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Emory S. Bogardus. "Race Attitudes." Chapter 2 in  Immigration and Race Attitudes. Boston: D.C. Heath (1928):13-29 .

 Immigration and Race Attitudes

Chapter 2: Race Attitudes

Emory S. Bogardus

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An attitude is an established tendency to act with reference to some phase of one's social or physical environment.[1] The objects of the environment toward or against which attitudes are expressed become positive or negative values. The connecting link between an attitude and a value is action, and the whole unit---attitude, action, value---is behavior, or a personal behavior pattern.[2]

Action is not only evidence of an attitude, but apparently is the medium in and through which attitudes develop. In actions, and hence in personal experiences, an individual learns to respond dependably with reference to stimuli furnished by environmental " objects " or " values." The accompanying diagram illustrates the important rôle of

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(14) action, and hence of personal experiences in the development of attitudes.

A racial attitude is an established (or acquired) tendency to act in a social situation involving persons of a race different from one's own. The members of each race possess attitudes, friendly and antipathetic, toward the members of all other races of whom they have ever heard. The field of study is large, but the organized knowledge of it is slight.

Racial antipathies involve unlovely behavior traits. They point to each race at its worst, or to some of the members of each in their unpleasant social contacts. Therefore an account of the behavior traits of any race that incite antipathy toward that race is a most one-sided picture. While these descriptions are not wholly pleasant reading, broad-minded members of the respective races will welcome the opportunity to study their races in the rôle of inciters of prejudice. No matter how unjust, materials of this character are very real, especially to the persons in whom prejudices have been aroused. Data of this kind imply some of the things that need to be done in order to remove the given races from the antipathy columns.

In the pages which follow, accounts will be given of the data contributed by many different types of Americans from every large section of the United States concerning their antipathies .[3] Seven hundred persons have given descriptions of their outstanding experiences where race attitudes undergo changes or originate. "Outstanding" experiences usually include strong emotional reactions arising from unfavorable contacts, and hence they throw light on race antipathies.

In the main the race reactions revealed by the case studies correlate closely with the reactions secured from 1725 Americans through the " social-distance recording " method,

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( 15) which will be reported upon after the case-study summary has been presented. Taken together, the two sets of source materials serve as checks upon each other.

The races concerning which the seven hundred Americans most frequently reported unfavorable experiences, and toward which they accordingly expressed antipathetic attitudes, were (arranged alphabetically) : Armenians, Chinese, English, French, Germans, Greeks, Hindus, Japanese, Jews, Mexicans, mulattoes, Negroes, and Turks. With three exceptions, these are Asiatic and African races - nonEuropeans. The degree to which this list parallels the data given in Table II is a high correlation of the antipathetic reactions disclosed in the two lists.

Strange to say, Americans themselves drew antipathetic expressions. Americans are viewed with marked antipathy by other Americans. The personal experience data give clues. Exploitation of Americans by other Americans is the main charge. The wide range of racial types and behavior standards in this country is another factor. Americans who are "mad for money," " selfish to the core," " get-rich-quick promoters," " bootleggers," " law violators," " jazz crazy," are often mistaken for the American type.

Pronounced antipathies are expressed against Armenians on such grounds as lying and unreliability, insolence, " haggling among themselves," and uncleanliness. Where the American's antipathetic experiences involve both the Armenian and the Japanese, the former are usually given the less favorable record on the score of greater unreliability and trickiness. Little consideration is given by Americans to the conditions under which Armenians have been forced to live in Turkey, or to the fact that lying and trickiness are necessary survival factors where extortion and massacre have continually threatened. They fail also to take into consideration the fact that, when repressed people are

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( 16) suddenly released under conditions of freedom, they are untrained in making constructive use of that freedom; that the ordinary tendency for any one so situated is to go to the opposite extreme and to abuse privileges; and that the older conditioned reflexes still operate in an immigrant's dealings with the people of the new environment. Americans react quickly against deceitfulness in the immigrant, which, however, stimulates the latter to renewed deceitfulness.

Antipathy for the Chinese is aroused not only by meeting one or a few representatives of the lower social levels, but also by anti-Chinese propaganda. Both influences are likely to have been present in the American's earlier years when critical ability was undeveloped, suspicion was rife, and fear rampant. Before even meeting better-class Chinese or hearing one of them speak, Americans have often formulated repulsive pictures. These have become " set " in definite feeling and emotional patterns. One's experiences may include a low-class but honest laundryman whose yellow skin is " unpleasant," whose slant eyes bespeak " slyness," and whose conversation with another Chinese is " frightful jabbering." Worse still, the American may see a Chinese as a " villain " in a popular movie - and the damage is done. Later he may meet educated and gentlemanly Chinese, but they seem to belong to a different race from the original image of the Chinese. They are treated as exceptions.

The personal experience data of some Americans reveal strong antipathies for the English. The American who gives expression to this prejudice often confuses certain English travelers possessing " dudish and snobbish ways " with normal Englishmen. The American is sometimes the victim of anti-English propaganda. He has heard of Englishmen long before he has talked with one, and the hearsay is often unfavorable. The British Redcoat, the haughty English lord, the cocky dude, and the Englishman with su-

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( 17) -perior attitudes toward callow, youthful Americans are factors explanatory of the American's antipathy. The " uppishness " of certain English travelers, their " perfectly gha-astly " accent, the wearing of a monocle, the kid gloves, are factors that do the harm. Thus, a few misrepresentative Englishmen are chiefly accountable for unfavorable attitudes.

Americans of immigrant or foreign parentage, particularly Chinese-Americans, sometimes report unfavorable experiences with British officials. " Haughty " or " imperialistic " acts of these officials are reported. Many Americans who have had favorable experiences with Chinese or Hindus proclaim their dislike for British " domineering."

Anti-French feelings have arisen since the close of the World War. Reactions against French " militarism " have been numerous. Many German-Americans have charged the French with postwar tactics similar to German methods that have been so completely condemned. Other Americans protest against " gay Paree," and still others accuse the French of being ungrateful to America. The non-AngloSaxon moral standards of the French are additional stumblingblocks.

Antipathy against Germans is in the main a reaction against the real and reported atrocities of German soldiers and war lords. Nowhere else in our land in recent years is there a better example of the power of antirace propaganda. The force of prewar reports of autocratic and militaristic " Prussianism " is still felt in the lives of older Americans. The reports of the dominance of the husband over the wife, of the numbers of children in the German family, of the " staggering efficiency " of Germans, of the " kaiser " with the upturned corners of his moustache (breathing haughtiness) - all these still live. The thought of a rapidly growing population, composed of highly efficient persons integrated into a powerful national

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( 18) " machine " with an alleged Nietzschean philosophy, arouses fear among many Americans.

One Hindu with " a cloth wrapped about his dusky head," coming from a land where child marriages occur, where widows give themselves to be burned, where snakes are worshiped, where filth abounds and misery is unspeakable, where a despised caste system enslaves and where beggars are autocrats, typifies all those factors which create American antipathy for the Hindu. Of an appearance so different from Americans that even his ordinary smile is interpreted as being of evil design, the low-caste Hindu appears to be highly undesirable, and comes to stand for all Hindus in the American's mind. The race antipathies of Americans for Hindus are due in considerable part to sheer differences in culture. Wide disparity in racial cultures leads to misunderstandings, and the latter to fundamental aversions.

The strong propaganda carried on by the Pacific Coast against the Japanese is a significant element in American prejudice against that race. Most Americans have met only a few Japanese personally and casually. The immediate result has been a curious interest in them. On the Pacific Coast, however, there has been an " invasion " in considerable numbers of a people noticeably different in appearance and culture. Their industry and initiative have made them seem aggressive, and they have been viewed as dangerous competitors. They have " invaded " the status of American labor, the American farmer, the middle-class urban neighborhoods. But no one will allow his status to be invaded without " fighting back," which fighting takes many forms, such as making newcomers feel uncomfortable, issuing threats, initiating propaganda, and securing protective legislation. On the coast the Japanese have been pictured as coming into economic power, political control, and social prominence in the second generation. These suggested eventualities arouse fear, then antipathy. Com-

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( 19) -ing into sway with full force, anti-Japanese opinion went to the extreme of urging total exclusion. Accounts adverse to the Japanese have been spread throughout America, and feelings of suspicion have become common. The twenty-one demands of Japan upon China, the Manchurian and Korean invasions, the easy victory by war over Russia, a markedly different and "pagan" religion, a reputation for imitating western ways, emperor worship, militarism -all these are in the background of the picture whose foreground is race antipathy. Far-reaching cultural unlikenesses and an imagined magnifying of Japan's power, due in part to geographic and social distance - these work against the rise of friendly attitudes toward Japanese.

The antipathy that is repeatedly expressed against the Jew is usually based on a number of unfavorable contacts with aggressive and " bumptious " individuals. Sometimes a Jewish collector of old rags and iron, a picture of a Ghetto, or stories of degradation are explanatory of racial antipathy for the Jew. Individual experiences are easily magnified by virtue of a tremendous amount of anti-Jewish opinion that is present throughout the United States. Children are reared in this dynamic, anti-Jewish atmosphere. It is not unusual in any community for the Jew to be the butt of racial jokes, and as a rule there are enough lower-class Jews in the land to give point to this scorn and thus to keep it thriving. Despite the fact that nearly every community of any size contains Jewish people as fine as members of any other race, there are enough of the low-class Jews present in business and other occupations to keep the repulsive stereotypes before the public mind. The latter are described as " money grabbing," as " fussing about paying bills," as " crude and loud-mouthed." When the Jew becomes wealthy he does not always lose all his earlier weaknesses_ The " loud-talking, obtrusive, wealthy Jew " is often notorious. The high-pitched voices of some

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(20) Jews, their aggressiveness in conversation, their thoughtlessness of the rights of others and of many social proprieties, their disregard for the " impression they are making " are elements in the American's anti-Semitic prejudice. The Jew, like members of other races, is continually getting " out of his place and into the American's place." Moreover, he is overtalkative about his success, which for many Jews is a " money success."[4]

Antipathy of German Jews in the. United States for Russian Jews is often disclosed here, because the latter are not distinguished by Americans from the higher class German Jews. Likewise, antipathy of Russian Jews for German Jews because of the latter's " haughtiness and air of superiority " is not infrequently reported.

The Mexican immigrant is thought of as a peon (" something of low grade "), an illiterate from centuries of oppression, " a shiftless, good-fer-nothin'," or else a sly, manstabbing wild man from the lowest Indian ranks. Reports concerning Mexicans during border troubles that have occurred from time to time, reports concerning the depredations of the Yaqui Indians, a reputation for stealing (" taking everything they can lay their hands on ") - such items give the Mexican immigrant an unsavory reputation in the minds of many Americans.

But the aversions for Mexican immigrants do not necessarily become prejudices, because the Mexican, despite his high birth rate and high immigration rate, is not a competitor. He does not tend to displace Americans from anything that they value highly. His docility saves him from having active prejudice aroused against him. But a " greasy, swarthy appearance " stimulates disgust, and his careless (or carefree) ways maintain social distance between him and Americans. Unfortunately, most Americans

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( 21) judge all Mexicans by the peon immigrant types that come to the United States and by the lawless raids reported in the newspapers of nonrepresentative Mexican bandits in Mexico. American newspaper headlines too often create a " banditry " frame to everything Mexican.

The mulatto, as in the case of any one who is in a " betwixt and between " condition, is without full status in either the white or colored racial groups, of which he is a real biological part. There is a marked tendency for the better-class members of both his parental racial groups to feel that he is " not entirely of them " and " to blame him on the other race." Where race friction is as subtly widespread as in the United States, the mulatto is in an especially difficult position. The antipathy that each of the two races (white and colored) feels toward the other is likely to be felt toward the mulatto, and thus the latter is often under an antipathy fire from both directions.

Where there are births of mixed parentage occurring under illegal conditions, the stigma that these conditions carry is unjustly attached to the children, and thus the mulatto is again the victim of aversions, which he had no part in creating. American public opinion does not yet, distinguish between the sinner and the sinned against, with the result that mulattoes suffer unduly.

Antipathy against the Negro is due to differences in biological appearances and forms, to variations in cultural levels, and to widespread propaganda. Antipathy against the Negro often begins with the prejudices caught by children from their parents. Many children early become steeped in anti-Negro antipathies. Fear images springing from a few emotionally shocking or "horrifying" experiences are effective. Aversions based on reactions against odor, color, kinky hair, and so on, are common. In achieving, the Negro invades the white man's conventions. He is thereby subject to all the prejudices that

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( 22) competition in status arouses everywhere. To have him compete successfully against them is especially repugnant to many white people. To have one's friends invade one's status and receive recognition that would otherwise come to oneself is hard to bear, but to have persons of another race, who have been " despised," rise to a position along side one is " simply unthinkable."

To a high degree the Turk is the victim of adverse reports. He ranks among the highest in the racial-antipathy column of Americans and among the lowest as far as any direct personal experiences of Americans are concerned. Very few Americans have met a Turk, few would recognize one (provided he was not wearing the fez) ; but all have heard of him, often from their childhood. His persecutions and massacres of Armenians have been repeatedly told throughout the land; his Mohammedanism and his polygamy are the other main counts against him. The " religion of the sword," " the harem," and the " butchering of Armenian women and children " are pictures so repulsive that Americans challenge the judgments of those returned travelers from Turkey who have known the Turk at his best and who prefer him to the Armenian. Returned Christian missionaries, preachers, and newspapers report Turkish atrocities and keep antipathies for the Turk active in a country that knows few Turks intimately. Returned travelers distinguish between the government and unscrupulous Turks, on one hand, and a " worthy rank and file " on the other hand. The great mass of Turkish peasantry impresses those travelers as being a rather kindly, peaceable, but " ignorant and superstitious people," with their ignorance and religious beliefs being played upon at times by their leaders so as to cause them to commit acts of violence and bloodshed. Severest condemnation is pronounced upon the government and its functionaries rather than upon the great mass of the people. The massacres are sometimes

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( 23) seen as " the carrying over of an old conflict situation and as growing out of a failure in assimilation."

There is a second large grouping of races toward which personal reactions were expressed, but in general ways. This group includes such races as Bulgarians, Czecho-Slovakians, Filipinos, Koreans, Magyars, Russians, Serbo-Croatians, and Syrians. Oftentimes these races suffer in the United States from being related to races against which a primary antipathy is felt. Filipinos and Koreans were not known personally by many of the seven hundred Americans, but were classed, nevertheless, " in the mind's eye " with Chinese, Japanese, and Asiatics in general. Likewise, Syrians are associated with Jews, and Hindus with mulattoes. Sometimes the illiterate members of one of these races have been mistaken for the whole race. Bulgarians, Magyars, and Serbo-Croatians are not known by many Americans, but they are pictured as being " crude and uncouth," remote from the American type. No strikingly unfortunate experiences are recorded-just hazy, uneasy, partly fearful reactions, which will be discussed in later chapters.

By the social-distance recording method a total of 1725 Americans (including the 700 persons from whom personal experiences were secured) have given their racial reactions in forms which may be tabulated. This evidence comes from persons who are representative in many ways of the better class and thinking Americans, from Americans living in different parts of the United States-the East, South, Middle West, and West, from both sexes, from different occupations, from persons of different ages, different religions, different educational levels, and different racial descent. All, however, are native born, and represent in the main the younger middle class; they also are persons possessing a high-school or college education, and hence speak for the more thoughtful and forward-looking members

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( 24) of American life rather than for narrow-minded, older, or conservative Americans. The aim has not been to make a survey of as large numbers as possible but to penetrate as far beneath the surface as possible in a limited number of cases.

As is true of Americans in general, the 1725 Americans are descended from many different races, but chiefly from northern Europeans. Table I gives racial-origin data.

These Americans have given their reactions to forty different racial and language groups, including " Americans " themselves. Seven different ways of expressing racial reactions were provided: namely, with reference (1) to marriage with a member of another race, (2) to having members of another race as chums in one's social club, (3) as neighbors, (4) as members of the same occupation, (5) as fellow citizens, (6) to allowing such persons to enter one's country as visitors only, and (7) to excluding them altogether.

Table II presents the reactions of the 1725 Americans arranged in a descending order of favorable marriage reac-

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( 25)

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(26) -tions (column one). According to these marriage reactions, the English are given first place (as in the racial-origin table, Table I). Of the 1725 Americans, 93.7 per cent record a willingness to marry members of the English race (not the best or the worst members, but members whom they consider representative or average). Only 1.1 per cent would willingly marry representative Chinese, mulattoes, Koreans, or Hindus, and hence the percentages for these are the lowest.

Practically all the northern European races rate high in the sympathetic attitudes of Americans; for the latter, being largely of northern European ancestry, react in friendly ways toward their own racial connections. In the large, blood relationships after all operate strongly in matters of racial understanding and good will.

At the bottom of the columns, or experiencing the antipathetic attitudes of Americans, are the Asiatic and African races, with southern and eastern European races next in order. Attitudes of racial superiority, particularly of Nordic superiority, often explain American antipathies. The important question arises: Why the extensive social distance between Americans on one hand and Asiatics and Africans on the other?

As indicated in Table III, a case group of 202 native-born Negroes and mulattoes of high-school and college education, chiefly from the southern states, naturally put Negroes and mulattoes at the top of their racial preferences. French and Spanish come next. Asiatic races are put on the lower preference levels, which is accounted for in part by the influence of the American cultural environment. The reactions in this particular are similar to the reactions of white Americans.

A trend indicated in Table IV, showing the recorded reactions of a case group of 178 native-born American Jews, is the natural first, preference for people of their own race. The

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( 27) second line of preference is for people of northern European descent. Adverse reactions to Asiatics are to be noted, although the antipathetic attitudes toward Turks is much less pronounced than among non-Jewish Americans.

One influence of the culture contacts of the Jew, as distinguished from the influence of racial factors in the biological sense, is marked. It is possible to discern the influence of American culture patterns upon the Jews. By the application of a refined statistical procedure to the data now available, it might be possible to measure the degree of Americanization not only of the Jews but of many immigrant races.

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Thus the charges run, and thus race reactions develop and thrive. The summary of the whole matter may be concentrated in the one word, status. Where a person feels that his status or the status of anything that he values is furthered by race connections, there racial good will is likely to be engendered. But where a person's status or the status of anything that he values is endangered by the members of some race, then race prejudice flares up and burns long after the " invasion " has ceased.

PROJECTS

1. Trace the rise and development of the term " race," and make comparative studies of the different uses of the concept.

2. Make an analysis of the term " attitude." and give a critical evaluation of its place in Sociological thought.

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3. Choose some social situation that you know in which race attitudes are active, and describe all the pertinent factors that are operating.

4. Select any racial attitude that you have held for some time and trace its natural history in detail from the beginning.

5. Put yourself in the place of the member of any race in this country toward which there is extensive race prejudice, and describe fully your reactions to this antipathy.

6. Distinguish with illustrations between aversion, repulsion, disgust, antipathy, prejudice, and hatred.

7. If you have ever changed your attitudes toward any race materially, give an account of all the accompanying and explanatory factors.

8. Compare and contrast in every possible way the antipathies noted in this chapter toward any five of the races discussed.

RACE ATTITUDES

BOAS, FRANZ, The Mind of Primitive Man, Chap. I. Macmillan, 1911.

CARROLL, JOSEPH C., " The Race Problem," Jour. of Applied Sociology, Vol. XI, pp. 266-71.

DAVIS, JEROME, The Russian Immigrant, Chaps. VI, VII. Macmillan, 1922.

DUBOIS, W. E. B., Darkwater, Chap. I. Harcourt, Brace, and Howe, 1920.

FINOT, JEAN, Race Prejudice. Dutton, 1906.

GAVIT, J. P., Americans by Choice, Chaps. I, II. Harper, 1922.

PANUNZIO, C. M., The Soul of an Immigrant, Chap. XVIII. Macmillan, 1921.

PARK, R. E., AND MILLER, H. A., Old World Traits Transplanted, Chaps. III, IV. Macmillan, 1921.

STERRY, NORA, "Social Attitudes of Chinese Immigrants," Jour. of Applied Sociology, Vol. VII, pp. 325-33.

THOMAS, W. I., AND ZNANIECKI, F., The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, Vol. I, pp. 20-86. University of Chicago Press, 1918.

THOMAS, W. I., " The Psychology of Race Prejudice," American Journal of Sociology, Vol. IX, pp. 593-611.

YOUNG, ERLE FISKE, " What is Race Prejudice? "Jour. of Applied Sociology. Vol. X, pp. 134-140.

Notes

1. Cf. Thomas and Znaniecki, The Polish Peasant in Europe and America. Vol. 1, pp. 1-86. University of Chicago Press. 1918.
2. Cf Bogardus, Emory S " Personality and Occupational Attitudes, Sociology and Social Research, Vol. XII, p. 73.
3. Secured by personal interviews (1924-1927) and from letters, using the case-study method.
4. The fact that many Americans are money loving does not prevent them from bringing this Charge against the Jews.

 

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