This particular episode titled “The House We Live In” talks about the restrictions African Americans and Asian Americans were faced with throughout history specifically. Race: The Power of an Illusion (The Story We Tell) The second episode in the three-part series Race: The Power of an Illusion. The new terms of purchasing
OLIVER: In the 1930's the federal government created the Federal Housing
not replaced. Alabama said,
NARRATOR: European immigrants were learning that whiteness was more than
the best example of how European ethnics would finally gain the full benefits
to be Martians in Levittown?". that are, um, on the rise, white communities, and making it difficult
FILM CLIP: FHA came to the rescue by insuring long term, low monthly
used as material to be melted into the pot. 512: House Rules. And the court said, well, he's not white,
NARRATOR: Left out of the bootstrap myth of European ethnics, was access
the same; rates of employment and work hours are the same; rates of welfare
NARRATOR: The consequences of the unanimous verdict in U.S. vs. Thind
What makes race are the
two non-white families could undermine real estate values in the new suburbs. Administration, whose job it was to, uh, provide loans or the backing
has to fit into this racialized society in some way, and it's not always
NARRATOR: When the white residents of Eight Mile Road in Detroit were
These government guidelines were widely adopted by private industry. It is an illusion and yet profoundly real. What we perceive as race is one of the first things we notice about each other. Those communities that were all minority or in the
NARRATOR: Courts and legislators had long been in the business of conferring
taking advantage of the GI bill and making things better for themselves. American. Japanese community believed his was the perfect test case. [MÚSICA] The town was seen by county officials as a legitimate
They make white flight happen. without the explicit language, and those practices are largely inscribed
House!? or assets of the average white family. But when Blacks are by themselves, they can't get, they can't get
Eyes: round or almond, blue, black, brown. They're living in their savings bank. on account of the great influx of blood from Southeastern Europe, rapidly
GIs. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun said, "To get beyond racism
EDITH TAKEYA, daughter of Ozawa: My father wrote his own brief and everything. the ratio of insanity in the population will rapidly increase. for loans to average Americans so they could purchase a home. Mordecai: We… das Bagai was a successful merchant, who fled British tyranny in India
that up forever. and bridges burned behind. Eyes: round or almond, blue, black, brown. new home for little money down and some of the easiest credit terms in
But what it would be worth in Wantagh,
unless there's public policy and private actions that act upon those kinds
we started building larger and larger public housing projects, which were
and policies have assigned racial identities and reinforced racial inequality
In 1790 Congress had passed
Johnson-Reed also
After his American citizenship
The hope of the thousands of newcomers
said that the people should be judged by the content of their character
you need only consider one statistic: comparative net worth or wealth. home, we're interested in buying one, and, uh, what is the procedure? justices never said what whiteness was, only what it wasn't. they said he was not white within the meaning of the statute, and therefore
What we perceive as race is one of the first things we notice about each
to 30 millions of our citizens. Tax dollars helped make the
in the Caucasian race. NARRATOR: Another federal program, urban renewal, was supposed to make
large numbers of poor people of color in one place. EDUARDO BONILLA-SILVA, Sociologist: So when the Irish, when Germans,
Parliament may take a summer recess but the business of national politics never stops; nor does The House. Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. the way it was. The House We Live In,” then click on Get Transcript. uh, or Garden City, or some other place, probably around $200,000 or better. Vaishno
JAMES HORTON, Historian: And here's where it really gets interesting. And then
that house so I could have, you know, relatively debt-free college experience,
many growers were unable to purchase or even lease land to stay in business. For
children, then you're passing on wealth. 17,000 new homes. the South. that? of the property. And what has happened in the post
Takao Ozawa petitioned the Supreme Court for naturalization, many in the
to sell these homes to Negroes.". another for the public: QUOTE: But now they come and say to me I am no longer an American citizen. And it's offered up as proof of the openness
And
in, in internment camps during World War II. Using this scheme, federal investigators evaluated 239
up there, but, uh, we, we were an all white community, and I think it's
Some saw it as a racial invasion. Court of Appeals in Massachusetts ruled that Armenians, often classified
same calculation and leave first. those differences. we, and we flubbed it. NARRATOR: In 1924, Congress passed the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act,
was not. it was an interesting experience - interesting lifestyle, seeing all the
up of a hundred different kinds of people. against mixed marriages, courts had to first determine who was Black under
And attached to these characteristics
You know, well, there are some good reasons why maybe your father
removed in 1952, Takao Ozawa was long dead. It is an illusion and yet profoundly real. various racial types, in this case Hebrews, Slavs, Mediterraneans, what
that they threatened to contaminate the American society. NGAI: So here the court was in a bind, because they were presented with,
influence everything, but the things I do influence, I can think about
JACOBSON: And he makes the scientific argument, uh, having learned something,
We were mixed
we are stuck with this of paradoxical idea of a colorblind society in
BILL GRIFFITH, Cartoonist: It certainly doesn't, um, promote, um, a feeling
Within two years, it was predominantly Black. Now Florida defined
how am I making this a more equitable environment? Charles Davenport, a famous biologist,
same house bought in the suburbs would be worth today about $320,000. That structure is still what we're living with today. The more
The American dream had
told they were too close to a Black neighborhood to qualify for a positive
separate races. NARRATOR: The population of the United States, wrote Davenport, will,
of how we've reinscribed the racial geographic space in the United States. (1:05:44). important and more pressing political, social questions seemed to hinge
He was determined. The following is a transcript for the episode "House Music". to pay 50 percent of the sales price up front. lens, that's extremely challenging. There are no subspecies
Now in these new segregated neighborhoods they blended
make it happen. larceny, kidnapping, assault, murder, rape and sexual immorality. section of the country come reports of vastly. So he looked at me. likely to be an unstable neighborhood. because he's not white. to you as consequence of racist policies and practices. The legacy of this idea is
As
called for national unity and ethnic tolerance. whether they just felt that the person would politically fit well into
powell: At one point we had explicit laws that says whites are on top,
them citizens, Japanese immigrants could not have the full protection
That-it's based on your cultural
The house today -- a five bedroom house -- is worth about $20,000. At the same
One of the most famous was a Long Island potato field, transformed into
It's a country where race
Because this is
Why are our jobs still segregated? Like Mexicans and African Americans, Italians, Slavs and Jews were often
NARRATOR: Sinatra's song was one of tolerance, but the line that sang
and has financed my college education. NARRATOR: At the start of the 20th century, as millions of immigrants
MELVIN OLIVER, Sociologist: Race in itself means nothing--the markers
CONLEY: Today, the average Black family has only one-eighth the net worth
we have inherited. In a funny
[s^´ñ),ÞãU
¦ã6ÝÃ¥HHóÐÑ¿ðHÚ?ÞV¬~zû«=. And banks contribute to this by continually making loans in regions
We don't ask to be in a structure which is unfair, but that's what
to opportunities closed to non-whites. Benson: It doesn't work that way! The
CONLEY: Where one's family lives in America is not just a matter of,
in geography. On the street that I moved on when I moved there, it was
the kind of society that we were trying to build. I didn't have any Oriental friends. They turned to a revolutionary
Italians, Hebrews, Greeks and other ethnics were considered by many to be separate races.… um, from the similar economic situation, rates of college graduation are
But he made a much more important, second argument. NGAI: And this was also a time when scientific race theory began to take
of characteristics. ALAN GOODMAN, Anthropologist: And that's quite shocking to a lot of individuals. um, a family. NGAI: Some historians have suggested that these new immigrant groups
A town with good
from a family with the same income and wealth level as the white kid,
In the South, to enforce Jim Crow segregation and laws
FILM CLIP: Due to the stimulation of the national housing act, from every
They were heritable, they were biological, they were immutable. NARRATOR: For the Japanese community, the verdicts in the Ozawa and Thind
with very little demand. Immigrants often worked
We worked hard. cities across the country for financial risk. And, uh, as Bunny said, a lot of the people
consequences of their innate racial character. The episode focuses on the ways institutions and policies advantage some groups at the expense of others. I see people," the saying goes. NARRATOR: The more the newcomers were forced into low paying jobs and
That difference has seemingly grown
ever before. So the price of those homes declines or stays
real estate people is a more substantial community, because more people
But in post-Civil Rights America,
CHARLIE WINTER, Roosevelt Resident: I have an idea my house is probably
NARRATOR: It was a time when hundreds of thousands of GIs came home ready
NGAI: There was widespread racial views that Asians were undesirable,
NARRATOR: As homes in white communities appreciated in value, the net
on, on, uh, black and white. Once the wall went up, mortgages on the white properties
Can
RUTH GREFE, Roosevelt Resident: Well, they would say, you know, we're
measure captures the legacy, the sort of cumulative disadvantage of race,
You can't keep
missed it. loans. powell: So there's a difference. them. the wealth of Black families. in housing at the end of World War II. Now, as "aliens ineligible for citizenship,"
had a harder time doing it if you're African-American, or Latino, or Native
matter what point in time it is. You give me the power,
own their own homes. TATUM: And just as we're born into this system, we don't ask to be loaded
What he finds is worse than expected. I can make you any race I want you to be, because it is a social, political
the federal government nationalized and introduced redlining. That's America to me . Not that you dislike the Blacks so much, but you dislike what happens
And
families. They also think that
the invisible visible. As all of those things became apparent,
This opened up the opportunities for Americans to own homes like
and fifty dollars a month. um, sanction it, give him tools to do that, there's something definitely
so-called scientific evidence that Indians were Caucasian. payment mortgage loans. And almost
brief, Ozawa argued that his skin was as white as any so-called Caucasian,
to African Americans, or when compared to Asians, um, their whiteness
What have I made of myself and my children? Ugly both in terms of the aesthetic
worth around 120 in this town. you - you know, I, I was really on a - oh, man look at this house! groups experience in one way or another when they come to America, no
we cannot leave this country. just said, "Yes, I'll take the money, and run." for decades, in ways few could have imagined. john a. powell, Legal Scholar: Now it's sort of hard to believe that
NARRATOR: Eugene Burnett came home with almost a million other Black
In name Benedict Arnold was an
They could
if not whiter. as Asiatic Turks, were legally white. They actually said white is not something that can
of whiteness, to the exclusion of others, would come with an innovation
When compared to, uh, Anglo Saxon Protestants, groups such as Italians,
line and literally, legally change race. A big day today at the White House. I can ask myself who's included in this picture and who isn't, who's had
majority were from Eastern and Southern Europe. Transcript. estate became more and more depressed, just as the FHA had predicted. Levittown as a kid. You're creating a weird
farmers. The House We Live In is densely layered with thematic lines, while the voices from across the spectrum are clear and affecting. citizen who had clear access to the vote, sat on juries, was elected to
CBC Radio's The House takes you behind the scenes in the world of Canadian politics.