Movies for Colored People, Chinatown for Japanese: What Racial Segregation Looked Like in Old America

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

It seems that everyone knows about segregation in the history of the United States. For example, once a black woman refused to give up her seat to a white man, and the first black girl had to go to a "general", that is, white, school under police protection, otherwise she would have been killed for this. But the segregation was much more extensive.

Not just for blacks

As a rule, the seats on the bus were designated not for "whites" and "blacks", but for "whites" and "colored". The latter included, for example, the indigenous people of America - the Indians, as well as the Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, even of Spanish descent, and, in some cities, Gypsies. Although not officially classified as Jewish in any state, there have been cases where those who looked "too Jewish" were forced to use seats, fountains, and the "colored" entrance.

Yes, besides schools and seats on buses, there were separate hotels, cinemas, universities, drinking fountains, washstands, toilets, windows in ice cream stands for people of color, and so on. Very often this meant that "for the colored" means "worse", and not because the administration of the institution could not afford equally beautiful washstands for everyone, but because they wanted to remind the colored people of their place.

In addition, in the same position, a colored person was paid less than a white person, and they did not hide this. As a result, the standard of living among representatives of one seemingly social stratum was very different, and where white parents bought their children the cheapest shirt, blacks let their children walk in only shorts - at least while it was warm. Otherwise, it was impossible to save money for warm clothes for the winter.

As for the seats for the colored, the signs didn’t mean they were ONLY colored seats. Blacks had to give up their seats on buses if a white man wanted to get there. In the same way, if the washstand for white people broke down, then they calmly used the one set for the colored people - but on the contrary, it could not be. This threatened not only with fines from the police: there is a known case when a black teenager was killed for swimming in the "white" half of the pool. This was considered quite adequate before World War II in many places.

Mongols should live in Chinatowns

For some reason, the American Japanese were referred to in the papers as "Mongols" (while the Chinese were recorded as Chinese). Unlike the Chinese, the Japanese were not given American citizenship for a long time under any circumstances. In many cities, they were only allowed to attend schools in Chinatown. Very often, children there became the target of bullying.

The fact is that many Japanese came to the United States, having converted to Christianity, and therefore led a "Western" way of life, which was associated with Christianity. In Chinese schools, children were reproached for this - they say, they just ask themselves and pose as white. But going to school in national kimonos was also not possible, for such clothes would also be ridiculed.

During World War II, the Japanese, many of whom were born in the United States or were children of those born in the United States, were herded into concentration camps as potential saboteurs. The Americans who fought in Japan itself considered it normal to send trophies to their homeland - ears, teeth, scalps and even skulls of the Japanese, although they did not do this to the Germans.

There is nothing to behave as if in native land

A special attitude was also towards the indigenous people without a drop of foreign - including European - blood. Even in the bars where blacks were served (behind a separate section of the counter) there could be an ad “We don’t pour the Indians”. It was in the twentieth century and it was legal.

Similarly, Native Americans could not be admitted to "normal" colleges and universities, but they could not enroll in "black-only" institutions unless they were considered black (of course). And if it was possible to find a college for the colored, then each of the students often projected onto them the opinion established by the white majority that they were savages and pagans. Even the baptized Indians could not convince those around them that they were not baptized for show and did not pray to the old gods (the Gypsies found themselves in the same situation in Europe, but the Indians were on their own land and had to prove something to actually aggressive migrants).

While residents of Aboriginal reservations were given (finally) American citizenship in 1924, they were still prohibited from voting, even when white women finally won the right to vote.

In small towns, it happened that blacks could not leave their area, unless there was a paper signed by the white on their hands that this person worked there and there - so that the servant could get to the owners' house, and the cashier or locksmith - to the store or service bureau where he worked. The streets were patrolled day and night to catch violators - what if someone wants to buy products from a wider assortment in the supermarket not for the owners, but for themselves?

Indians - in the twentieth century, this was usually not legalized - were often attacked by police officers or simply very concerned citizens, if they simply went outside the reservation. What should they do on the white land, really.

Selected films

The response to segregation has been the creation of a separate entertainment industry for blacks and other colored people. Starting from their own music and dances and ending with films that were filmed specifically for "color" cinemas and beckoned the audience with a seductive phrase - "there are only colored actors in actors!" or "all faces on the screen are black."

The servants and low-paid workers watched the pictures with great pleasure, where white people never appear with their position from above and phrases from above. These were the places that the colored never had to vacate at the request of the white.

However, some whites in US history have been discriminated against in the same way as people of color. For example, the famous Morse code tried to pass a law that would ban the entry of the Irish, which looks rather strange against the background of such historical facts as Why in Europe they caught white slaves for America to replace black ones, and which peoples were unlucky.