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Chapter Twenty XENOPHOBIA, RACISM, AND BIGOTRY Conflict in the Kaleidoscope ETHNIC conflict, bigotry, and violence were also part of the ethnic landscape in the I970S and I980s. Conflict and violence had declined since the I960s, when riots erupted in a number of cities, but the patterns of xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism, and ethnic conflict over territory, jobs, and power continued. And the acceleration of contacts between members of different ethnic groups in a variety of settings brought conflict into the open in some places, such as elite colleges , where it had scarcely appeared before. Hostility Toward Immigrants Every previous period of large-scale immigration had resulted in an upsurge of xenophobia; earlier immigrants and refugees had been harassed and even attacked more frequently than in the I970S and I980s. But fear and dislike of newcomer immigrants still led to attacks in many cities against Cubans, Haitians, Asian Indians, Vietnamese, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans. The scope and intensity of the hostility depended upon the size of the target group, the suddenness with which they arrived in the community, and the economic context. In I984, when the federal government decided to allow IOO,OOO Cuban refugees to seek permanent residency, two Miami radio talk show hosts initiated a postcard campaign to the White House; switchboards were jammed, with 95 percent of the callers protesting allowing the "Marielitos" to stay.l In Jersey City, where a substantial number ofAsian Indians settled over a short period of time in I987, Indian women wearing traditional saris became targets ofharassment by native-born whites and blacks (and some Hispanic youths). ''We will go to any extreme to get Indians to move out of Jersey City," wrote one correspondent to the Jersey Journal; the 9,000 members ofthe Indian community stayed indoors after dark and avoided walking alone on the streets. One young white boy said, "It's white people against the Hindus," and an Indian woman wondered, "Why they kill us? ... We are Americans, toO."2 Korean merchants in Washington and New York, Cambodians in several cities in Massachusetts, H'mong in Philadelphia, and Vietnamese in Florida, Texas, and California also en372 CONFLICf IN THE KALEIDOSCOPE 373 countered incidents of violence. One Justice Department official called violence against Asians "the fastest growing area of discrimination" in the COuntry.3 So common and severe were episodes of harassment and violence against Asians, whether U.S. citizens or not, that the Civil Rights Commission in 198+ investigated such incidents in eight states and in the District of Columbia, and not surprisingly found them to be on the rise as more Asians came to the U.S. Native-born blacks in Los Angeles charged that the new immigrants were discriminating against them; they complained that Korean store owners treated them rudely, would not hire them, and made money from the Mrican-American community without putting anything back.4 In Philadelphia in 198+, hundreds of the 5,000 H'mong refugees who had resettled in a poor, mostly black neighborhood fled when local residents responded with hostility, including muggings and pistol whippings, apparently the work ofabout twenty teen-agers. Many adult blacks resented the refugees for what they perceived to be special favors doled out by the government. As was also true for many whites, their perceptions were based on badly distorted information, but their resentment was no less intense, as they fought over jobs, housing, and other goods in scarce supply.5 The H'mong encountered trouble wherever they went, even in Minneapolis, where their resettlement was probably more successful than elsewhere. Probably the most persistent conflict between blacks and immigrants occurred in Miami, scene offour major riots, one as late as 1989. Although the uprisings were usually precipitated by a conflict with the police, an important underlying cause was resentment toward newcomers from Cuba and Central America. Even the 50,000 Haitians who came between 1975 and 1982 were a target.6 In one survey, almost as many Haitians said they thought black Americans were prejudiced against them as white (39 and +1.+ percent).7 But the primary targets were the Cubans, much more numerous than any other group, some wealthy, many politically influential . When Nicaraguans began to arrive in large numbers in 1988 and 1989, many in the Cuban community offered assistance. Nicaraguans who claimed asylum received work authorization, and many found jobs even though they spoke no English, deepening the resentment ofblacks, whose own unemployment rose between 1981 and 1987 from 9 percent to 10...

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