Working Toward Whiteness: How America'S Immigrants Became White: The Strange Journey From Ellis Island To The Suburbs

How did immigrants to the United States come to see themselves as white?David R. Roediger has been in the vanguard of the study of race and labor in American history for decades. He first came to prominence as the author of The Wages of Whiteness, a classic study of racism in the development of a white working class in nineteenthcentury America. In Working Toward Whiteness, Roediger continues that history into the twentieth century. He recounts how ethnic groups considered white todayincluding Jewish, Italian, and PolishAmericanswere once viewed as undesirables by the WASP establishment in the United States. They eventually became part of white America, through the nascent labor movement, New Deal reforms, and a rise in homebuying. Once assimilated as fully white, many of them adopted the racism of those whites who formerly looked down on them as inferior. From ethnic slurs to racially restrictive covenantsthe real estate agreements that ensured allwhite neighborhoodsRoediger explores the mechanisms by which immigrants came to enjoy the privileges of being white in America.A disturbing, necessary, masterful history, Working Toward Whiteness uses the past to illuminate the present. In an Introduction to the 2018 edition, Roediger considers the resonance of the book in the age of Trump, showing how Working Toward Whiteness remains as relevant as ever even though most migrants today are not from Europe.