E Pluribus Duo?: Thoughts on "Whiteness" and Chicago's "New" Immigration as a Transient Third Tier

ARNOLD R. HIRSCH

“Well, in America, who does shine the shoes?”
—Anonymous immigrant, 1928.

GUNNAR MYRDAL, in his 1944 classic, An American Dilemma, shrewdly noted the evolutionary nature of relations between African Americans and white workers in the urban North. Citing their economic vulnerability, Myrdal commented that the "poor classes of whites" had, by World War II, "come to mistrust and despise the Negroes." "European immigrants" in particular, he wrote, found themselves in the "most direct contact and competition" with blacks, contesting for jobs and sharing space in schools. He could have added references to the volatile political arena, housing, and neighborhoods to emphasize the point. But the Swedish sociologist, if a bit reckless in making such a sweeping generalization, proved careful enough to remark that the immigrants' disdain belied an earlier "solidarity" of "interest" with blacks and that it initially "lack[ed] the intense superiority feeling of the native Americans educated in race prejudice." That education constituted, however, "one of their first lessons in Americanization." If, again, Myrdal could be faulted for an overly broad generalization, there is little doubt that he was onto something.