[Marxism] Was there ever a movement of "the 'white' U.S. working class"?

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxx>]

        I ask the question not to suggest that there has never been a
workers movement "worthy of the name" in the United States, i.e., a social
movement, a class-for-itself movement, based on the identity of workers as
such, as workers. There clearly was, from the late 1800's until WWII or
shortly thereafter, at least as I view things.

        But immigrant workers and communities played a huge role in that
period. 

        How much of the social base of the WORKERS movement was immigrant or
second generation or from specially identified communities that were still
regarded as --to use terminology from today-- not fully "white"? 

        I'm thinking in terms of the Germans, the Irish and Scandinavians,
as well as, obviously, the later East and Southern European immigrations of
the turn of the (last) century.

        I don't question that among these layers there may have been a lot
of racism, and they viewed Blacks as inferiors. But I do question whether
these layers perceived themselves as the social equal of WASPs (White
Anglo-Saxon Protestants), in other words, whether there wasn't a
national/ethnic/racial dimension to a movement whose protagonists may have
viewed as simply and solely a class movement.

        I don't doubt for a moment if someone were to say Joe Hill
identified as an "American" as I once read somewhere, I can't even remember
where, that this was true. But I suspect being "American" would have meant
something quite different to Joe Hill than what it wound up meaning to the
generation of white "ethnics" that went through World War II, and afterwards
found that they had become as "free, white, and 21" as direct descendants of
the Mayflower invaders.

        I am sure there's been tons written about "the immigrant experience"
in the U.S. in the period between the civil war and the second world war,
what I would hope to find is a summary book or even better yet, two or three
substantial articles that examine the social base of working class
radicalism of those years, the class structures of immigrant communities,
the assimilation of Italians, Jews and so on viewed not as something that
immigrant communities did, but as something that "WASP"-dominated (White
Anglo-Saxon Protestant) society did.

        Obviously there's a hypothesis --and in reality not so much, call it
a suspicion-- behind my query. I suspect that at least a significant part of
what validated or allowed working-class identity to flourish among certain
working class layers was that "ethnically" they were in an inferior social
status ... and it is a very different response to social denigration than a
straight-up "nationalism of the oppressed" response. But also, it must have
had to do with the social composition of those immigrant communities at the
time, i.e., very heavily proletarian and overwhelmingly working people, and
no significant "inherited wealth"/coupon clipper layer, as already existed
among the WASPs.

        And it had to do ALSO with the massive entrance of Blacks into the
industrial factory proletariat in the 1940's and 1950's, replacing
immigrants at the bottom of the ladder in cities like Chicago, Cleveland and
Detroit. 

        Again, this is not a POSITION I hold, just a tentative hypothesis or
suspicion about ONE aspect -- and not necessarily the dominant one -- of the
social and political evolution of the U.S. and the workers movement in this
country.

*  *  *

        The subject matter of this query has been in the back of my mind for
some time, but what's prompted me to ask now is watching "The Godfather"
with my 13-year-old-son, and his cracks about how the Italians were the
"beaners" of those days (i.e., Latinos -- he's a big Carlos Mencía fan, and
if you're not, all I can say is "get thee to YouTube and watch": even in his
bleached comedy central "mind of Mencía" reincarnation, it is well worth
it).

        And all parental pride, chip of the old block, poor child
brainwashed by his father BS aside, it did seem pretty blatant. There's a
point towards the end (of the first movie) where Vito Corleone tells Michael
he hadn't wanted this for him (i.e., running the "family business") but had
dreamed of Michael becoming Senator Corleone, Governor Corleone, but there
just hadn't been enough time. And Luke asked the obvious question -- has
there ever been an Italian president? And I answered no, there had been lots
of gangster presidents, but never an Italian one. To which he responded,
yeah the biggest gangsters are white, but when they make a movie they say
it's the Italians. 

        I'm sure most Anglos who see that scene see it as strictly a FAMILY
thing, the last name could have been O'Hara or even Lincoln, and probably
that is what the creators of the movie had in mind, it is even explicitly
stated in Vito Corleone's statements about not apologizing for taking care
of his family and not submitting to the big shots and stuff. But even if not
conscious, the social resonance is there, strong enough to reach a
13-year-old sensitized to these issues.

        The implications are obvious, at least to me. The WWP --I think--
makes the argument that, in essence, the class question collapses into the
question of oppressed nationalities. But leaving aside issues like
liquidating the national question into the class question that might arise
from some interpretations of those kinds of statements, I think the idea
that in THIS country it's never been any different is one fraught with
possibilities.

Joaquin


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