This book documents the journey of various ethic and national groups and their integration (or lack thereof) into the American way of life. The book is mainly divided into 4 parts: Americans from Europe, from Asia, from Africa, and from South America. Since the arrival of various groups occurred at different times, there is no uniform timeline for all of these arrivals. Naturally, since the major events in American history affected all of these groups, we can see the interactions between these groups. The various groups discussed in this book are Irish, German, Jew, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, African, Caribbean, Puerto Rican, and Mexican.
For each group, this book discusses the origins, the reasons for arrival in US, initial stages, occupations, economic and social norms, barriers and advantages faced in the new nation, major achievements, and finally the present situation. Not all groups started uniformly, for example, the German immigrants were, from the very beginning, very high skilled and educated lot, whereas Chinese started out as agricultural labor. Therefore, the book argues, that progress of each of these groups should not be measured in absolute, but on relative terms. Clearly, some groups have progressed more than others, even in relative terms. While Thomas Sowell does not give X as the main reason for progress of a group Y, he documents the various occupations of each of these groups, the relative economic prosperity of each of these occupations, and the reasons for the ascent of a specific group in that occupation. This is as close as you can get for causal attribution. In general, it is unclear whether such causal relation can ever be drawn at a population level.
Reading this book makes you realize that discrimination against immigrants (even in the self proclaimed "Land of Immigrants") is not a new thing. Of course, not all groups were discriminated equally. Some groups were discriminated for not being melanin deficient, whereas other groups were discriminated for having different shaped eyes. The responses to such discrimination was not uniform either. Further, the arrival of each group occurred in waves and discrimination within the group members belongings to different waves is also commonplace. The tale of each group include aspects of culture, historical memory, geography, and politics of the group members. This book is slightly dated (published in 1981), but still, this book is very illuminating from an novice to American mosaic like me. Given an immigrant myself, there are definitely lessons to be learnt. Given that it will be soon 40 years since the publishing of this book, I would be happy to see an updated edition of this book documenting the relative progress/regress in the past 40 years.
Finally, Thomas Sowell has a very distinct style of writing. Although the material presented in this book is super dry, the language and presentation have made this book very interesting to read. I would highly recommend reading this book.
Comments