comment on ‘london and new york: contrasts in british and american models of segregation’ by...

Comment on `London and New York:Contrasts in British and American Modelsof Segregation' By Ceri PeachNathan Glazer

Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge MA 02138,USA

Ihave found this a fascinating paper, andmore possibly relevant to the currentupsurge of discussion of race in America

than Ceri Peach realises. Before I get to that, Iwould like to make a few comments on terms.Ceri Peach concentrates on the facts of resi-dential concentration of minorities in Londonand New York. I use the word `minority' in itscurrent American usage, in which it refers toonly four groups or collections of groups(African-Americans, Hispanic Americans,Asians, and Native Americans or AmericanIndians). The usage of the term `minority' inBritain is far more straightforward and lessproblematic than it is in the US. We are allaware that just who we include among`minorities' in the US keeps on changing. Fortyyears ago, texts on American minority groupswould include chapters on Jews, Italians,Poles, and the like. In fact, Jews were con-sidered the exemplary minority group, butthey have quite disappeared from the categoryof minority in the US. We do not todayconsider European ethnic groups `minorities',and the European immigrants and theirchildren once featured in American texts onminorities are indeed by many measures`assimilated'.

But what is now the de®ning characteristicthat makes the four groups we call `minorities'in the US today of a kind? Why don't weinclude Jews? Why do we include Asians? Is itthat the four groups are all `non-white', ofother-than-European race? This has been onepopular way of characterising who is aminority today, but most Hispanic Americansare indeed white. Is the de®ning characteristicthat they are all recent immigrants, whose

main period of arrival came after the end ofmass European immigration? But of courseAmerican Indians are not immigrants, andAfrican-Americans have been here as long asany white group, and much longer than most.Is it that they are all below the mean in income,occupation and economic circumstances, andabove the mean in presence of social prob-lems? But if that is the de®ning characteristic,the Asians are improperly included and mustbe well on the way out of the `minority'category.The answer to how and why the `minority'

category in the US is constructed the way it is,is in part historical; these are the groups thatfaced the most discrimination (in part legaland constitutional) and these are the groupsthat have been de®ned as different in law inthe past. But it is in part cultural; `race' is thegreat problem in American life, and thereforeeven a quasi-race, such as the Latino groups, inwhich European are mixed with native Amer-ican Indians, are considered deprived, morethan other white groups, whatever discrimina-tion they have faced in the past. As we know,just who is a race has kept on changing: theIrish once were, and are no longer, and so werethe Italians and the Jews. But perhaps thepresently most compelling reason thesegroups are all of a kind is that, as against allothers, they are given a special place inAmerican law, that is in af®rmative action,and they are listed separately in the USCensus. Regardless of immigrant or genera-tional status, we can thus get the facts on all ofthem. We can't do that for the Jews, the Irish,the Italians, and so on. In this respect, theCensus categories may be taken as a summing-up of American history, law, and culture.

Copyright # 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Popul. Geogr. 5, 319±351 (1999)

The British situation is much simpler. Until1991, there was no such judgment to be foundin the British Census on who were theminorities of Britain. The census had nocategory for race, and the category of `for-eign-born', for example, would indiscrimi-nately list together as born in India bothIndian immigrants and the white children ofthose who had ruled them. The UK nowrecognises that foreign birth, for example,may tell us nothing important, while ethnicityor race, regardless of foreign or native birth,may. And so we now have those wonderfulstatistics that Ceri Peach is able to make use ofin his paper. For Britain, the complexities Ihave described in considering the Americanuse of the term `minority' don't come up: Theminorities ± as Ceri Peach puts it, the `racia-lised minorities' or `visible minorities' ± are allpost-World War II immigrants, all of non-white race. I would have liked to have moredetail in the paper on just what the BritishCensus has done. Is it possible, for example, toseparate out the Poles, who migrated toEngland during the Second World War andshortly thereafter? Is the British Census asstubborn as the US Census in not allowing theexistence of Jews as a category, whether as areligious or ethnic group?

Certainly the fact that the British Censuscreated these categories andmade these countsfor the ®rst time in 1991 is an intriguing andimportant one. It suggests perhaps that by 1991the question of whether the course of new andnon-white immigrant groups was to be one of`assimilation' (as was the case with previousimmigrant groups) or `pluralism' had becomean important one in Britain, and one on whichthe Census was expected to throw some light.Or perhaps the story is only as simple as thatthe new racial groups had developed thepolitical clout to insist on being counted. Thereis a connection between the two. Why would aminority group insist on being counted if itsreality and expectation was assimilation? Itwould be interesting to know the details.

The ®ndings are fascinating. In New YorkCity ± and in the US generally ± residentialsegregation or concentration of minoritygroups shows two very different patterns. Inone, the European immigrant pattern, it beginshigh and in subsequent generations declines

sharply. Along with the decline in residentialconcentration, one sees a rise in social status, ineconomic status and in intermarriage, to thepoint where the ethnic group becomes, inMary Waters' and Richard Albs's formula-tions, `symbolic', an identity to be put on ortaken off depending on circumstances, and inany case of no great consequence for one'sindividual fate. Jews have stood out as anexception; a European immigrant group (forthe most part), they showed a particularresistance to intermarriage. But even they havein time submitted to the pattern. More thanhalf of marriages involving Jews now includenon-Jews, despite the religious barriers tointermarriage. The second pattern is theAfrican-American, in which segregation andconcentration remain, average economic statusis low, social problems (illegitimacy, single-parent families, crime) are high, and inter-marriage is low. This pattern is one ofisolation, with all its consequences for a low-income and problem-ridden group ± poor localschools, few social contacts with higher-in-come and higher-status groups or individuals.They are the `truly disadvantaged, as WilliamWilson put it, and the main reason why blackintellectuals and academics sceptical aboutaf®rmative action (Orlando Patterson, GlenLoury) nevertheless support it (see theircontributions to Commentary, March 1998).But then how about the other current

`minorities', who are all placed, in muchcurrent analysis and political rhetoric (and inthe common use of the term `minority'), in thesame bag with the African-Americans? Whatpattern do they follow? I believe it is prettyclear it will be the European ethnic pattern.Whatever the efforts of racial militants andrainbow enthusiasts to form a common cate-gory of the racially oppressed, the variousAsian groups see no reason to join thecoalition. They do better than the others inschooling and economically, they rapidlymove out of the inner city to the suburbs,and they are disproportionately to be found inprofessional occupations and self-employ-ment. The course of the various Latino groupsis not as clear, but the evidence suggests apattern closer to that of the European ethnicgroups than to the African-Americans. Mex-ican-Americans are concentrated residentially,


348 Comment by N. Glazer

but not to the same extent as African-Amer-icans, and it is a concentration that declineswith generation. I do not expect it to be as long-sustained as African-American concentrationhas been.In London, surprisingly to an American

observer, the Caribbean immigrants and theirchildren are much less concentrated or segre-gated than American blacks, or Asian groups,and show the highest degree of cohabitationand intermarriage. This is despite the fact thatin economic status and the presence of socialproblems, they present a picture similar to thatof African-Americans. The largest Asiangroup, the Indians, shows a good economicadaptation, but surprisingly this is accompa-nied by more residential concentration thanamong blacks, and a much lower rate ofintermarriage.How can we explain these differences?

Firstly, even before possible explanations, itshould be pointed out that Ceri Peach, in thisanalysis, has broken the putative link betweensocial problems and economic status, on theone hand, and key measures of assimilation,such as residential concentration and inter-marriage, on the other. We have generallyassumed both go together. American Jewisheconomic and social success, it is the commonview of Jewish observers, means AmericanJewish assimilation. For a while it was notnecessarily so, but by now it is clear that it is(there are of course resistant groups ± theOrthodox, and even more, the Hasidim).The Indians in Britain may be like the Jews

of the 1950s: occupational success is surpris-ingly combined with what Ceri Peach calls`social closure', that is, more residential con-centration than the economic status wouldexplain, and less intermarriage. But I do notthink this social closure will be long sustained.I would expect the higher economic status ofIndians to lead to a breakdown in the patternof arranged marriages, and a rapid increase inintermarriage. Bangladeshis and Pakistanis,who are less successful economically, moreencapsulated socially, and adherents of what isseen as a more embattled religion, would bea different story. This connection betweeneconomic and occupational success and inter-marriage, which is the fullest degree ofassimilation, is mediated in the US through

higher education. It was the impact of collegeand university that broke down Jewish resis-tance to intermarriage. While we have a fewinstitutions of higher education with a major-ity of Jewish students, they are few indeed.Higher education means going to school withnon-Jews, and exposure to the conditions thatlead to intermarriage. The Indian `socialculture' in Britain will not be maintained ifmost Indian young people go to university. Buthere I am acting like a social determinist, andCeri Peach may have described a pattern thatis not a one-generational result of recentmigration from a separate culture, but apattern that will be maintained.The most striking ®nding of Ceri Peach's

research is the remarkable degree of isolationof American blacks, compared not only withthe other minorities of the US, but comparedwith the assimilating Caribbeans of London.There are two things to be explained: the socialassimilation of the Caribbeans in London,among a people with some racial prejudice;and the very high segregation of blacks in NewYork, a city with a reputation for tolerance inthe US. Both groups are originally African, andboth passed through the experience of slavery,in the West Indies and in the US. Despitecommon racial origins and a common centu-ries-old searing experience, Caribbean blacksare considered different in the US, and there isstatistical evidence that they are different. Ahigher percentage are in the labour force, theyare better educated, and show a higherpercentage of home ownership (Glazer andMoynihan, Thomas Sowell). Yet even a highpercentage of Caribbean immigrants, as wehave in New York City, does not change theoverall American pattern of high concentra-tion, social isolation, and social problems. Oneconcludes that the American historical pattern± a longer-sustained slavery, a Civil War to endit, life in a white majority society holding downblacks through law and custom, as against lifein black-majority societies ± has had conse-quences for American blacks that make themdifferent from Caribbean blacks; or, morelikely, that the pattern of American resistanceto close interaction with blacks means thateven upwardly mobile and economicallysuccessful blacks will live in black areas,because of the dif®culty of maintaining stable


British and American Models of Segregation 349

mixed racial residential areas in the US.Economically upwardly mobile blacks in theUS show a pattern of concentration higher thanexpected or explained by economic factors,and in that sense are like Indians in London.But I believe the reasons for this similar patternis very different, just as the reasons whyHasidim in Brooklyn and Bangladeshis inLondon are so concentrated are also verydifferent.

American blacks are different from Carib-bean blacks, but that does not affect the overallpattern of separation that characterises allblacks in the US, whether the Caribbean, whoin London show this surprising degree ofassimilation through residence and intermar-riage, or the native American blacks. All intime are merged into a single group, with adegree of separation, concentration and isola-tion that is unique for American minorities.Ceri Peach at one point in his conclusionswrites `In New York, the sharpest divides areracial, between African-American and whites',I would edit that: the sharpest divides arebetween African-Americans and all others,regardless of race. Asian Americans±not dis-cussed in this paper although they will makeup 10% of the population of New York City bythe year 2000 ± show no greater willingness tolive with or intermarry with African-Amer-icans than others. And despite an economicstatus closer to that of the blacks, it would benaõÈve to think that Latinos translate thatstraightforwardly into a sense of commonalitywith blacks.

This remarkably distinct status of African-Americans in American society strikes mewithparticular force because I once believed that inNew York City at least, blacks were simply themost recent of the major immigrant groupsthat had successively transformed the city, andwould follow a similar course. The remarkabledegree of segregation or concentration of theblack population that could be observed inNew York City and in other northern cities inthe 1960s was, I believed, the expected result ofrecent immigration and population growth, inwhich little ghettos grew to be large ones. But itwould not be long before these began todisintegrate, and new areas of concentrationfor the upwardly mobile of the group woulddevelop, but areas in which the degree of

concentration would be much less. That wasthe experience of Italians and Jews in the ®rsthalf of the century. A second generation ofblacks, in New York, I believed, would showmore diffusion into the rest of the population, athird generation even more.This was my expectation in Beyond the

Melting Pot in 1963, and my expectation in anintroduction I wrote for a study of ethnic andracial segregation in New York City by NathanKantrowitz in 1973 (Ethnic and Racial Segrega-tion in the New York Metropolis. Praeger: NewYork), a study which Ceri Peach cites. Kan-trowitz argued that black concentration wasnot much greater than that to be found amonglong-resident European ethnic groups, and itcould be explained by recency of migration. Itwould decline. It has not worked out that way,as Ceri Peach's statistics, and the research ofMassey and Denton, show. This has to lead oneto conclude that the position of African-Americans in the US is unique and distinct,with no true parallels in any other group,immigrant or native. I leave out the self-isolating groups, such as the Amish andHasidim. New York City, alas, is not verydifferent from the rest of the US in this respect.What is the relevance of this to current

controversy? Stephen Thernstrom, the distin-guished historian and editor of the HarvardEncyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, alongwith Abigail Thernstrom, has recently pub-lished a big book on the position of blacks inthe US, America in Black andWhite (1998), whichhas been widely and controversially reviewed.They ask, how do blacks fare in Americatoday? How does the process of integrationgo? Very well, they argue. The very statistics ofresidential isolation that Massey and Dentonproduce to show the uniqueness of blackresidential isolation are reanalysed by theThernstroms to argue that isolation is beingbroken down. And indeed, a half-full glassmay be seen as half empty. But they do notcompare this isolation to that of other groups.The statistics of intermarriage that demon-strate the social uniqueness of African-Amer-icans are reanalysed by the Thernstroms toshow how rapid has been the rise in inter-marriage. Indeed, in percentage terms, therehas been a rapid rise, since the initial base wasso microscopic. Their argument as to the


350 Comment by N. Glazer

degree of success of the American multiracialand multi-ethnic society is quite transparentlydeveloped to uphold the reputation and imageof American society when it comes to race(and, indeed, compared with former Yugosla-via, Lebanon and Sri Lanka we have donequite well), and also to demonstrate that thespecial measures to raise black Americans thatwe sum up under the term `af®rmative action'are unnecessary and, for other reasons, un-wise.After 30 years, some decisive blows have

been struck against prejudice and discrimina-tion, and the position of African-Americans is

by some key measures vastly improved. Yetthe unique isolation of a good part of thispopulation continues. The President has calledus to a national conversation on race, which ofcourse has quite rapidly turned into a debate. Iwill not go further into these issues ± everyweek a few new books deal with them. Butwhat is clear to me from Ceri Peach's analysisis that in its relation to one group, the African-Americans, America is different, and NewYork City, despite its reputation for openness,tolerance, and welcome to immigrants, is notvery different from the rest of the US.


British and American Models of Segregation 351

comment on ‘london and new york: contrasts in british and american models of segregation’ by...

Documents