Ethnic Studies Midterm Exam Questions

Just Midterm questions

In 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a speech to the Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society titled "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" True or False: In this speech he argues that the 4th of July is solely a celebration of white Americans' freedom. 

True

A teacher gives more detentions to Black students than to students of any other race.

Individual

Because of factors like historical housing segregation by race, wealth disparities along racial lines, and growing reliance on parent donations due to public funding cuts to education, students in whiter suburban schools have access to more educational opportunities than students in poorer urban communities that are largely non-white.

Structural

A university's admissions policies give an advantage to children of wealthy alumni, leading to a whiter student population

organizational

The process by which social, economic, and political forces determine the content and importance of racial categories, and by which they are in turn shaped by racial meanings is:

Racial formation

A set of interpretative codes and racial meanings, which operate in the interaction of daily life, are called:

Racial etiquette

The ruling in the Susie Phipps case in Louisiana supported the logic of _________________________, where her distant Black ancestry meant she was considered Black though she believed she was white.

hypodescent

The term that refers to the extension of racial meaning to a previously racially unclassified group, relationship, or social practice is:

racialization

Omi and Winant argue that colonizers adopted the worldview of polygenesis as a means to explain why some people should be enslaved and others not and why some people should be property owners and others not.

True

Each of the following definitions of RACISM (by Beverly Tatum or Albert Memmi) takes into account how social power and hierarchy shapes the impact that discrimination based on race has EXCEPT:

preconceived judgement, stereotype, or opinion of different races

Which amendment gave African American men the right to vote?

15th Amendment

Which amendment ended slavery?

13th Amendment

Which amendment extended citizenship to individuals born in the U.S., guaranteed citizens due process, and equal protection under the law?

14th Amendment

According to Pem Buck in “Derailing Rebellion,” the psychological wage was

racial superiority

Each of the following are examples of the ways that white privilege and power were legally or socially constructed EXCEPT:

Lord Dunmore's Proclamation (1775) in the colony of Virginia, which offered freedom to enslaved Africans who would serve in the British army against the colonists.

With the Emancipation Proclamation, President Abraham Lincoln did not end slavery in the United States—only slavery in areas that were resisting the Union.

True

Each of the following describes settler colonialism EXCEPT:

involves the acculturation of settlers into the language, culture, and knowledge of the Indigenous Peoples in the newly settled lands.

The 1830 North Carolina state law that forbade teaching Black slaves to read and write prefaces the law by claiming that teaching them to read and write would create:

dissatisfaction in their minds

The California Supreme Court case that barred Chinese and Chinese Americans from testifying for or against any Caucasian was:

People v. Hall

As discussed in Dr. Soldatenko's lecture, after the "Second Reconstruction" and with the Washington v. Davis (1976) decision, the US Supreme Court shifts toward "colorblind" decisions that had disparate (or unequal) impact on people of color.

In Washington, Black applicants sued the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia for employment discrimination because a test essentially weeded out Black applicants so that the result was that fewer Black applicants were hired as police officers.

True or False: The US Supreme Court ruled that the test or application process was constitutional because, though it had racially unequal impact or results, the process was equal for all applicants. 

True

The "intent barrier" or "doctrine of discriminatory purpose" in court cases means that plaintiffs have the burden of proving there was racist intention or motivation, regardless of the discriminatory outcome. 

True

In McCleskey v. Kemp (1987), the US Supreme Court decided that even if the State of Georgia prosecutors did not intentionally seek out the death penalty more often in cases where a Black person killed a white person (than when a white person killed a Black person), the fact that Black defendants disproportionately ended up with the death penalty meant that the sentencing was racially discriminatory and thus unconstitutional. 

False

As discussed in Dr. Soldetenko’s lecture, the Voting Rights Act (1965) was key in protecting representation of racial minorities in politics by banning requirements or practices that prevent people from voting based on their race or color. This included preventing states from creating gerrymandered districts that limited or diluted representation of people of color.

As a result of the US Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais (2026), the United States Supreme Court eroded the 1965 Voting Rights Act by:

Denying African Americans representation by reversing the creation of a second Black majority congressional district in the state of Louisiana.

For a democracy to exist, equality between citizens must exist. In the history of the United States, we have seen how racial inequality persisted by excluding different groups from citizenship.

Each of the following laws or cases excluded racialized group(s) from citizenship EXCEPT:  

14th Amendment

Which two acts led to the rapid loss of Native American lands to the US and white settlers?

1830 Indian Removal Act; 1887 Dawes Act

American Indian boarding schools are a prime example of:

Cultural Genocide

Who founded the first off-reservation and federally funded American Indian boarding school?

Richard Pratt

The US had an economic motivation for establishing American Indian Boarding Schools because it was cheaper to send a child to school to erase their Native American identity than to kill Native Americans through war.

True

The Boarding School Healing Project put forward three possibilities for collective reparations due to the abuses in American Indian boarding schools that include all of the following EXCEPT:

individual payments

Deb Miranda argues that the way that California Mission history and history of California Indians are taught also contributes to the cultural genocide of California Indians. 

True

According to the US Commission on Civil Rights, “Traditional civil rights, as the phrase is used here, include those rights that are secured to individuals and are basic to the United States system of government. They include the right to vote and the right to equal treatment without discrimination on the basis of race, religions, or national origin, among others, in such areas as education, housing, employment, public accommodations, and the administration of justice.”

For the Boarding School Healing Project, the abuses of the American Indian boarding schools are human rights violations and not merely civil rights violations for the following reasons EXCEPT:

Civil rights laws originated as laws with the aim of "civilizing" Native American and Indigenous peoples.

To challenge the constitutionality of the 1890 Louisiana Separate Car Law, Homer Plessy purposely rode on a white car as a person with 1/8 Black ancestry, got arrested, and appealed the case up to the US Supreme Court. 

True

Plessy v. Ferguson utilized property law primarily to protect:

white men's reputations

While Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka declared segregation unconstitutional, what allowed for the enforcement of school desegregation? Please select the best answer.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act because it allowed federal government to cut funding to schools that remained segregated.

Brown v. Board of Education (1954) was the Supreme Court case that (select TWO answers):

Struck down the “separate but equal” doctrine ; Declared racial segregation of public schools across the nation unconstitutional

In Brown v. Board of Education (1954), what did the US Supreme Court mean when it pointed to "intangible considerations" for why schools should be desegregated? There are 3 correct answers.

Keeping schools racially segregated impacts a student's ability to engage in discussions and exchange views with other students; Keeping schools racially segregated impacts a student's ability to study and learn their profession; Separating students of color solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority and affects their hearts and minds.

The US Supreme Court approved busing to desegregate schools in 1971. True or False: This was a productive strategy for desegregating schools since schools were still racially segregated through residential segregation.

True

In which of the following cases did the courts rule in favor of the plaintiff, deciding that it was unlawful for the school exclude students of color from attending a white school?

Mendez et al. v. Westminster School District of Orange County (1947)

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)

Roberto Alvarez v. the Board of Trustees of the Lemon Grove School District (1931)

Tape v. Hurley (1885)

Which court case first desegregated public schools across an entire state in the U.S.?

Méndez v. Westminster

According to Teaching Tolerance essay “Brown v. Board – Where Are We Now?”, integrated schools provide benefits to both white and non-white children including increased academic excellence, more civic involvement, and better preparation for diverse workplaces.

True

What arguments did the proponents of segregated schools make for separating white and non-white students?

Teaching staff for Americanization schools argued that, in contrast to white students, Mexican students had limited ability and only needed training for agriculture and domestic work.

The defense in the Mendez v. Westminster case argued that Plessy v. Ferguson established that students could be racially segregated as long as the school facilities were equal.

In Lemon Grove, the school trustees believed that having Mexican children attend white schools produced sanitary and moral disorders.

In Alvarez v. Lemon Grove (1931), the school districts' lawyers claimed that segregation was necessary since they assumed Mexican students did not know English and would feel inferior to white students.

Which of the following is true about the Plenary Power Doctrine?

The Plenary Power Doctrine means that US Supreme Court gives full power to Congress and the President to determine issues of national sovereignty and security, like immigration laws--even if the law might discriminate against a specific race or nationality.

TWO (2) correct statements about California state Proposition 187:

Prop 187, known as the “Save our State (SOS)” law, was passed by California voters and would deny social services, education, and health care to undocumented immigrants.

Prop 187 never went into effect because it was challenged in court as a state’s attempt to control immigration, which is a federal responsibility.

According to Ian Haney López in "Racial Restrictions in the Law of Citizenship," starting from 1870, the right to become a naturalized citizen was slowly expanded until 1952, when race and nationality were no longer a consideration for who could apply to become a US citizen.

True

Each of the following laws or legal cases affirmed the principle of jus solis or "birthright citizenship" (where citizenship accrues to "all" born within the nation's jurisdiction) EXCEPT:

Dred Scott v Sandford

The effect of increased immigration enforcement increased the net number of undocumented migrants by stopping the circular flow of migrants in and out of the United States.

True

Aviva Chomsky, in her article, "Undocumented: How Immigrants Became Illegal," notes how "Congress has repeatedly created new categories of nonwhite people who were specifically cast as workers." Which of the following is an example of how the US has created an exploitable class of nonwhite workers? Please select the best answer.

By denying the right of citizenship to Chinese and through immigration exclusion.

Through laws and programs that either limited legal status of Mexican workers as temporary or made Mexican workers deportable.

By legalizing slavery, creating slave codes, and later denying the right to vote to African Americans.

What drives migration of low-wage, informal, and seasonal labor to the US?

Aviva Chomsky offers each of the following explanations EXCEPT:

An individual sense of adventure and pursuit of opportunity.

Each of the following describes the 1965 Immigration & Nationality Act/Hart-Celler Act and/or its results EXCEPT:

The act made deportations mandatory for immigrants that committed a broad category of crimes, resulting in mass deportations of refugees.

How does the "They Keep Coming" immigration narrative described by historian Erika Lee shape immigration and deportation policies? Check all that apply.

The intentional and persistent use in political discourse of the phrase "illegal alien" to describe undocumented migrants helps to increase border enforcement policies and resources instead of addressing the structural reasons for mass migrations.

Political cartoons in the 19th century depicting Chinese laborers as taking over jobs from white working class men led to Congress passing immigration exclusion act.

President Trump started his second term signing executive orders describing undocumented migration as an "invasion" and attempted ban on granting citizenship to children born in the US with mothers that are undocumented or on a temporary visa.

The first U.S. law that specifically denied entry of a racial or ethnic working group into the U.S. and lasted over fifty years was the:

Chinese Exclusion Act

Executive Order 9066 (1942) authorized the military to remove all Japanese and Japanese Americans from the West Coast of the United States, including children, the elderly, and the disabled.

True

Immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japanese immigrant men like Yuri Kochiyama's father were immediately detained under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which lets the US President order the detention and even deportation of natives and citizens of an enemy nation without due process and based only on their nation of birth/citizenship.

True

All of the following are contexts for the mid-twentieth century shift from Yellow Peril to Model Minority stereotypes of Asian Americans EXCEPT:

An economic recession in the US that created more competition with immigrants for jobs.

Noy Thrupkaew in "The Myth of the Model Minority" makes the following arguments critiquing the model minority myth EXCEPT

Asian Americans exemplify how other minorities should behave by working hard, focusing on their families, and striving for the American Dream.

Southeast Asian American refugees from wars in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam had the lowest rate of participation in welfare programs out of any ethnic group in the US despite needing help with basic needs, language assistance, psychological care, and job training.

False

Which of the following is NOT true about Yuri Kochiyama: 

She advocated for Asian Americans to work hard and not rely on government assistance, or else they would be treated poorly like Black and Chicano communities.