Although technically/legally, the term "free white person" included Eastern Europeans, Irish, Italians, and Jews, ethnically those groups were certainly seen as different & less than other white ethnicities, and were treated accordingly i.e. subject to gross generalizations/racialization and excluded from holding sociopolitical power. Th…
Although technically/legally, the term "free white person" included Eastern Europeans, Irish, Italians, and Jews, ethnically those groups were certainly seen as different & less than other white ethnicities, and were treated accordingly i.e. subject to gross generalizations/racialization and excluded from holding sociopolitical power. The idea of "whiteness" here is that white anglo-saxon protestants held the most power for the longest period of time in the US. Not so much about genes but about (perceived) ethnicity.
Although technically/legally, the term "free white person" included Eastern Europeans, Irish, Italians, and Jews, ethnically those groups were certainly seen as different & less than other white ethnicities, and were treated accordingly i.e. subject to gross generalizations/racialization and excluded from holding sociopolitical power. The idea of "whiteness" here is that white anglo-saxon protestants held the most power for the longest period of time in the US. Not so much about genes but about (perceived) ethnicity.
My grandfather personally experienced NINA, No Irish Need Apply.