Negotiations of whiteness

[eva_rajzman]

The history of Syrians’ legal classification as white persons to be granted naturalization in the United States is an example of whiteness negotiations in order to gain privileges. Immigrant groups have claimed white as an identity to access naturalization, but who can be considered white has been up to debate. Is it a question of skin color? Of culture? Of religion? Of morals? White people had set the rules and the characteristics of who could be considered white, often changing their perceptions and decisions according to shifts in interests and norms.
In Gualtieri’s essay, immigration judges had been arguing that the categorization of immigrants as white is not a question of color but instead of the racial history . They assert that Syrians are white due to their belonging to the Caucasian race. Other judges had been arguing against this rationale, claiming that there exist different kinds of whites, that the good ones are the ones of European descent with “good” values, and that whiteness should be defined in terms of geography (Gualtieri 35). On the other hand, the INS claimed that whiteness could be measured in cultural terms (ibid 50). Religion also plays a role in determining who is white since there was a debate on whether Muslims Arabs could be considered white, which was understood as only without their religious affiliation. White people had been choosing who is white according to their perceptions, for example, that Muslim Arabs could not be expected to intermarry with Americans and assimilate like others. They also shape their criteria arbitrarily, for example, arguing that Caucasians mean white in the case of Syrians and then that white doesn’t mean Caucasian in the case of Japanese persons (ibid 38). It shows that whiteness is a malleable construct strategically defined by those in power to maintain dominance and privileges. Immigrant groups have tried fitting into it to access privileges like naturalization. Moreover, in the case of Syrians, the legally attributed whiteness did not keep them from experiencing racism (ibid 46).

Husain’s article also presents this idea of perception and construction of whiteness. White people are considered white until they start wearing the hijab or other cultural/religious identifiers. Husain demonstrates how Muslimness supersedes the white/black binary, forming another category associated with foreignness. Allison’s story illustrates this by depicting how wearing the hijab immediately changed the perceptions of her colleagues toward her; they started assuming that she was not from America, while she was considered a white American before displaying a sign of Muslimness (Husain 596). In some cases, white converts voluntarily decide to downplay their white identity to be accepted in their Muslim community by taking their cultural trappings (ibid 600).

Thus, it shows that whiteness is a narrative socially constructed and constantly reshaped by white people to serve particular political, socio-economic, and cultural interests. To access privileges, some groups might decide to fit the characteristics shaped by white perceptions of whiteness and differentiate themselves from others. Religion plays a role in the perceptions of whiteness.