how the jews became white

In the chapter “How Jews Became White” Brodkin’s thesis states, “Instead I want to suggest that Jewish success is s product not only of ability but also of the removal of powerful social barriers to its realization.” She is saying that the Jews had a lot to overcome to get where they are now, and that they overcame the hatred and the racism and the social constraints that were upon them. They were a hated race, but they worked hard to overcome that.
In the beginning of the chapter she starts off by telling a story of how her parents grew up expecting to be hated, and expected to be a part of daily life that was all about racism. She goes on talking about the separation between the Jews and the whites, talking about how some of the Jewish families had to live in different neighborhoods, and even in some cases they were not allowed to attend school. She then goes on a couple paragraphs later to say why all of this ended. She said that the racism with Jews ended because of World War II. She describes how the people that were once before members of society who were going to be deported, were now middle class white citizens. She says this also had to do with changing society, “It was the biggest and best affirmative action program in the history of our nation,” and what happened in this event was the poor people suddenly became educated and could get jobs.
Is there reasoning to believe that the Jews were the only ones being treated this way? Absolutely not, all of the races minus the white race were being treated unfairly like this, races such as “Racism against all southern and eastern European immigrants, as well as against Asian immigrants, not to mention African Americans, Native Americans, and Mexicans.” So, the Jews were not the only ones being treated that way, there were other races who were under unfair treatment just like they were.
This chapter was easy to read and had a lot of good information in it. I think that it is such a good chapter because it is so authentic and so true, because of her own real life experiences that she includes in the chapter.