European religious minorities faced legal discrimination despite legal whiteness

Evidence

Less than one hundred years ago, Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and Catholic immigrants from Southern Europe and Ireland faced the indignities of second-class citizenship—in large part due to their religious identities. They were barred from applying to high-status jobs, living in affluent White neighborhoods, and attending elite schools. Mainstream American society stereotyped Jews as greedy, dishonest, duplicitous, and loyal only to so-called World Jewry. Meanwhile, Catholics were stereotyped as superstitious, slavish, and blindly loyal to the pope in Rome over the United States, their nation of citizenship. Political conflicts in immigrants’ countries of origin attracted suspicions that these new immigrant communities were disloyal. Even Mormons, who were US born and of Anglo-Saxon origin, were excluded from American national identity because Protestants deemed their prophet, Joseph Smith, a heretic. Mormons’ practice of polygamy and intermarriage with Native Americans made them a cultural and security threat to the state. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 1069

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the reader’s kept knowledge on how ‘undesired’ European immigrant groups (Irish, Italians, Jews) were once racialized before being absorbed into whiteness - connects to David Roediger and Noel Ignatiev lineage.
• SEED: Strong material for an essay on the historical precursors to Muslim American discrimination - the pattern of religious identity triggering state and social exclusion.