Whiteness Of A Difference By Matthew Frye Jacobson Summary

Matthew Frye Jacobson’s introduction of his book Whiteness of a Difference Color delves into the topic of race from a very different perspective than what one would might expect. Instead of discussing the topic about people of color, he writes about the history of racial classification of whites in America along with how the conception and perception of race is always changing. The first example he provides us is with a Gentle women and the debate over Jews’ racial identity, although they are white, what white racial sub group do they belong in-- the Caucasian or Semite? This conversation reveals the exact logical fallacies in our perception of race. He then touches upon other groups that immigrated from their homeland to America. These individuals came to america as “free white persons” but due to naturalization laws, they technically were not put into that category. With that noted, over time these immigrants were finally able to be included in the definition of what we know as white today. Jacobson’s argues that although white people come from different backgrounds and have different ethnicities, we are conditioned to recognize
I am not completely familiar with my family history and immigration story but I do know the story of my last name. I know that when Greeks immigrated to America, their surnames were changed due to a physical marking or characteristic. My last name, Mountzouris, basically means “smudge” or “patch of dirt” because one of my ancestors came to America with a smudge of dirt on their face. This then made me think of how my ancestors were treated along with other in the Greek community based on the idea of how they were renamed. Since they had a different language and cultural background, people categorized them to be in the “Greek race” due to the “nonlinear cultural movement of immigration” (Jacobson