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This would not be the first time. Between 1920 and 1950 or so, as we have seen, “white” came to incorporate Jews, Italians, and other groups that had been considered separate races. Irish became “white” earlier; Arabs, Pakistanis, and Asian Indians later. Chinese Americans were admitted to “white” public schools in the Mississippi Delta in the 1930s and ’40s. Today, “white” may be incorporating most Asian, Pacific, Mexican, and affluent Native Americans. Certainly their acceptance in sundown towns implies as much.
This process offers payoffs for “real” whites. For one, the oft-repeated claim that whites will be a minority by 2040 or 2050 may not come to pass: “white” may simply morph into a broader category by then. Also, whites have often used their acceptance of “honorary whites” to avoid the charge of racism. Sundown town residents are quick to cite their Mexican and Asian Americans to prove that they are not prejudiced, even though they still do exclude African Americans. Admitting Hispanics and Asian Americans may help make these groups more racist over time, as it did Chinese Americans in Mississippi (see Loewen,
The Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White
[Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1988], 93, 195–200).