Legal whiteness did not confer social privileges of whiteness

Evidence

For more than a century, American identity was defined by Anglo-Saxon culture and Protestantism. As a result, European Jews, Catholics, and Mormons—who were legally White—could not attain the full social, political, and economic benefits of their legal status. They were an “in-between race.” As a result, they experienced myriad forms of systemic discrimination arising from the racialization of their non-Protestant religions. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 354

Although being Christian was not necessary for attaining legal citizenship, being socially raced as White was. As a result, the millions of European Jewish and Catholic immigrants who were White by law did not receive the social, economic, and political privileges of Whiteness. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 227

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s work on ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ — both concern how religion/identity markers gate full social membership. — connects to: Irish admission to whiteness had to be earned, not guaranteed by skin color. — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 231; Whiteness can be intermittently granted and revoked for non-Western groups — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian…, 48; Whiteness was a legally contested category that the Irish did not automatically possess — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 150 (+1 more)
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 354; Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 227