Glossary

abusive practices	Patterns of action against the victims of discrimination by members of other ethnic groups and particularly by those charged with law enforcement.
accommodation stage of assimilation	According to Robert Park, the stage of assimilation in which immigrants and their descendants are forced to change and adapt to their new environment. During this unstable stage, there is some degree of stabilization of relations between immigrants and those in the host society, even if this accommodation forces migrants into lower social strata.
active bigots	Robert Merton's term for people who are prejudiced and quite willing to discriminate.
affirmative action	The civil rights laws of the 1960s, as interpreted by Executive Order 11246, required organizations doing business with, or receiving funds from, the government to increase minority representation in those organizations. In practice, these government mandates applied primarily to businesses receiving (directly or indirectly) government contracts and to education, especially higher education.
Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (1971)	Legislation that ended the sovereign status of Indian nations in Alaska by incorporating them into the United States. Approximately 44 million acres of Native American land, including the oil beneath and the timber on top, became U.S. assets.
all-weather liberals	Robert Merton's term for people who are not prejudiced and do not discriminate.
American Indian Movement (AIM)	An organization representing more radical movement to organize Native American nations to pursue political goals.
Anglo-Saxon	An ethnic complex consisting of northern European ethnic stock with light, "white" skin; Protestant religious beliefs; Protestant-inspired values based on individualism, hard work, savings, secular material success, and English cultural traditions (e.g., language, laws, and beliefs) and institutional structures (e.g., politics, economics, and education). Also known as WASP (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant).
anti-Semitism	Hostility or discrimination against Jews as an ethnic group.
Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act	Legislation enacted in 1996 to deter terrorism by making terrorism a federal crime punishable by death.
ascetic Protestantism	The form of Protestantism that the Puritans brought with them to the Americas; it emphasized salvation, hard work, abstinence from temptation, and religiosity. These values formed the core of American values.
assimilation	The process by which members of an ethnic group become part of the broader culture and society, losing their distinctive character.
assimilation theories	Theories that conceptualize ethnic relations as a process of interpenetration and fusion in which persons and groups acquire the memories, sentiments, and attitudes of other groups, and, by sharing their experience and history, are incorporated with them into a common cultural life. Robert Park and Milton Gordon are two major assimilation theorists.
asylee	A person in the United States or at a port of entry who is found to be unable or unwilling to return to his or her country of nationality because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution. Persecution or the fear thereof must be based on the alien's race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Asylees do not enter the United States as refugees; rather, they petition for legal status once they are in the United States or at a point of entry.
attitude-receptional assimilation	The lack of prejudicial attitudes and stereotyping on the part of both dominant and migrant ethnic groups.
behavioral-receptional assimilation	The absence of intentional discrimination by dominant ethnic groups against subordinate ethnic groups.
biological theories	Theories that emphasize the biological underpinnings of ethnicity. Sociobiological theories of ethnicity assume that social structures are merely "survival machines" that exist to maintain the fitness of genes. Thus, ethnicity represents a reproductive strategy for maximizing fitness beyond the narrower confines of kinship.
black codes	The name given to laws passed by southern governments established during the presidency of Andrew Johnson. These laws imposed severe restrictions on freed slaves, such as prohibiting their right to vote, forbidding them to sit on juries, and limiting their ability to testify against white men or to work in certain occupations. According to these codes, black "vagrants" could be consigned to forced labor.
"Black Sambo" stereotype	A stereotype portraying black people as childlike, helpless, shuffling, and fumbling.
blood quantum measure	A measure of the degree of "Indian blood" an individual possesses.
blue laws	Laws regulating moral behavior; they also require businesses to close on Sundays.
Bracero Program	A labor contract system started in 1942 to fill the labor shortages in agriculture created by World War II. The Bracero Program operated from 1942 to 1964.
braceros	Mexican agricultural workers who participated in the Bracero Program.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954)	The U.S. Supreme Court decision that declared that segregated schooling was inherently inferior and, hence, violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)	The federal agency created in 1824 as an instrument of U.S. government policies to subjugate and assimilate American Indian tribes and peoples. Originally housed in the War Department, the BIA was later moved to the Department of Interior.
caste system	A system of rigid social stratification based on hereditary status, endogamy, and social barriers sanctioned by custom, law, or religion.
caste theories	Theories used to explain black-white relations—why blacks were confined to lower socioeconomic positions, denied access to power, prevented from intermarriage, and segregated in their own living space. According to caste theories, African Americans constituted a distinctive caste that white Americans maintained for their own privileges. Oliver Cox offered a Marxist twist, emphasizing that the capitalist class of owners and managers of industry has been crucial to the caste-like subordination of African Americans.
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882	Legislation that suspended the immigration of Chinese laborers to the United States for ten years and prohibited persons of Chinese ancestry already residing in the United States from obtaining U.S. citizenship after the effective date of the act. An 1888 amendment applied exclusion to all Chinese immigrants except merchants, students, teachers, tourists, and government officials.
civic assimilation	The reduction of conflict between ethnic groups over basic values and access to the political arena.
Civil Liberties Act of 1988	Legislation authorizing $20,000 in compensation for living survivors of the relocation camps, to which Japanese Americans had been forced to move during World War II.
Civil Rights Act of 1875	Legislation that outlawed Jim Crow practices in the North and South. It declared that "all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement." In the Civil Rights Cases (1883), the U.S. Supreme Court declared the 1875 act unconstitutional and asserted that Congress did not have the power to regulate the conduct and transactions of individuals.
Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968	Legislation passed to eliminate legal and informal discrimination in employment, unions, housing, schools, and voting booths.
colonialism theories	Theories drawing inspiration from the analysis of the dynamics of past European colonialism to analyze the process in which one population controls the political and economic activities of another.
colonization complex	Robert Blauner identified four components of the dynamics of colonization: (1) forced entry into a territory and its population; (2) alteration or destruction of the indigenous culture and patterns of social organization; (3) domination of the indigenous population by representatives of the invading society; and (4) justification of such activities with highly prejudicial, racist beliefs and stereotypes.
Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians	Commission established in 1980 by Congress to (1) review the facts and circumstances surrounding the decision to issue Executive Order 9066 and (2) to assess its impact on the American citizens and resident aliens who were relocated and interned during World War II. At the commission hearings, internment survivors spoke of their internment experiences for the first time in over thirty years. In 1983, the commission made the following recommendations: (1) The U.S. government must offer an "official apology" to Japanese Americans. (2) The U.S. government should pardon Japanese Americans convicted of violating Executive Order 9066. (3) The U.S. government should establish a $1.5 billion fund, from which $20,000 would be paid to each of the approximately sixty thousand survivors of the relocation camps.
Community Service Organization	A community-based organization formed in Los Angeles to encourage Mexican American participation in local, state, and national elections.
competitive phase of assimilation	According to Robert Park, the stage of assimilation in which ethnic populations compete over resources (e.g., jobs, living space, and political representation).
Conservative Jews	Jews who adhere to the traditional customs of Judaism, but who also accept modern interpretation of their religious texts.
Council of Energy Resource Tribes (CERT)	An organization formed in 1975 with the goal of creating an OPEC-like cartel to coordinate the development of, and perhaps manipulate the market for, the resources on reservation land.
cultural assimilation	Assimilation that occurs when the values, beliefs, dogmas, ideologies, language, and other systems of symbols of the dominant culture are adopted.
Dawes Act of 1887	Legislation designed to break up the collective ownership of Indian lands by requiring Indians to identify themselves by means of a blood quantum measure. Under the act, "full-blood Indians" received the deeds to land parcels over which the U.S. government exercised control for twenty-five years, and "mixed blood Indians" received "patents in fee simple"—basically, land rental agreements— and were forced to accept U.S. citizenship. Also known as the General Allotment Act.
Department of Homeland Security	Federal agency in charge of preventing and responding to terrorist attacks and natural disasters.
discrimination	The process by which an individual, a group, or a subpopulation of individuals acts in ways that deny another individual, group, or subpopulation access to valued resources.
diversity rationale	U.S. Supreme Court justice Lewis Powell, Jr.'s opinion, expressed in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), that race can be used as a selective factor in admissions as long as racial quotas are not promoted.
egalitarianism	American core values stressing that people should be treated equally and given equal opportunities.
"English as the official language" movement	A powerful political movement in the 1980s advocating a constitutional amendment to make English the official language of the United States and the elimination of bilingual ballots and bilingual education. Two major "official English" organizations are U.S. English and English First.
entrepreneurial resources	The occupational skills, education, money, and organizational abilities that an ethnic population possesses.
environmental racism	The dumping of toxic wastes in neighborhoods inhabited by poor and relatively powerless ethnic groups. Waste-disposal sites are generally located in poor and minority neighborhoods.
equality of results	A situation in which differences among a group of individuals have been eliminated in order to create a more level playing field.
ethnic cleansing	Systematic attempts to eliminate an ethnic or religious group from a society. The attempts by the Serbs to "cleanse" the former Yugoslavia of Muslims and ethnic Albanians is an example.
ethnic discrimination	The process by which the members of a more powerful and dominant ethnic subpopulation deny the members of another, less powerful and subordinate ethnic population full access to valued resources—e.g., jobs, income, education, health, prestige, power, or anything else that the members of a society value.
ethnic group	A subpopulation of individuals who are labeled and categorized by the general population and, often, by the members of the group itself, as being of a particular type of ethnicity. They reveal a unique history as well as distinctive behavioral, organizational, and cultural characteristics; and, as a result, they are often treated differently by others.
ethnic population	See ethnic group.
ethnic prejudices	Beliefs and stereotypes about designated subpopulations who share certain identifying characteristics—biological, behavioral, organizational, or cultural—or at least are perceived to share these identifying characteristics.
ethnic stratification	The location of an ethnic subpopulation within the stratification system of a society. It reflects several interrelated processes: (1) the amount, level, and type of resources (e.g., jobs, education, health, money, power, and prestige) that an ethnic subpopulation receives; (2) the degree to which these resource shares locate most members of an ethnic subpopulation in various social hierarchies; (3) the extent to which these resource shares contribute to the distinctive behaviors, organizations, and cultural systems that provide justification to the dominant group for making members of the ethnic subpopulation targets of discrimination. See stratification theories.
ethnic subpopulation	See ethnic group.
ethnicity	A socially constructed conception of a subpopulation of individuals who are perceived to reveal shared historical experiences as well as unique organizational, behavioral, and cultural characteristics.
ethnogenesis	The process of creating a distinctive ethnicity as a means of adapting to discrimination, even as some degree of assimilation occurs. See pluralism theories.
ethny	A cluster of kinship circles created by endogamy (in which mate selection is confined to specific groups) and territoriality (physical proximity of its members and relative isolation from nonmembers).
exclusion	The pattern of discrimination that denies members of an ethnic group certain positions, independent of the effects of segregation.
Executive Order 9066	The order signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, that established restricted military areas and authorized the building of relocation camps to house Japanese Americans.
expulsion	The act of exiling members of an ethnic subpopulation from a country. Expulsion can take the form of direct coercion, or it can be indirect. It is a common form of discrimination.
external colonialism	The process by which one nation controls the political and economic activities of another, less developed and less powerful society.
Fifteenth Amendment (1870)	The amendment to the United States Constitution that extended suffrage to African Americans.
fish-ins	Protests by the American Indian Movement and its supporters against government interference in traditional Native American fishing areas.
Fourteenth Amendment (1868)	The amendment to the United States Constitution that provided equal protection for all people under the law. It was an extension of an earlier civil rights act designed to overrule the emerging black codes.
General Allotment Act	See Dawer Act of 1887.
genocide	The killing of members of an ethnic subpopulation or, potentially, the extermination of an entire ethnic group. It is the most intense form of discrimination.
Gentleman's Agreement of 1907	An accord reached between the United States and Japan in which Japan agreed not to issue passports to skilled or unskilled workers, except to those already in the United States or to the wives or children of those workers.
gerrymandering	Redrawing the boundaries of a congressional district either to concentrate opposition votes into a few districts to gain seats for the majority in surrounding districts (packing) or to diffuse minority votes across many districts (dilution).
Ghost Dance groups	Groups of Great Plains Indians who in the 1870s and in 1889-1890 practiced a religion centered on a ritual dance. Ghost Dancers expected the destruction of whites by an Indian messiah, the return of buffalo herds to the plains, and the restoration of Indian land.
G.I. Forum	A political organization that advocated for Mexican American war veterans, sought representation in Congress, encouraged voter registration, and focused attention on the segregation of schoolchildren.
glass or bamboo ceiling	Asian Americans' term for negative stereotypes that thwart their advancement in professional occupations.
hate crimes	Crimes of a bias or hostile nature committed against people due to their membership in a specific group, such as due to their race, color, ethnicity, gender identity, religion, or sexual orientation.
Hirabayashi v. United States (1943)	The companion case to Yasui v. United States. Gordon Hirabayashi, a young Quaker and conscientious objector, tested the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Executive Order.
Hopwood v. Texas (1996)	In this opinion, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a ruling that allowed the University of Texas School of Law to use "race" as a criterion when evaluating applicants. The court determined that the school did not offer sufficient evidence that the Fourteenth Amendment allowed the consideration of race in favor of Latinos and African Americans to the detriment of white applicants.
human ecology theories	Theories that stress the forces of competition, selection, and speciation of distinctive ethnic groupings; they emphasize that living patterns in urban areas are produced by competition for scarce resources (e.g., land, housing, and jobs), escalating the level of conflict between ethnic subpopulations and thus forcing ethnic groups into segregated housing niches and a narrow range of economic positions.
humanitarianism	The cultural value that people who have suffered through no fault of their own should be helped.
identifiability	The degree to which the members of a subpopulation are visible and readily identifiable. The more distinctive the members of a subpopulation are, the more likely they are to become targets of discrimination.
identification assimilation	Assimilation that occurs when individuals no longer see themselves as distinctive and, like members of dominant groups, stake their personal identities on participation and success in the mainstream institutions of a society.
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act	Legislation enacted in 1996 to deter illegal immigration, including increased criminal penalties, enforcement authority, and border presence.
Immigration Act of 1917	Legislation enacted to stop Japanese immigration, as well as immigration from other Asian countries. The act barred admission of any person from "islands not possessed by the United States adjacent to the Continent of Asia" or the continent of Asia (excluding Persia and parts of Afghanistan and Russia).
Immigration Act of 1924	Legislation that established the "national origins quota system." In conjunction with the Immigration Act of 1917, it governed American immigration policy until 1952. The act set limited quotas for southern and eastern European immigrants. The intent was to favor Anglo-Saxons and northern Europeans over all other ethnic groups.
Immigration Act of 1965	Legislation that repealed the "national origins quota system" and granted individual visas—with priority given to family reunification, attracting needed skills to the United States, and refugees. Since 1965, sources of immigration to the United States have shifted from Europe to Latin America and Asia.
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)	A U.S. government agency that has targeted Mexican Americans for discriminatory abuse. Mexican Americans are constantly subjected by the INS to questions about their citizenship.
Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA)	Legislation that prohibited employers from hiring illegal immigrants and established a monitoring system for employer compliance. The amnesty provision offered legal status to persons who (1) had resided continuously in the United States since January 1, 1982, and (2) who could demonstrate that they had worked ninety days or more in designated agricultural labor between May 1985 and May 1986.
inclusive fitness	See kin selection.
Indian Citizenship Act (1924)	Legislation that conferred U.S. citizenship on all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States. The act's purpose was to curtail the demand for indigenous identity among Native Americans.
Indian Claims Commission Act (1946)	Legislation designed to provide legal recourse to Native Americans who felt their land had been unjustly taken from them. The act established the Claims Commission, which was responsible for hearing cases brought forward by Native Americans. The commission, however, was not empowered to return land to any Native American; rather, it was required to assign to the land in question a monetary value "at the time it was taken."
Indian Removal Act (1830)	Legislation that President Andrew Jackson used to force the mass relocation of the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole, and other Indian nations during the 1830s.
Indian Reorganization Act of 1934	Legislation that attempted to secure new rights for Native Americans on reservations. The main provisions were to restore to Native Americans management of their assets (mostly land); to prevent further depletion of reservation resources; to build a sound economic foundation for the people of the reservations; and to return to the Native Americans local self-government on a tribal basis. The act also attempted to increase Indian participation in higher education by establishing loan and scholarship programs.
Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975	Legislation that authorizes federally recognized Indian tribes to contract or compact with the federal government for the purpose of administering and operating federal programs, services, and functions established to serve those tribes. The act also supports the shifting of control of higher education from the federal government to the tribes.
Indian-white miscegenation laws	Laws prohibiting marriage between Indians and whites.
individualism	American core values stressing that people get ahead through their own efforts and hard work.
institutionalized discrimination	Discrimination that exists when cultural values, beliefs, laws, and norms allow acts by individuals to deny others access to valued resources. These acts or practices are part of the way a social structure normally operates and are pervasive and persistent features of interaction between people.
internal colonialism	Views the history of ethnic relations in America as involving the establishment of internal colonies of people who are not white and who are dominated by descendants of the original Anglo-Saxon Protestant colonists. The motivation behind internal colonialism in the United States was twofold: (1) the need for cheap labor to increase profit and (2) the desire to take and control land, first from the Native Americans and later from the Mexicans.
internment camps	Camps to which Japanese Americans were forced to relocate by the U.S. government during World War II. Over 120,000 Japanese Americans were placed in internment camps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Japanese Americans were forced to sell their personal property and businesses at a fraction of their value.
Islam	Literally meaning, "submission to the will of God," this is a monotheistic religion, with the world's second largest number of followers, in which members adhere to the belief that Allah is God and Muhammad was his prophet.
Japanese American Evacuation Claims Act (1948)	Legislation that limited Japanese Americans' claims to a maximum of $2,500 and required all claims to be submitted within eighteen months of the act's passage. It took the federal government seventeen years to process all the claims submitted; in the end, only $38 million (of the $131 million appropriated by Congress) was paid out.
Jewish Lobby	An all-encompassing term used to describe the real or perceived power and influence of Jews in America over the government, media, and industry.
jihad	An Islamic term with several meanings, one of which is used to suggest a military effort furthering the cause of Islam, another of which is an introspective struggle of spiritual determination.
Jim Crow practices	Discriminatory practices that began roughly in the late 1890s, when southern states began systematically to codify (or strengthen) in law and state constitutional provisions the subordinate position of African Americans in society. African Americans were denied access to jobs, education, and housing. Jim Crow also aimed to separate the races in public spaces, such as public schools, parks, accommodations, and transportation.
Jones Act of 1917	Legislation that allowed Puerto Ricans free access to the U.S. mainland.
Keyes v. Denver School District No. 1 (1973)	The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that evidence of governmental action to maintain segregation (e.g., site selection for schools or manipulation of attendance zones) was sufficient to require desegregation using busing and other means.
kin selection	The concept that family structures are a strategy allowing males and females to maximize their fitness by keeping as much of their genetic material as possible in the gene pool; also known as inclusive fitness.
Korematsu v. United States (1944)	The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the internment of Japanese Americans.
La Raza Unida	Organization established in 1970 at a meeting of three hundred Mexican Americans at Campestre Hall in Crystal City, Texas, to bring greater economic, social, and political self-determination to Mexican Americans in Texas, where they held little or no power in many local and county jurisdictions although they were often in the majority. José Ángel Gutiérrez and Mario Compean, who had helped found MAYO (the Mexican American Youth Organization) in 1967, were two of the principal organizers.
Latinos	A term that includes Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and Central and South Americans. It does not denote a unified ethnic population.
League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)	Organization founded in 1929 by Mexican Americans who chose to refer to themselves as "Latins" in order to reinforce their loyalty to the United States.
long-term undocumented residents (LTUR)	Undocumented persons who have resided continuously in the United States since January 1, 1982.
Major Crimes Act (1885)	Legislation that allowed the United States to extend its jurisdiction into Native American territories. Since the sovereignty of Native American territories was defined by treaty, this act nullified the treaties' purpose, which had been to permit Native Americans to exercise their own jurisdiction within their own territories.
Manifest Destiny	The philosophy that legitimated the seizing of Indian lands by whites. European Americans believed that they had the legitimate right, through divine ordination and natural superiority, to seize and occupy all of North America.
marginal participation	Participation by subordinate ethnic subpopulations in a niche where their creative resources allow them to prosper. Marginal participation tends to be most successful when the minority population is small and does not enter areas dominated by the majority.
Mariel boatlifts/Marielitos	In 1980, Fidel Castro released about 125,000 people from Cuban prisons and mental hospitals, beginning the Mariel boatlifts. The Marielitos were different from the earlier wave of Cuban refugees. The majority of the Marielitos were single, black adult males with a criminal background. The United States processed them at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. When riots broke out, federal troops were called in. Much of this population ended up either deported or imprisoned for crimes or for what the Bureau of Prisons terms "temporary detention," but many were released into the community, boosting local unemployment rates from 5 to 13 percent.
marital assimilation	Assimilation that occurs when there are high rates of intermarriage between the migrant and dominant ethnic groups.
middleman minorities	Members of an ethnic subpopulation who have middle—or moderate—levels of resources and serve as distribution links between producers and buyers of goods.
middleman minority theories	Theories arguing that certain minorities bring to a host society entrepreneurial skills and perhaps some capital, that these attributes pose a threat to dominant groups, and so these minorities are excluded from many middle- class positions and are allowed to operate only businesses that serve their own ethnic group, other oppressed ethnics, and, occasionally, more elite ethnic groups. Middleman minorities become lodged in these middle niches, and movement to economic niches controlled by dominant groups is seen as threatening.
millenarian movements	Movements whose aim is the realization of a better world. Among Native Americans, millenarian movements such as the Ghost Dance groups believed that supernatural powers would intervene and return the people to some idealized era.
minority group	An ethnic subpopulation in a society subject to discrimination by members of more powerful ethnic subpopulations.
model minority	A stereotype often applied to Asian Americans. It portrays them as "successful" because of their ability to overcome discrimination through determination, hard work, strong family ties, and the valuing of education.
Muslim or Islamic extremist	A term applied to those people in the Muslim or Islamic community who further their religious cause or beliefs through means generally thought to be excessive or beyond the norm.
National Congress of American Indians (NCAI)	The first truly nationwide organization to represent Native Americans and to engage in active lobbying on their behalf in Washington, D.C.
National Origins Act of 1924	Legislation passed to stop the flow of Japanese immigrants. The act barred the immigration of Japanese wives even if their husbands were U.S. citizens, and it prohibited the immigration of Japanese aliens ineligible for U.S. citizenship. The act reinforced the legal decision in Ozawa v. United States (1922) that persons of Japanese ancestry could not become naturalized citizens.
Naturalization Act of 1790	Legislation that limited eligibility for U.S. citizenship to "free white persons."
negative beliefs and stereotypes	Codified negative portrayal about the perceived undesirable characteristics and qualities of a subordinate ethnic subpopulation.
Negro colleges	A system of private colleges that emerged in the 1800s as a means to circumvent the exclusion of African Americans from private and state colleges in the South.
Negro spirituals	Music depicting the troubles and dissatisfaction of African slaves.
9-11	September 11, 2001, the day on which airliners hijacked by Muslim extremists destroyed the World Trade Center in New York, crashed into the Pentagon, and crashed into a field in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Operation Wetback	A program launched by the U.S. Border Patrol in 1954, targeting Mexican immigrants who did not have papers identifying them as braceros. Congress gave the Border Patrol blanket authority to stop and search.
Orden Hijos de America	The Order of the Sons of America—one of the first statewide Mexican American civil rights organizations in Texas. The state charter was obtained on January 4, 1922. The organization's purpose was to use its "influence in all fields of social, economic, and political action in order to realize the greatest enjoyment possible of all the rights and privileges and prerogatives extended by the American Constitution." It was formed by middle-class Mexican Americans to signal to the white population that they were interested in participating in mainstream American society—even at the expense of accepting negative stereotypes for their behavior.
organized protests	Broad-based, concerted efforts to change patterns of discrimination.
Orthodox Jews	Jews who strictly follow the Torah's teachings about ritual, food preparation and consumption, and synagogue attendance.
Ozawa v. United States (1922)	The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that only members of the "Caucasian" race were eligible for U.S. citizenship. Thus, a Japanese person who was born in Japan, being clearly not a Caucasian, could not become a citizen of the United States.
pan-ethnicity	The accumulation of previously separately identified cultural groups into a larger whole category.
pan-Indianism	The unification of Native American nations for explicitly political purposes.
papist	A derogatory term for a Catholic.
passive acceptance	If the power of an ethnic group is small and the magnitude of the discrimination is great, members of the group may have no choice but to accept the discrimination. Sometimes "passive acceptance" is really active manipulation of a situation.
patriarchy	A social or governmental structure in which men hold the majority of power.
percentage of Indian blood	An important bureaucratic marker indicating who is entitled to government assistance and who qualifies for special programs such as affirmative action. See blood quantum measure.
peyotism	The religion of some Native North Americans in which the hallucinogenic peyote is used as sacramental food. This movement sought to develop an intertribal religion, mixing elements of Christianity and Mormonism that had been forced on them with elements of their own religions.
Philippines Independence Act (1934)	Legislation that provided for a ten-year transition period to independence, during which the Commonwealth of the Philippines would be established. An annual quota of fifty Filipino immigrants was allowed into the United States. American entry and residence in the islands were unrestricted. Trade provisions of the act allowed for five years of free entry of Philippine goods during the transition period and five years of gradually steepening tariff duties thereafter, reaching 100 percent in 1946. U.S. goods could enter the islands unrestricted and duty-free during the full ten years.
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)	The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregated—"separate but equal"—facilities for blacks and whites were not in violation of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.
pluralism theories	Theories stressing the maintenance of distinctive cultural, organizational, and behavioral characteristics. The maintenance of a distinct ethnic identity provides sources of support and guidance in a sometimes hostile world and is thus a way of coping with discrimination. When ethnic identity is nurtured, a pluralistic and permanent mosaic of ethnic subpopulations becomes evident. See ethnogenesis.
political machines	Political organizations that provided some upward mobility for ethnic minorities in the city. The urban political machine was at the center of a web of relationships typically involving political parties, public officeholders seeking the vote, and a variety of businesses and other private interests seeking favors. Political machines turned out the vote in return for patronage they could distribute to their ethnic constituents.
prejudice	A set of beliefs and stereotypes about a category of people.
Presidential Proclamation 4417	Proclamation issued by President Gerald Ford in 1976, rescinding Executive Order 9066 and apologizing to the Japanese American community for the injustices of the internment period.
Puritanism	The key sect of ascetic Protestantism that the British brought with them to the Americas.
race	A socially constructed label that uses physical features such as skin color and facial features as highly visible markers of organizational, behavioral, and cultural differences among individuals. Thus, when someone is labeled "black," more than skin color is involved; whole clusters of assumptions about historical experiences, behavior, organization, and culture are associated with this label.
racial profiling	Law enforcement agencies' use of ethnic markers to assess the likelihood of crime. The result is that members of particular ethnic populations are likely to be singled out for special surveillance and harassment by police officers.
racialize	To attribute a racial character to.
rebellion	A response to discrimination in which minorities "strike back" at the majority and vent their frustrations. At times, rebellions become extremely violent, mobilizing people for mass killings.
reciprocal altruism	The idea that people offer assistance to nonkin because they know that at some future time their acts of altruism will be reciprocated by those they help. Such reciprocity promotes fitness and thereby enables individuals to keep their genetic material in the gene pool. See kin selection.
redlining	Informal practices that make it difficult for residents of integrated neighborhoods or residents of less affluent neighborhoods with large numbers of African Americans to secure home mortgages.
Reform Jews	Jews who have modernized and secularized their religious activities.
refugee	A person who is outside his or her country of nationality and is unable or unwilling to return to that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution.
Refugee Act of 1980	Legislation in which Congress attempted to regulate the flow and number of refugees who qualified for admission to the United States.
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978)	Alan Bakke, a white male, challenged the validity of a special admissions program at the University of California at Davis School of Medicine after having twice been denied admission. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that quotas are illegal and that race cannot be used as the sole criterion for admissions.
Relocation Act (1956)	Legislation that created job-training centers in urban areas for Native Americans. The purpose of the act was to force Native Americans off the reservations by offering job-training opportunities only in urban areas. Native Americans participating in the programs were required to sign formal agreements that they would not return to their reservations. Many Native Americans ended up in inner-city slums.
reluctant liberals	Robert Merton's term for people who are unprejudiced but who will discriminate when it is in their interest to do so.
resource shares	The amount, level, and type of resources—such as jobs, education, health, money, power, and prestige—an ethnic subpopulation typically receives.
resource shares	The consistent and persistent amount of valued resources available to an ethnic subpopulation.
returns to education	The economic gains an individual may make by investment in his or her education.
reverse discrimination	A term used to emphasize that programs and initiatives designed to redress the effects of past discrimination against members of a subordinate subpopulation often deny some members of the dominant subpopulation equal access to valued resources.
segregation	The process of spatially isolating members of an ethnic subpopulation in areas where they cannot have the same access to valued resources as do people who are not isolated.
segregation index	The percentage of a population that would need to move into a white neighborhood to achieve complete desegregation.
selective inclusion	The process of allowing members of ethnic subpopulations into certain positions while at the same time excluding them from other positions.
self-segregation	A form of adaptation to discrimination in which members of a subpopulation withdraw and create a self-sustaining "society" within the broader society.
sense of threat	If a subordinate ethnic group is perceived as threatening the political power, the economic well-being, the cultural symbols (language, customs, values, and beliefs), the social structures (community organization, social clubs, rituals, and holidays), and/or the basic institutions (economy, politics, family, church, school, and medicine) of a dominant ethnic group, this perception will translate into hostility, fueling the fires of discrimination.
sojourner orientation	An immigrant's intention to make his stay in a country temporary.
special categories of agricultural workers (SCAW)	Undocumented immigrants who performed labor in perishable agricultural commodities for ninety days or more between May 1985 and May 1996 and were admitted for temporary and then permanent residence under a provision of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.
split-class theories	Theories that argue that the upper classes economically exploit the lower classes. Added to this class dynamics in capitalist society is the recognition that there are splits within each class along ethnic lines. Members of some ethnic subpopulations are subordinate within a class and are often relegated to the less desirable, lower-paying, and less secure jobs within this class.
split-labor market theories	Theories that examine how the partitioning of the labor market leads to ethnic conflict. To be split, a labor market must contain at least two groups of workers whose price of labor differs for the same work, or would differ if they did the same work. When the two competing groups are divided along ethnic lines, split-labor market theory holds that ethnic antagonism is likely to occur. Competition involves more than two antagonistic ethnic groups; it also involves third parties who wield power and wish to maximize profit by stimulating competition between ethnic groups in the labor markets.
states' rights	A doctrine based on the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Proponents of slavery and racial segregation invoked the doctrine of states' rights against federal civil rights and desegregation laws.
stratification theories	Theories that emphasize how the process of discrimination produces the overrepresentation of members of ethnic subpopulations in various social classes. These theories place considerable emphasis on the mobilization of power in order to control where ethnic groups are placed in the class system.
structural assimilation	Assimilation that occurs when migrant ethnic groups become members of the primary groups within dominant ethnic subpopulations—their families, close friends, cliques within clubs, and groups within organizations.
subpopulations	Groups that can be distinguished by their history as well as their distinctive behavior, organization, culture, and, perhaps, superficial biological features.
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971)	The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that busing was an appropriate tool for achieving school integration.
Texas Rangers	A law enforcement organization created in 1835 to protect the Texas Republic from Mexicans. Texas Rangers were given wide latitude in their treatment of Mexicans and Mexican Americans; as a consequence, beatings, lynchings, firing squads, and dismemberments were common.
Thirteenth Amendment (1866)	The amendment to the United States Constitution that abolished slavery.
timid bigots	Robert Merton's term for people who are prejudiced but afraid to show it.
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)	Treaty that concluded the war between the United States and Mexico and guaranteed to all Mexicans living in the "new" American territory a number of basic rights: full American citizenship, retention of Spanish as a recognized and legitimate language, political liberty, and ownership of property.
Underground Railroad	A secret network of abolitionists and humanitarians who helped African Americans escape from slavery and make their way to the North.
U.S. Border Patrol	A federal agency created in 1924 to protect the United States from Mexican infiltration, it was given authority by Congress to apprehend persons suspected of illegal entry into the United States and to search individuals and property within 25 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.
USA Patriot Act of 2001	Controversial legislation that gave the Department of Justice the tools it needed to investigate both citizens and immigrants from the Middle East (and others suspected of terrorist sympathies).
Voting Rights Act of 1965	Legislation that authorized the U.S. attorney general to send federal examiners to register black voters under certain circumstances. It suspended all literacy tests in states in which less than 50 percent of the voting-age population had been registered or had voted in the 1964 election. It also authorized the U.S. attorney general to challenge the use of poll taxes.
WASP	White Anglo-Saxon Protestant—an ethnic complex consisting of northern European ethnic stock with light, "white" skin; Protestant religious beliefs; Protestant- inspired values based on individualism, hard work, savings, secular material success, and English cultural traditions (e.g., language, laws, and beliefs) and institutional structures (e.g., politics, economics, and education). Also known as Anglo-Saxon.
Weber v. Kaiser Aluminum (1979)	The United Steelworkers of America and the Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corporation implemented an affirmative action-based training program to increase the number of the company's black skilled craft workers. The U.S. Supreme Court held that the training program was legitimate because the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not intend to prohibit the private sector from taking effective steps to use "race" as a criterion for hiring.
Yasui v. United States (1943)	The companion case to Hirabayashi v. United States. Minoru Yasui, a young attorney and army officer, tested the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Executive Order.
"yellow peril"	A derogatory phrase implying that Asians were cunning and devious and scheming to invade the United States in hordes.
Young Lords	A militant organization formed in the 1960s and committed to the struggle for human rights and for the liberation of Puerto Rico. The Young Lords set up community programs (e.g., free breakfasts for children, community testing for tuberculosis and lead poisoning, free clothing drives, cultural events, and Puerto Rican history classes), published and distributed a newspaper called PALANTE, and produced a weekly radio show on WBAI, also called PALANTE. They addressed issues concerning prisoners, women, the working poor, Vietnam War veterans, and high school students.