Race, Ethnicity, and Place in a Changing America

Prologue

P Pr ro ol lo og gu ue e THE CHANGING AMERICAN SCENE Two of the most significant changes occurring in the second half of 20th century America involved racial and ethnic composition of the population and the national focus on civil rights policy (housing, school desegregation , etc.). Debates about U.S. immigration after WWII resulted in profound changes in the magnitude and origins of immigration flows into the country. In the same period, the U.S. was steeped in the conflicts of the Civil Rights Era. The laws that emerged on these two fronts dramatically changed how America would treat immigration and racial issues in the future and also modified American human geography throughout most U.S. regions. Cultural and ethnic landscapes, the visualization of cultural imprints by the occupying group, capture the racial and ethnic changes in particular American places. Some of these landscapes and places illustrate the nature and range of changes that have occurred, and that are likely to continue, in places across the nation in coming decades. Audrey Singer, in a subsequent chapter, informs us that the public library in Montgomery County, Maryland, “welcomes visitors in 11 languages.” The welcomes are not for tourists. Rather, Montgomery County, like other suburban Washington, D.C. areas, is experiencing a rapidly changing population due to recent immigration that has made the nation’s capital a gateway city. In the same county, African-American family homes of professional, white collar workers are decorated to reflect ethnic ties — among the decorations are pieces of African art, a Civil Rights era painting, and a colorful poster highlighting a recent jazz festival — and, at the same time, such homes express the achievements of the black middle class (Wiese, 2005). These examples illustrate the increasing suburbanization of the black middle class and the rise of ethnic diversity. In suburban Minneapolis, black patrons of a barbershop exchange stories. They are not African Americans ; they are Africans, “Liberians of War,” living their “Liberian Way.” Earl Scott (chapter 12) explains the importance of social spaces for Liberian immigrants to reminisce about their homeland. Here in the American Heartland, Liberians have carved out landscapes and remain distinct from the local African-American population , despite their common cultural ties. Liberians are not the only immigrants who have settled in the heartland. Asian ethnic groups also have settled in inconspicuous and perhaps unexpected places, including Minnesota. The Hmong people of Southeast Asia provide a good example. Following the Vietnam War, this culture experienced genocide for their support of Americans. Since receiving refugee status, more than one million Hmong people have immigrated to the U.S. and more than 60,000 have settled in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, where hundreds of their successful businesses help define the new Hmong landscape there. The African ethnic scene described for Liberians is repeated in other American cities by other African immigrants, Ghanaians in New York, Somalis in Maine, and Ethiopians in Los Angeles, among others. Meanwhile , black ethnic Caribbeans have created cultural landscapes in various places, including Miami, Florida (Haitian and Trinidadian). Miami also is home to “Little Havana” and became the center of Cuban-American politics and culture after Castro overthrew Battista in 1959. Their position grew even stronger due to subsequent migrations of Cubans of varying social and economic status. The U.S. subsidized “freedom flights” and other efforts contributed to this diversity. Thus, “Little Havana,” too, is a distinctive ethnic landscape of a newly emerging America in the last four decades. No region has changed more during the last generation than the American South. Its booming economy and warm climate have attracted migrants of all backgrounds. Among the newcomers are Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal, who have been attracted by the potential for a better life. Charlotte, North Carolina, once a black-white city, realized a greater percentage increase in its Latino population than any American city of comparable size. It is now classified as an immigrant “gateway” city (Singer, 2004). Atlanta, Georgia, the largest city of the South, also has experienced significant increases in ethnic immigrants and has been a favored destination for the “reverse” migration of African Americans, who for the first time since the Great Migration, have xiv Prologue begun returning South in very large numbers (see chapter 7). However, African Americans “returning home” are not only being attracted to the employment opportunities of large metropolitan regions like Atlanta, some are returning to their Southern roots in rural places in North Carolina and are drawn there...