Is “expanding definition of whiteness” a real thing?

[kcguy]

Here are some stories I have in the back of my memory.  I don't know if they're true or not.

- In the mid-18th century, Benjamin Franklin was worried about Pennsylvania being overrun by Germans, whom he believed to be incapable of assimilation.

- As late as the early 19th century, there were places in America where Catholics paid extra taxes.  (Maryland in particular is the place stuck in my head.)  There was a long-term mindset among Englishman that Catholics' first allegiance was to a foreign potentate, the Pope, and that mindset dated back to at least the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

- In 1890's New Orleans, a Black man was arrested for miscenegation with an Italian woman.  The judge threw out the case.  Although the judge found Italians to be legally White, he thought it might not be obvious and that the defendant had made an honest mistake.

- For most of the 19th century, having Native American ancestry would have been something to keep hidden.  As the nation became flooded with immigrants at the turn of the century, having Native American ancestry suddenly became proof that you were a native-born American and "belonged" here.  The rise of fraternal organizations stressing old-line ancestry, such as the Daughters of the American Revolution, came about at the same time and from similar motivations.


In the modern day, it feels to me like "Whiteness" is expanding to include African-Americans.  The strongest dividing line again seems to be between established American ethnicities and recent immigrants, and African-Americans clearly belong to the former, in a way that Salvadorans or Pakistanis may not.