Reddit reviews Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race

No, it isn't necessarily reliant upon color of skin. Although Irish Catholics, Poles, and Italians weren't "white" until surprisingly recently. There are actually a couple of good books on the subject if you're interested in reading. A place to start might be Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race

Race is a social construct. Biologically and genetically all humans belong to the Human Race, but race in the black/white sense is a product of culture and society.

In the US, race has often been defined along the lines of 'ability to be a good citizen'. There were a select few (i.e. whites) who were deemed smart and good enough to grasp the reigns of citizenship. There were others (i.e. different over time... Blacks, Irish, Germans, Mexicans, etc. etc...) who were deemed unfit for citizenship. Its not necessarily that these types of people were sorted by skin color and country of origin; moreover it was that these types of people were deemed unfit, and sorted into the appropriate category (i.e. throughout much of the south 1890's-1920's, Italian immigrants were considered black).

This book is one of the best on the subject: http://www.amazon.com/Whiteness-Different-Color-European-Immigrants/dp/0674951913

If you have an interest in the topic there's no reason you shouldn't I guess... The books are often read together since the first one tries to describe the way people viewed race in America and how whites tried to differentiate themselves from blacks. The second talks about competition and struggle of groups we today consider Caucasian into entering the public perception of whiteness- and in turn the resistance they faced from the already established white category.

The Wages of Whiteness "in broadest strokes argues that whiteness was a way in which white workers responded to fear of dependency on wage labor and to the necessities of capitalist work discipline."

Whiteness of a Different Color really goes into detail describing each nationalities' assent into whiteness. The way race was spoken of, and how it changed meanings over time both in a scientific terms as well as public perception.

Sinclair's The Jungle and Riis's How the Other Half Lives. Matthew Frye Jacobson's Whiteness of a Different Color is a good book on how "whiteness" was understood and redefined, namely in relation to the various waves of European immigration.

Well, back when there was serious prejudice against Irish and Italian immigrants, they were actually considered non-white. Or I suppose you could say that "white" as a monolithic category was not used or thought of: being Anglo was the important bit. "White" as the modern category we think of didn't really come into use until fairly recently (in historian's terms). See Jacobson's Whiteness of a Different Color for a good read on the subject.

That's not entirely true. The Italians didn't liked the Irish, the Poles were stereotyped as being associated with organised crime, anti-semitism and heavy drinking, as were the Russians, Eastern Europeans were somehow less "white" than anglo-saxons and so on. Being white alone cannot be a binding factor when the immigrants have vastly different cultural backgrounds and religions (in this case catholic, protestant and orthodox). For more on the subject, I'd recommend this book by Matthew Jacobson.