Jewish People In The 1920's

650 Words3 Pages

From 1920 to 1950s, views on the race/ethnicity of Jews changed in the USA to view them as white. Their upward mobility has caused some Jewish people of today to look down upon African Americans for not being able to do what Jewish people did. The US discovered that in Europe there were lower classes of people (Jews were one of them), but before that most immigrants were accepted into the white race and treated decently (they got jobs, lived in the cities, etc). The Red Scare introduced anti-immigrant feelings, causing Jewish people and others to be excluded from society, and many feared that mixing races would make them “impure”. In the 1920s, science was used to show that the only “true” Americans/whites were those that came from north-west Europe, and laws started coming about that defined race (including a Supreme Court ruling that tried to …show more content…

The government let African Americans fall behind economically, educationally, and socially, all while building up whites and helping them achieve everything. The fact that African American and women veterans were excluded from the benefits of the GI Bill angers me. They risked their lives just as much as the white men did, they participated in helping their country just as much, and yet because they are not seen as the “desirable” person, they are left in the dust and then accused of being “lazy”. And it is sad because things like this still go on today: gender and race differences when it comes to pay, job exclusion if a person’s name isn’t “white” enough, sexual harassment in the workplace, rape victims being blamed for the actions of the perpetrator, and so many others. Minority groups are still antagonized by the people (read: old, white men) who are in power, and who have been in power for over 200 years simply because of the way their ancestors immigrated to the United