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Ryan Robles
Professor Batty
English 113A
13 December 2014
Necessary Racism?
Racism has been going on for centuries since slavery to even the holocaust. One of the
biggest growths in racism was immigrants coming to the United States. The United Sates is
known for having the biggest population of immigrants. The immigrants brining their own
religion and poverty caused a big outburst in Americans to be racist to all of the different types
of immigrants. In the political cartoon called Admission Fee by Frank Beard shows Uncle
Sam representing the United States unwillingly allowing in an immigrant to pass his way, who is
drawn with all kinds of qualities seen as threatening to U.S. life. Due to that issue, the
Americans feel like they can be racist to the immigrants only causing the problem to get even
worse. I feel like racism is one of the major issues America has today. Due to the immigrant
population growing and growing racism even got bigger. American citizens are often racist to
immigrants because of their skin color, them taking away American jobs, and also because of
their poverty or for what religion they believe in.
Immigrants come in all different types of skin colors, and because of their skin color
Americans send hatred and racism to them. For example an African American can be called a
criminal or a rapist because of he is black. In the article Black Men and Public Spaces the
author Brent Staples talks about how a white women ran from him because of his skin color in
the article he quotes It was clear that she thought herself the quarry of a mugger, a rapist, or
worse (Staples 183). You can even be racist by not even using any verbal words; the white

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woman used racism as action by running away from him assuming that was is a criminal. This
doesnt just happen to one person it happens to most immigrants who appear to be dark skinned,
giving them a bad reputation. Being racist to them could also make the problem worse, this could
cause them to start growing up around criminals and start becoming one themselves. Not just a
few immigrants are being targeted as criminals due to skin color mostly all of them are targeted.
Caucasian people consider brown skinned immigrants who are from South American drug
dealers due to the high population of drug cartels in South America. What if they just wanted to
come to the United States to live in a more safe area? Racism also targets looks, Americans call
people who are from the Middle East terrorist due to the 9/11 incident. Americans feel like
they are given a right to call the immigrants whatever they want due to their skin color or how
they look.
While immigrants started coming to the United States they knew they needed jobs to
survive and provide food for their family. Not knowing English made it even harder for them to
find jobs so they started taking American peoples jobs by asking for a cheap pay. This caused
most Americans to suffer in debt, this let Americans think that they can call them illegal
Aliens. According to immigrants1900.weebly.com immigration men earned less than ten
dollars a week. The reason why they were paid so little was because of their lack of the English
language. Many of the immigrants suffered because of this issue. This also led to an issue of
Americans becoming jobless. They were angered because of this issue and started calling the
immigrants names and even committing heinous crimson these innocent people. They were able
to pass a law for immigrants to stop stealing American peoples job but that didnt stop them
from being discriminated. It does not give the Americans the right to be racist to immigrants
even after a law passed for them to not their any more jobs away.

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Americans also feel like they have right to be racist due to immigrants religious beliefs
and poverty. Anyone should be able to practice their religion anywhere without being
discriminated. Asians Americans will be discriminated for practicing Buddhism or Middle
Easterns will be discriminated for practicing Islam. The reason why Americans do that is
because they feel like everyone should believe in their religion. Practicing other religious makes
the Americans feel like that you are not one of them and also lets them think that they have the
right to be racist to anyone. Americans like to be racist to immigrants in poverty because they
know the immigrants cant do anything, if they see an immigrant lying on the floor begging for
money they will be racist by calling them names. There have been some stories where some
Americans have physically hurt these immigrants due to their poverty. One person should not be
racist to another because they are practicing a religion or because they are in poverty, its just
simply wrong.
While many immigrants are always mistreated due to skin color, being accused of taking
American peoples jobs, or because they live in poverty it does give them the right to still be
racist. This is an issue that has been going on for the past decades, since the late 1800s. For once
we should at least be trying to stop racism because its not easy for the immigrants to live when
they are constantly being harassed because they are different. Americans call themselves
patriotic yet they can be racist to someone who is living in a free county. Being a patriot means
to love your county but it also mean to treat every person in the United States with respect. Our
enlightened society has more pride than this, and we know that a person is neither good nor bad
depending on the color of their skin or how they look because everyone is the same. Racism isnt
going to help fix this immigration issue; its only making it worse.

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Work Citied
Beard, Frank. Rams Horn Complex. N.p., 1896.
Web. 15 Oct. 2014
Handlin, Oscar. " IMMIGRANTS IN 1900's NEW YORK CITY - Jobs." N.p., 2 June 2002.
Web. 15 Oct. 2014.
Staples, Brent. Black Men and Public Space (n.d): n.pag. Dec 1986
Web. 15 Oct. 2014

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