time when college was super affordable so poor and working-class families could actually have the chance to send their kids to school. They accumulated wealth and property and passed it down. But it’s important to remember it wasn’t always like this.
When those initial waves of Italian immigrants first showed up in Beantown, they faced quite a bit of discrimination from the people who lived there. The English gentry called them “an excitable people” and “enemy aliens” by the government. Surely, you’ve seen the “Irish Need Not Apply” signs in black and white photographs. Having grown up with a number of these (extreme Ray Liotta voice) greeeeeeezeballs I can attest they are an excitable bunch! But so were my Irish friends. And my Jewish friends. And every other kind of person I knew. Turns out, they were just people who happened to speak with their hands a lot.
It was only through upward mobility that Italians shook their immigrant, “enemy alien” status. And listen, before you get riled up this is not a post about how Italian and Irish immigrants faced discrimination and overcame it so why can’t these Somalis or whatever. Times are very, very different now. Other than someone’s last name, it would have been hard to tell who was Italian or German or whatever because they were all just white people. It was easier to get by discrimination when you looked the same. Plus, there was a whole new wave of people to hate.
That’s not the only difference. As I mentioned, many of the European immigrant families were able to attain educations, high-paying jobs, and generational wealth. Scores of first- and second-generation immigrant families bought homes with the help of the GI Bill, something that was not available to Blacks, even though their lineage had been in America far longer. Many minority groups were prevented, by law, from buying property in certain areas due to redlining. They were denied jobs and educational opportunities. Turns out that after a few generations, people forget where they came from.
This is all to say that assimilation and integration has NEVER been the problem. It’s white supremacy and systemic racism that have prevent many communities from climbing the economic mobility ladder. It is not an accident, nor is it a flaw in these new immigrants’ character. It is an intentional system that we still feel the impacts of today. It’s not that they are any less American than the first generation of Italians who came here. It is not a lack of desire to be “American” whatever that means. It’s that the people who claim “American-ness” for themselves do not want them to be part of their party. This goes all the way back to our founding.
Frank Sinatra is one of my favorite singers. I have a bunch of his records and I listen to them often. One of those records is his live performance at The Sands hotel in Las Vegas from 1966. He’s a proud Italian and was rumored to have hung out with mobsters. And while he paled around with Black entertainers and other minorities, he wasn’t above being racist himself. Have a listen to his legendary “Tea Break” from that performance where he launches into a stand-up routine of sorts. It was almost certainly influenced by his friendship with Don Rickles.
OK, so the mocking accent isn’t great. Pretty racist. And it just goes to show you how systemic and ingrained supremacy is in our country. Here’s a singer who made his bones singing Black songs from Black musical genres, performing in this instance with Count Basie and Quincy Jones, two extremely accomplished Black musicians, feeling totally comfortable doing material like this. He’s the child of two Italian immigrants and yet… In a way, there is nothing more American than being an immigrant (or descended from one) so accomplished you can be racist to everyone else you perceive to be beneath you.
I’m sure Frank might have seen it differently. He worked hard. He grew up with Black people and maybe he felt comfortable enough to speak like them because he’s heard it his whole life. He had Black friends. He made a life for himself. He wasn’t handed nuthin’. That’s not reality but perhaps that’s how he saw it.
I’m focusing a lot on Boston in this post but this is an issue that impacts every city across the country. It isn’t a north vs. south thing. Or an east coast-west coast thing. It’s a white thing. Listen to the white people in the video below. They feel 100% confident saying that racism isn’t a thing in Boston and yet by every metric racism is most definitely a thing.
It’s an easy cop-out to say that modern immigrants come to America to have an easy life, to get lots of free stuff, be lazy, and loaf off the labor of hard-working Americans. But that’s a total misnomer, one that’s supported by statistics and imperial evidence. They are not here to steal jobs or mooch. They want the same things those Italian immigrants who came to Boston 150 years ago wanted: an opportunity to achieve greatness. This is the promise of America.
Many of them are fleeing areas decimated by violence, corruption, and poverty. The same can be said of those Italians, Germans, and Irish who came here. Immigrants are so important to our economy. They mow our lawns, they pick our food, they also staff our hospitals and perform many vital tasks. Immigrants are the lifeblood of our country, not the virus that is killing it.
Supremacy is what makes us sick. White corporate greed is what keeps us poor. Racist policing keeps our people jailed and denies them opportunities. It all boils down to one simple fact: the fewer chances for economic prosperity you offer people (immigrant or not) the less prosperous they (and their offspring) will be.
And don’t forget, we all came from somewhere else (indigenous people excluded). So maybe have a little more empathy for this generation of immigrants. And if you firmly believe in assimilation (like the Borg) then no more Mexican food for you. I don’t want to see you celebrating St. Patrick’s Day or the Feast of St. Anthony. No Oktoberfest either. Enjoy your vinegar fish and let me know when you’re ready to admit you’re wrong.
