2008-09 Feinberg Series: The House We Live In Film Screening and Discussion
The 2008-09 Feinberg Series presents a film screening and discussion of The House We Live In.
This is a part of "From Race: The Power of an Illusion," a series on race in society, science and history, hosted by Jennifer Hamilton, an assistant professor of legal studies at Hampshire College.
From the filmmakers: "If race doesn't exist biologically, what is it? And why should it matter? Our final episode, The House We Live In, is the first film about race to focus not on individual attitudes and behavior but on the ways our institutions and policies advantage some groups at the expense of others. Its subject is the 'unmarked' race: white people. We see how benefits quietly and often invisibly accrue to white people, not necessarily because of merit or hard work, but because of the racialized nature of our laws, courts, customs, and perhaps most pertinently, housing.
"The film begins by looking at the massive immigration from eastern and southern Europe early in the 20th century. Italians, Hebrews, Greeks and other ethnics were considered by many to be separate races. Their 'whiteness' had to be won. But who was white? The 1790 Naturalization Act had limited naturalized citizenship to 'free, white persons.' Many new arrivals petitioned the courts to be legally designated white in order to gain citizenship. Armenians, known as 'Asiatic Turks,' succeeded with the help of anthropologist Franz Boas, who testified on their behalf as an expert scientific witness."
The Thursday Film Series is free and open to the public.
This event is co-sponsored by the Lively Arts program, the Fine Arts Center and the Department of Music and Dance at UMass Amherst.
