Some Observations of Marginal Man in the United States

Abstract

The main barrier to the assimilation of the Mongoloid, and the Negroid Races in the United States is not mental but physical. Anthropologists are more or less agreed that there is no such thing as a superior or distinct race. If given an equal opportunity, the Chinese, the Japanese, and other racial groups would measure-up as well as some of the white foreign born, in the process of sharing American ideals. The taboos against the color of a man's skin have been upheld by sentiments better known as race prejudice, not only in the United States, but in many of the European States. It has so happened that some of the yellow-brown and black racial groups have sanctioned amalgamation or intermarriage, in many sections of the United States, particularly where their cultures are identical. The writer has had an opportunity to observe this intermarriage in four distinct areas of the United States where he has lived: (1) amalgamation of Mexicans and Negroes as seen in the Red River and Sixth Street district of Austin, and in the New Braunfels Avenue and East Commerce Street district of San Antonio, Texas; (2) amalgamation as seen between the Mexicans and Negroes in Chicago's West side, better known as the Maxwell Street district; (3) amalgamation of the Creoles and Negroes as seen in the Black Belt section of Shreveport, and in the seventh, ninth and fourteenth wards of New Orleans, La., and (4) amalgamation as seen between Puerto Ricans, Spaniards, Negroes, Filipinos, Portuguese, Hindoos, West Indians, and others. in New York's Harlem, particularly around 116th Street and Seventh Avenue. Definition of Marginal Man. What do we mean by Marginal Man? Does marginal man mean a participant in two or more cultures? In this connection, Young states: