Deck 4: White Ethnic Americans

Question 1

Compare the factors that made Irish, Italians, and Jews identifiable targets of discrimination.

Answer 1

Answers will vary

Question 2

What was the role of the Catholic school system in facilitating the adjustment and adaptation of non-Protestants to American society?

Answer 2

Answers will vary

Question 3

Why would Catholics pose threats to the Protestant Anglo-Saxon core? Was religion or economics more important?

Answer 3

Answers will vary

Question 4

How did the migration of African Americans to the North and Midwest aggravate black-white tensions in America?

Question 5

What negative beliefs are still assigned to each subpopulation of white ethnics in American society? Which subpopulation is subject to the most negative beliefs?

Question 6

As a response to their experiences with prejudice and discrimination, the Irish were less likely to discriminate against other ethnic subpopulations.

Question 7

Once southern Italians had immigrated, more educated northern Italians began to immigrate.

Question 8

The success of white ethnics to assimilate into the Anglo-Saxon core is often used to condemn other ethnics for not doing the same.

Question 9

Irish Americans are the third largest ethnic subpopulation, behind English and Italians.

Question 10

Southern Italians were often seen as a distinct "race" during their early years of immigration.

Question 11

Italian Americans are still subject to many lingering negative beliefs about them.

Question 12

The Catholic Irish invented the big-city political machines.

Question 13

By the turn of the century, the southern, Catholic Irish had begun to overcome the effects of prejudice and discrimination against them.

Question 14

Efforts were made during their immigration to portray the Irish as a distinct "race," revealing biological differences from other white ethnics.

Question 15

The dramatic success of the Irish in local politics soon translated to success in national politics.

Question 16

John F. Kennedy was the first Irish-origin president in America.

Question 17

The Catholic school system was created as a way to resist the public schools' heavy-handed efforts to "Americanize" the Irish.

Question 18

Today, Italian Americans are involved in the political arena approximately proportionate to their numbers in the general population.

Question 19

The Catholic school system immediately opened its doors to southern Italians when they had problems in the public schools.

Question 20

Today, Jews have very few negative beliefs directed at them.

Question 21

Sentiment against Jews in America rose during the Great Depression.

Question 22

Like most middleman minority ethnics, Jews have not been politically active in America.

Question 23

Proportionate to their numbers in the general population, Jewish Americans are overrepresented in Congress.

Question 24

Discrimination against Jews in America has largely been informal.

Question 25

Nowadays, Jews rarely have to face exclusion or quotas in clubs and fraternal organizations.

Question 26

Jews can still experience discrimination in the area in which they are most successful, higher education.

Question 27

Despite negative stereotypes about them, the Irish came to dominate political machines in many American cities.

Question 28

Many Irish immigrants perceived themselves as banished to America by the British.

Question 29

The assimilation of white ethnics into American society serves to create positive stereotypes for non-white ethnic groups

Question 30

Political machines prevented the upward mobility of Irish immigrants.

Question 31

The southern Irish were the first non-Protestant immigrants to enter the United States in the early 1800s.

Question 32

Catholic schools were important to the maintenance of ethnic identity among Catholic immigrants from Europe.

Question 33

Worker unions provided southern Italian immigrants with upward mobility.

Question 34

The Immigration Act of 1924 created an open-door policy for eastern and southern European immigrants.

Question 35

Sephardic Jews came to America to avoid massacre in Spain and Portugal.

Question 36

Compared to other ethnic groups in American society, whites and Asians are far more likely to be in higher income and prestige occupations.

Question 37

Jews are a distinct "race."

Question 38

The exclusion of Jews from some areas in U.S. society has placed them in a "gilded ghetto."

Question 39

The social, educational, and economic successes of Jews have shielded them from prejudice and discrimination in American society.

Question 40

Who were the first non-Protestant white immigrants to come to America in significant numbers?

A) southern Irish
B) southern Italians
C) Scots
D) Poles

Question 41

The first Irish-origin candidate for President of the United States was

A) John F. Kennedy
B) Alfred E. Smith.
C) Alfred Landon.
D) Harry Truman.

Question 42

White ethnics reveal roughly the same occupational distribution, except for

A) Irish Americans.
B) Russian Americans.
C) Polish Americans.
D) Italian Americans.

Question 43

Which ethnic subpopulation has, at times in its history, been portrayed as "less than human"?

A) Irish Americans
B) African Americans
C) Native Americans
D) all of the above

Question 44

What did not cause the second wave of Irish immigration beginning in the 1830s?

A) the potato famine of 1842
B) the long-standing British persecution of Irish
C) the encouragement of the British government
D) the intense dislike of the Irish for their homeland

Question 45

The white ethnic population with the highest percentage of repatriation back to their homeland is

A) Irish Americans.
B) Italian Americans.
C) Russian Jews.
D) Polish Americans.

Question 46

The immigration of southern Italians began around

A) 1880s.
B) 1890s.
C) 1900s.
D) 1860s.

Question 47

Irish Americans were most threatened by

A) the migration of African Americans northward.
B) the immigration of Poles.
C) the immigration of Italians.
D) all of the above.

Question 48

At the end of the Revolutionary War, approximately what percentage of the population was Irish?

A) 10 percent
B) 5 percent
C) 15 percent
D) 20 percent

Question 49

For Irish immigrants, political machines were

A) a means to exploit the Anglo-Saxon core.
B) a means for eliminating negative stereotypes.
C) a path to upward mobility.
D) a means for creating organized crime.

Question 50

The Catholic school system enabled many Catholic immigrants from Europe to

A) overcome discrimination against non-Protestants in the public schools.
B) establish a Catholic enclave.
C) avoid assimilation into U.S. society.
D) none of the above

Question 51

The "Mafia" stereotype of Italians is most rooted in the stereotypical belief that

A) Italians are clannish.
B) Italians are criminals and deviants.
C) Italians are Catholic.
D) Italians are violent.

Question 52

The Immigration Act of 1924

A) established intelligence test levels for European immigrants.
B) limited immigration from eastern and southern Europe.
C) created an open-door policy for European immigrants.
D) limited northern European immigration.

Question 53

Irish Americans constitute about what percentage of the population?

A) 5 percent
B) 12 percent
C) 18 percent
D) 28 percent

Question 54

Which ethnic subpopulation reveals a very similar percentage in higher status and prestige occupations as white ethnics?

A) African Americans
B) Hispanic Americans
C) Asian Americans
D) none of the above

Question 55

It was not until what period that Italian Americans made progress in national politics?

A) 1900s
B) 1920s
C) 1930s
D) 1950s

Question 56

The political machines helped which ethnic subpopulation?

A) Irish
B) Jews
C) Italians
D) all of the above

Question 57

Of the ethnic populations below, who were the last to enter organized crime?

A) Irish
B) Jews
C) Italians
D) Scots

Question 58

Italian Americans are still behind other white ethnics in

A) rank-and-file positions.
B) top positions in government.
C) top positions in business.
D) both b and c.

Question 59

Which Act disproportionately limited the immigration of Italians to America?

A) the Immigration Act of 1924
B) the Dawes Act
C) the Immigration Law of 1965
D) the Immigration Law of 1917

Question 60

The third wave of Jewish immigration occurred between the

A) 1880s to the 1920s.
B) 1920s to the 1940s.
C) 1940s to the 1960s.
D) 1960s to the present.

Question 61

Jews in America constitute approximately what percentage of the world's Jewish population?

A) 30 percent
B) 20 percent
C) 50 percent
D) 60 percent

Question 62

Jews constitute what percentage of the American population?

A) 8 percent
B) 16 percent
C) 19 percent
D) 2 percent

Question 63

The primary basis for identifying Jews as targets of discrimination is their

A) distinctive facial features.
B) distinctive rituals.
C) high attendance rates at synagogues.
D) shared sense of community.

Question 64

What most distinguished Jewish ethnics from other white ethnics?

A) their nationalism
B) their sense of a homeland
C) their organization as a community in diverse environments
D) their consensus over how to practice religion

Question 65

It was not until what period that Jews gained access to higher administrative positions of the federal government?

A) 1900s
B) 1920s
C) 1930s
D) 1940s

Question 66

Jews in America are underrepresented today in which of the following?

A) academia
B) the movie industry
C) top positions in banking
D) none of the above

Question 67

In what area did the law support for many decades the informal patterns of discrimination against Jews?

A) club memberships
B) education
C) housing
D) politics

Question 68

In what two occupational spheres are Jewish Americans underrepresented?

A) lower and elite economic positions
B) middle and upper-middle positions
C) lower and middle economic positions
D) upper-middle and elite economic positions

Question 69

The term __________ is a negative label for an Irish person that targets his/her religious background.

Question 70

The potato famine of the 1840s was a __________ factor for Irish immigration to the United States.

Question 71

Areas in cities where large numbers of Italian immigrants came to settle were known as _________.

Question 72

Immigration from eastern and southern Europe was limited by the Immigration Act of _________.

Question 73

The first wave of Jewish immigrants in the 1640s to America was the __________ Jews.

Question 74

The first five books of the Bible are regarded as the __________ by Jews.

Question 75

The label __________ was used by northern Irish to separate themselves from the southern Irish in order to avoid persecution experienced by the southern Irish.

Question 76

The name for those laws requiring that businesses close on Sunday is _________.

Question 77

__________ Americans are overrepresented in the movie industry, academia, and Congress.

Question 78

The Catholic School system was started by __________ Americans.

Question 79

The first non-Protestant white immigrants to America were _________.

Question 80

The third largest white ethnic subpopulation in the United States is the _________.