1. Mikaela Haley
March 14, 2013
MC 281
Midterm Exam
1
A Dollar is Green, but Wealth is White
It is impossible to understand the development and maintenance of racial ideologies
without giving attention to the role of socioeconomic class differences that arise from capitalism
because racial identities directly interfered in any attempt of socioeconomic success. The three
examples I would use to support this claim would be the Tape family’s social “whiteness” in
Mae Ngai’s The Lucky Ones, the view of whites in America as greedy in Ian F. Haney López’
Racism on Trial: The Chicano Fight for Justice, and the chicken and the egg conundrum in
which Chicanos were frequently arrested by police officers because of their race, but also
commonly claimed their racial identity after being abused by police as presented by López.
` The Tape family’s consideration in society as white further implicates the perception that
to be successful is to be white and that minorities are inherently less successful-the bottom of the
totem in the socio-economic hierarchy of America. The family was job positions because of their
appearance of whiteness within their communities and their denial of their own race: “…he was
simultaneously leading a life among Euro-Americans in which he came close to being their
social equal. The district immigration staff regarded him as ‘simply an unusual man among
Chinese interpreters,’ based on the belief that he was a detective and because he was ‘American
born and thoroughly Americanized and associates altogether with whites.’ He was counted in the
1910 census as ‘white’; the census taker would not have had difficulty seeing him in this way,
given his name, his style of dress, and his residence in a white neighborhood” (Ngai, 145). This
reveals that the Tape’s ability to play the role of a white person meant that they were well
regarded in their community and therefore presented with more opportunities to achieve a greater
socioeconomic status.

2. Mikaela Haley
March 14, 2013
MC 281
Midterm Exam
2
Becoming more successful made the Tape family white, but that could only be done after
they had already played the part. They even chose white names: Mary and Joseph-biblical
figures that any good Christian would respect. The Tape family also followed white customs by
choosing to have a physician-assisted birth which was modern to even Euro-Americans (Ngai,
24-25). To be white was to be wealthy, but it was also to wear the correct clothing, to follow the
correct lifestyle, to praise the correct god, and to speak the correct language.
The title The Lucky Ones correlates well with the actual text because the Tape family was
in fact an anomaly compared to the rest of immigrants during early 1900s. In fact, Chinese
immigrants often held jobs that were dangerous, in poor environments, with little pay: “…the
company hired back 20 Chinese to pull bricks from the oven, which ran at 240 degrees
Fahrenheit, a job that white men refused to do” (Ngai, 37). The white men were wealthier but the
immigrants were the ones doing the hardest work and risking their own well-being just to
survive. America revealed their necessity for cheap later in order for the whites to continue
advancing economically: “In contrast to allegations that Chinese labor was unfree, Speer
envisioned cheap Chinese labor as a free-labor solution to the problem of southern slavery-
indeed as the ‘hope of the emancipation of the negro” (Ngai, 35). In addition, immigrants’
economic standing was hindered due to vandalism and harassment: “Reverend Ira Condit of the
Presbyterian Church assailed the persecution of the Chinese: ‘They have been stoned, spit upon,
beaten, mobbed, their property destroyed, and they themselves unjustly imprisoned and
murdered’” (Ngai, 33). This example further proves that race directly influences success because
those who were not white dealt with consequences economically and socially.
Mary Tape’s letter defending her children -and successfully preventing them from
attending segregated schools for Chinese students- sums up the Tape family’s hold on a white

3. Mikaela Haley
March 14, 2013
MC 281
Midterm Exam
3
identity perfectly in the following excerpt: “My children don’t dress like the other Chinese. They
look just as phunny amongst them as the Chinese dress in Chinese look amongst you
Caucasians…Her playmates is all Caucasians ever since she could toddle around. If she is good
enough to play with them! Then is she not good enough to be in the same room and studie with
them? You had better come and see for yourselves. See if the Tape’s is not same as other
Caucasians, except in features” (Ngai, 55). The Tape family bred their children for success by
enforcing a white heritage-there home had American attire, they wore American clothing, and
here Mary displayed a great understanding of American English.
During the Chicano revolution the mood of the Chicanos shifted from wanting equal civil
liberties and justice in East LA, to believing that their race was better than whites due to the
Caucasian obsession with wealth and social standing: “Whiteness for Chicanos became
synonymous with a dominant culture that they caricatured as unremittingly shallow,
materialistic, and base” (Lόpez, 109-10). Stereo-types fuel reality by molding people’s
interpretation of other’s actions. Chicano’s stereo-types of whites helped mold the social
understanding that to be white was to be successful. Whites are materialistic could morph into
whites having materials. Whites being shallow could translate to whites having a better
appearance. I must wonder; did the Chicano’s stereo-types of whites reinforce white stereo-types
of Mexicans themselves: if whites cared too much about appearance, did that reinforce that
Mexicans cared too little?
Chicanos accepted that race placed them in their socioeconomic standing: “But if
Chicanos rejected Vasconcelos’s predilection for whites, they applied his idea of a cosmic race
to Chicanos, and in so doing accepted that race determined almost all aspects of identity”
(Lόpez, 221). They knew that their interpretation of whites and the reputation of their own race

4. Mikaela Haley
March 14, 2013
MC 281
Midterm Exam
4
were going to affect their lives completely. Chicanos claimed that mestizaje shaped not only
their racial identity but their culture, politics, and destiny (Lόpez, 222). Race set the boundaries
of their socio-economic standing and their acceptance that race held that power reinforced and
maintained that ability.
Lόpez brought attention to the fact that whiteness is directly related to socioeconomic
success by revealing the Chicano resentment for Mexican Americans: “It was in a sense that
Chicanos thought Mexican Americans had convinced themselves of a fact- Mexican whiteness-
that simply was not true. Worse, according to Chicanos, political and social aspirations to be
white betrayed both the Mexican American individual and the community as a whole by
supporting white supremacy” (Lόpez, 208). Chicanos shed light to the relation between
whiteness and political and social advancement and greatly resented the affiliation between the
concepts. Mexican Americans were thought of as people who aspired to achieve the status of
whites and therefore acted as if they were white: “According to Chicanos, ‘whitened’ Mexicans
identified with and aspired to the status of whites. They were also those who, because of physical
features, wealth, profession, education, or business position, possessed characteristics associated
with whites” (Lόpez, 207). I’m inferring that physical features included a lighter complexion;
“The darker-skinned and poorer suffered from more virulent racism that the lighter-skinned and
wealthier, who were more likely to be racialized as white or close to it” (Lόpez, 65), which
would make the person more relatable to whites and therefore eligible for greater positions.
Professing that wealth, business positions, and education were associated with whites implicates
society more by maintaining that to be white is to be successful and achieve greater
socioeconomic goals.

5. Mikaela Haley
March 14, 2013
MC 281
Midterm Exam
5
Chicano’s were commonly harassed and assaulted by police because of their racial
identity and the stereo-type of Mexicans being dirty, criminals, thieves, and murderers (Lόpez,
62-63). Police used statistical racism in their attempts to bring down crime in East LA, targeting
Mexicans in their belief that they were preventing crimes: “Chicanos were more than four times
as likely to say that they had experienced excessive force in arrests and more than twice as likely
to claim that they had been the victim of an illegal roust and frisk, car stop, or use of unnecessary
force while in custody” (Lόpez, 153). However, statistical racism left the footprint that Mexicans
were less-civilized, lazy, and because of this-less successful that White Americans. Based on
their appearance, neighborhood, and economic standing police harassed Mexicans, inferring that
they were Chicanos. In turn, those Mexicans became Chicanos and continued to be harassed.
Lόpez blatantly tied race to the war on crime, citing that minorities are more likely to be
imprisoned: “The statistics, although familiar, are chilling: in 1972, at the end of the Chicano
movement, 200,000 persons were incarcerated in state and federal prisons; in 1997, that number
stood at 1.2 million, with another 500, 000 persons in local jails awaiting trial or serving short
sentences and yet another 100,000 juveniles locked up in youth detention facilities across the
country. The United States now incarcerates people-mainly minorities- at six to ten times the rate
of other industrialized nations. Half of all inmates are black and probably one-fourth are Latino”
(Lόpez, 246). After someone becomes a prisoner, they are most likely unable to reach the
socioeconomic standing that would have been otherwise a possibility. Businesses are unlikely to
accept prisoners as workers and therefore prisoners are unable to support themselves adequately.
The stigma of being arrested stays with a person throughout their life and leaves them isolated in
society.

6. Mikaela Haley
March 14, 2013
MC 281
Midterm Exam
6
The three examples presented provide a clear conclusion that status and class are directly
correlated to the lightness of one’s skin and to their ability to fit in with White culture. The closer
to white the person was, the more successful they became, and the more successful they became,
the more likely they were to be perceived as white-it is a cycle that never breaks. The Tape
family’s embracing White American culture allowed them to become more economically and
socially advanced whereas Chicanos embraced Mexican culture and therefore reaped the
repercussions through police harassment and brutality, low economic standing, and negative
stereo-types.