Question

1. Which racial and ethnic groups in America have been able to achieve the American Dream? Which groups have had a more difficult path? Why?

Answer 1

Ans) The idea of classifying and counting individuals by race was developed during the Revolutionary and Antebellum periods hwas deeply intertwined with legal status and citizenship rights at the time.

- The classification directed by Article I, Section 2 of the US Constitution distinguished between three groups for purposes of taxation and Congressional apportionment: “free persons” (including indentured servants), “other persons” (a euphemism for black slaves), and “Indians not taxed” (those living beyond areas of white settlement and control). Slaves were counted as only three-fifths of free persons, while “Indians not taxed” were not counted at all.

- While the Constitutional language obscures the color-coded nature of the classification (“Indian” is the only race referred to by name), the census classification was more explicit with respect to race. Between 1790 and 1810, census takers were instructed to report the number of free whites, free nonwhites, and slaves.

- The classification by race expanded to include the measurement of “mulattos”—persons of mixed black and white ancestry—and the “blood quantum”.