(Re)Remembering Race

Using interviews, this chapter highlights the ways in which blacks talk about immigration. In particular, the chapter seeks to uncover how blacks use their group’s past racial experiences (e.g., Jim Crow) to understand their present circumstances. Interviews conducted by the author reveal that respondents see their blackness as being devalued in American society. Their racial history aids in their assessment of their comparative racial progress. Through the particularities of their group’s history, they are able to understand how racial hierarchy positions their group relative to whites, and how the presence of immigrants highlights their disparate states in society. However, respondents in these interviews harbor no major hostilities toward immigrants. Rather, they are discomfited by the ways they perceive whites as exploiting immigrants in an effort to enforce the subordinate status on their group.