Even certain European groups whose whiteness seems unquestionable today were not considered full members of the white race one hundred years ago. In the late 1800s, Irish immigrants were considered to be closer to Africans than to the English and were often portrayed as apelike in caricatures. Italian newcomers were called Guineas, an epithet originally reserved for African Americans and derived from their motherland along the west coast of Africa. Scholars in a number of fields have puzzled over the question, How did the Irish, Italians, Slavs, and Jews “become white”?
