Read on Twitter
According to the NYT, some European-Americans are non-White. In their analysis of the most powerful people in the U.S. today, the paper classifies Europeans from the Iberian Peninsula like Spaniards and Portuguese as non-White. @nytimes https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/09/us/powerful-people-race-us.html
For example, it classifies both John Garamendi, whose last name is Basque (from Northern Spain), and Devin Nunes, a 3rd generation Portuguese American as “non-White.” @JohnGaramendi
The rule they seem to be following is to classify anyone whose last name sounds “Hispanic” as non-White regardless of this person’s actual ancestry. This would explain why Pablo Islas, the Madrid-born CEO of Indetex, was classified as non-White.
Interestingly, the NYT classifies individuals of Middle-Eastern ancestry such as Iranian-American Farnam Jahanian (president of Carnegie Mellon U.) and Marc Lasry, who was born in Morocco, as White.
The reading of Iberian cultural cues as non-White and the classification of Middle-Eastern people as “White” is a uniquely U.S. phenomenon. In contrast, in Canada, as @nedasoc Neda has shown, Middle-Eastern Canadians are officially considered non-White or “visible minorities.”
This is a good example of how the boundaries of whiteness, along with all other racial categories, change over time and place and are shaped by social and political factors. Good reading: http://www.davidroediger.org/books/working-toward-whiteness.html #whiteness #race #NYTimes #Spain #Portugal
More thoughts: Marc Lasry is a Jewish person from Morocco. Hence, he’s most likely a descendant of Sephardi Jews expelled from Spain in the 1400’s. However, since he was born in Morocco and not Spain (and his name doesn’t sound Iberian), he’s considered White by the NYT.
This reveals how race is socially constructed. The racial system of any one country may seem ridiculous to outsiders, but it doesn’t mean is not consequential. Sociologist W. I. Thomas captures this best: “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.”
If people believe that diff races exist and that some people are White and others Black, this could have many social consequences. In the past, racial classification also carried legal consequences (i.e. only White people could vote or own property in the U.S.).
Hence, even if race is not a fact of nature, but a social construct, it's important to collect race data because people may be treated differently based on how they are perceived by others, which could generate racial inequality.
En España y Francia es muy difícil p los investigadores capturar información sobre el origen étnico/racial de las personas debido a la ideología republicana. Eso no significa que no exista desigualdad racial en ingreso, educ, empleo, etc. Sólo significa que no podemos estudiarla.
