When we learned about segregation, we never covered how people of other races were treated and I never got an answer when I would ask.
How were Asians, Latinos, Native Americans, and other races treated when segregation and sundown towns were more prevalent? What about immigrants from other countries, including those from majority white countries?
32 comments
Asians were very discriminated against.
Native Americans, well, the ones that weren’t killed were discriminated against.
Latinos were mostly (nearly all) Mexican because of the long shared border, and they were discriminated against.
If you weren’t white, you weren’t white. Not being black isn’t enough for white supremacists to respect you. Other races of people were also discriminated against. I often wondered this myself as a kid, in school they would talk about it as if there are only two races.
This is going to vary state to state. In Texas, Hispanics tended to fill a similar niche as black people did, being discriminated against. In Virginia? Not so much.
The short answer: poorly
There’s sadly a very long and extensive history of discrimination in this country. It’s well documented that communities like the Asian, Hispanic, faced horrible discrimination. Even white immigrant groups like the Irish and the Italians got it too.
Then there’s the whole long and brutal history of the genocide of the indigenous communities.
The US, and many other countries have a horrendous history of that. That sure as hell extended to anyone who was not white in the segregation days.
According to a few teachers I had that around at the time, Mexicans cause the government said we’re white on paper we werent separated much when it came to government stuff like schools but that didnt mean private businesses and other individuals would do the same she a few said they went to the white schools but the teachers would give them looks and try to sit them and separate them from white student and ignore them in class but im not super sure
I can speak about immigrants from other countries. I read a book about Italian immigration once since my family is from there. From the late 1880s until the 1920s, Italians (and other “Mediterranean people”) were treated very poorly and were viewed as inferior. There was a lot of prejudice. Roman Catholic churches were vandalized and burned down. There were mobs that attacked them. Also there were 11 Sicilians lynched in New Orleans.
There wasn’t any Jim Crow segregation in NYC obviously, but redlining and white flight led to a lot of segregation neighborhoods by neighborhood. My father is Puerto Rican and grew up in Sunset Park, Brooklyn during the time of white flight.
He tells me him and his friends used to always get into fights with the Italian kids and other white kids in the neighborhood. Many people were quite racist and would vocally express their disgust over the growing Latino population. The police would also unfairly target Latino kids while letting white kids get away with so much.
In areas with a large minority population, there was generally some form of legal segregation. Mexicans in the Southwest and Asians on the West Coast. But a Mexican or Asian in a state away from their population centers would have been treated basically as white from a legal perspective. American Indians were discriminated against where they formed a large percentage of the population, but were actually celebrated in a certain way and would have faced little discrimination in areas where they were a small percentage. For instance, Herbert Hoover’s Vice President (1929-1933) was 3/8ths American Indian from Kansas. One of the big differences with Hispanics and American Indians specifically is that there generally weren’t legal restrictions on marriage with whites. No European groups faced legal discrimination.
When my middle eastern father was stationed in South Carolina in the 50s, somebody lit his bed on fire while he was asleep in it, and then was accused of arson by the authorities when he reported it. His CO pulled some strings to get him transferred asap after that and had him out of there before anything could come of the incident.
Anyone who wasn’t white was treated poorly. Different stereotypes and offensive things applied to people depending on which group they belonged to, but still poorly.
To bring up a case with my community, the Armenian community, the genocide survivors and their children weren’t treated well when they came over. Armenians actually had to fight and win legal battles to be categorized as white so as to use the white only facilities. People still treated them like crap, but we gained the legal right to use white facilities.
Very few of us have actually lived through this time so it might be better to go to r/askahistorian as they will give you a much more balanced and in depth answer.
But since you ask.
There was considerably more animosity between different social groups but at the same time not all of it took the same form. For instance during the Irish potato famine the Irish immigrants were seen as poor lower class people and were segregated from society in fact “Irish Need Not Apply” was a common sign post for businesses looking for work.
It was a similar thing with Asian groups as well. There were laws against interracial marriage. Many separated themselves to Asian districts (some of these still exist in the form of China Towns).
There were similar things for other groups as well as in fighting even within smaller ethnic groups (just watch a gangster movie and you’ll get an idea of this).
I think though the big difference between the black communities and the other communities was the status of the other groups as immigrants. They were still seen as equal people but as untrustworthy or slovenly or any other manner of negative (just watch old Loony Toons episodes featuring Chinese characters to get an idea) stereotypes. Whereas black men and women were not seen as foreigners but as lesser class people (or in extreme cases lesser people).
Generally rather poorly, but other groups of people made up a much smaller portion of the population. But mostly these different groups of people didn’t interact with each other and were not in the same physical proximity to each other in most of the country.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_demographics_of_the_United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_demographics_of_the_United_States)
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If you take a look at the 1950 demographics, There were 150 million Americans. 132 million of them were White, and 18 million were every other group. Of that 18 million, Black Americans were 15 million. Hispanic people, who would have been overwhelmingly Mexican American were a little over 3 million. Other groups such as Asian Americans and Native Americans would have been in the hundreds of thousands.
Most White Americans would have been around other White Americans, and then the ethnic group most would have seen would have been Black Americans, and unless you lived in some specific parts of the country, you likely never encountered someone who was Hispanic, Asian, or Native American.
Segregation was very much a 90% on one side and 10% on the other side. Certain communities would have had much different ratios, especially in the South, and other places would have been much lower. I remember my grandmother told me that she has little recollection seeing Black People in Buffalo in the 1930s and 1940s, however, my grandfather did have a Black friend while in high school in Buffalo and from what I understand they kept in contact until they were old men.
I have a friend whose parents are Puerto Rican, but whose dad grew up in Georgia in the ’60s. And he said people didn’t really know what to make of him because pretty much everyone was either black or white, but he was brown.
they were discriminated against but by the time asians and other non-european and non-black people enter the USA in significant numbers they were mostly in states that didn’t practice segergation.
But socially and culturally discrimination and rascism was extremely wiedespread and rampant
Poorly.
Well, a lot of lynching happened and the people responsible were allowed to literally get away with murder. Redlining and discrimination in general were the order of the day.
So all in all, incredibly poorly.
Not great, but they weren’t under the same degree of segregation as black people. So they often found room for business by being able to serve both without the same legal consequences. The Chinese are a prime example of this in the Mississippi Delta. Italians also served this role in bigger cities.
The KKK are mostly remembered as being anti-Black, but after the end of Reconstruction when the Democrats booted the Republicans from power in the South and before the Civil Rights movement, black people were seen as “properly put in place” in a sense (not free from danger in any sense). So the KKK were primarily anti-Catholic in that time in between, as they were seen as a bigger threat to their power at the time. This corresponds a lot with the labor movements at the time, which still don’t get spoken about enough, particularly for how [violent](https://bhamwiki.com/w/James_Coyle) it got. It actually got to where the KKK controlled state government had to properly prosecute the [KKK](https://bhamwiki.com/w/1927_Jeff_Calloway_beating). In that 1910s to 1920s era, immigrants would tend to [underplay](https://bhamwiki.com/w/Greek_immigration) their [ethnicity](https://bhamwiki.com/w/Italian_immigration) a bit.
My Hispanic grandfather told me about growing up during segregation. He said he had to wait outside at the one barbershop in town because the white barber would only see non-white customers if there weren’t anymore white customers. Police ended up showing up and shooing (and whacking) him and everyone else away. He drove to the next town to try the barber there and the white owner was more than happy to let my grandfather into the white section but still shooed away black customers. I drove him around town once and he pointed out the places he didn’t like going to because they were segregated. The buildings are still there but just with different paint schemes.
“When segregation was happening” like it’s something that’s completely in the past.
I’ve got some real bad news for you, OP.
There have been some great historical novels recently that portray what it was like for Asian people – I recommend **The Downstairs Girl**
Native Americans were treated horribly. Worse than any other group.
If you think social minorities who were also white weren’t discriminated upon in Jim Crow era, boy do I have some news for you. Irish, Jews, and Italians all got a rough hand as well.
Segregation is in phases…
1) Doesn’t really exist due to resources of plenty and/or mutual need. (When Colonists first arrived in the US)
2) Develops internally as resources are limited or disproportionately divided (even in perception, the wedge used to manufacture hate) and/or there is no direct need of the ‘other’ party so seen as an ‘Other’ especially if remotely different. (Early colonial days)
3) Becomes outward, open, and manifests in action. Often restricting fundamental right and just permissions while also ensuring the ‘Other’ stays the lesser party. (Jim Crow South obvious example)
4) Some ethical stand is taken to outwardly appear just but systems are entrenched that are inherently segregated. (Today, but especially in places like the Northeast US)
I say all of this to ensure that we all know, that nearly every group in the US has been treated this way. Even the founding of Rhode Island is kind of linked to a history of kicking out an undesired “Other” group. Irish, Jews, Mexicans, Natives, Chinese, Japanese, and of course black people (there are still more) have all experienced it. It’s a fn tragedy with impacts that still manifest themselves today. From literacy rates to getting a job to just getting a smile.
Also need to say, as a white man, I feel deep in my bones a humbling horror Everytime I am somewhere and all the low paying service jobs are held by black folks (or some times Hispanic folks) and all of those being serviced are white. Ex: the Atlanta Airport or Yankee Stadium.
To answer your question directly:
Native Americans: Treated very differently in different regions. Northeast were mostly manipulated into a minor existence. Western and southern tribes were forced to places that white people never wanted to be. That is clearly segregation. They were lied to and left to die so often.
Hispanic People: Actually a fairly mixed bag. The racism they experience today is (in my experience) much worse than they did even 30 years ago, pre NAFTA. They are no longer brought into American culture like they used to be. But there have been times obviously where racism and segregation kept them from buying land and having means.
Asians: Read about Chinese digging the railroad west. Or the Japanese internment camps. Or the Vietnamese fleeing the war.
My father, born in 1913, used ethnic slurs when he was talking about ethnic groups that he considered inferior. Referring to African Americans, he had terms worse than the n-word. Other slur words were used for Asians, Latinos, Irish, Italians, Jews especially, and Eastern Europeans. He lived in New England, where any Native Americans were well assimilated, and had a positive, romanticized view of them. Being “part Indian” was a good thing. In his small New England city, only Jews, Blacks, and Italians had segregated neighborhoods. There weren’t enough of other minority group members to segregate them.
My parent’s first house (bought in late 70s) still had a clause that required them not to sell the property to black people. This part was officially void because of the Fair Housing Act, but the contract was old enough to still have it in the writing.
This is just one example of discriminatory housing in Michigan- blacks and other minorities could be legally excluded from purchasing property in certain areas. Even after the FHA, certain communities found ways around it.
My grandfather grew up in a small rural town during the depression and didn’t see the full extent until he got in the WWII army. A black US army captain was sitting next to him on a bus and was thrown off by the driver in Little Rock. Another black soldier was caught after 10 pm and shot on the spot by police officers, nearly sparking a riot.
My grandmother had a surprising sympathy for blacks and their plight, witnessing the same things. She had an unending loathing and distrust of the Japanese to the day she died, however.
My grandparents on my mom’s side were born in California after WWI and they came of age during the Great Depression. Their parents fled from Mexico c. 1910 during the chaos of the revolution. They grew up in the hills to the east of Bakersfield, in very rural country. Agriculture and mining, basically.
They never talked much about those prewar years, aside from nostalgic reminiscings and “when I was your age” type stuff. However, messed up stories would come out from time to time. It was never as formal, let alone as fucked up as Jim Crow in Mississippi, but you would run into things on the daily. I’ll provide some brief bullet points:
– They were allowed to sit in the same movie theater as white people, but they had to sit all the way in the back or on the upper level.
– Getting a milkshake at a drug store was hit or miss. Maybe they’d be told to scram, maybe they’d be allowed to sit at the far end of the counter but they’d have to drink it down fast and then scram.
– One time in high school they took the ferry from Los Angeles to Catalina Island. My grandma let it slip that they and all the other non-whites were required to stay below deck for the whole trip, and only the white kids could be topside. “Oh my god, grandma, that’s terrible!” She was like “pfffft, we didn’t care. All the *cool* white kids were down there with us.”
– They got the shit beaten out of them for speaking Spanish on the schoolyard. Also, the school wasn’t segregated because the town was too small. It was like a one room schoolhouse type deal. *However*, they did have to go in and out through the back door. Only the white kids could use the front door.
Shit like that, basically. Again, it wasn’t as bad as being black in Mississippi during that time, but you would run into things as you went about your daily existence, and you definitely had your ‘place.’
As for the war and everything after, I’ve already spent enough time doing a write-up, so I’ll just say “it was better.”
Inb4 “bUt mExIcANs aRE wHItE.” Yeah, okay, sure.
Not great, Dave. Not great
Uh, poorly?
All minorities were discriminated against. Asians found themselves in a weird spot sometimes where they weren’t white but also weren’t dark-skinned, so their categorization for stuff like bathrooms or water fountains depended on how the white people around them felt
It helps to consider how drastically our demographics have changed over the years.
Segregation was largely white and non-white. It’s just that there were very few non-white people who weren’t black in the country. White and black Americans made up about 95% of the country the year I was born. Now, we make up about 74% of the country. That’s a pretty drastic change in a very short period of time.
But, to answer your question, not good. Of course, as other people have pointed out, new comers were rarely treated well regardless of their skin color. It’s only relatively recently that white people are even treated like monolith.
All of those groups you named fought to be classified as white.
Only black people stood up against white supremacy at the time
Everybody who didn’t fit the narrow description of white was discriminated against and turned away from buses, bathrooms all the way to even water fountains they all had their own seperated from white people.
In short they were treated like garbage.
All minority groups faced varying levels of discrimination. However, it did vary based on the group in question and the location.
In general, all immigrant groups were heavily discouraged from speaking languages other than English. This included White immigrants like Poles and Italians. Native Americans were also discouraged from speaking their languages on top of being sent to residential schools to try and remove them from their culture.
Black Americans didn’t experience these issues as we all spoke English by then. But the schools and medical schools we had access to at the time were usually substandard. Technically there usually wasn’t legal segregation in the North. But it didn’t matter too much since almost all of us lived in the South until the great migration.
Another major difference was political participation. Blacks in the South were largely banned from voting. However, Hispanics and other groups weren’t. In contrast Mexican-American farm workers were often gathered up en masse and compelled to vote for whoever the local party bosses wanted.