American Cold War Hospitality: Portraying Societal Acceptance and Class Mobility of Mexican, Cuban, and Chinese Immigrants in 1950s Sitcoms

Abstract

abstract:This article explores how 1950s television producers and corporate sponsors used situation comedies to address critiques of capitalism and US race relations through portrayals of middle-class accessibility for Mexican, Cuban, and Chinese immigrants. Emphasizing their foreignness, they portrayed these immigrants as welcome members of US society, embraced as friends by white Americans who helped them assimilate to show they faced no obstacles to class mobility due to discrimination. If immigrants struggled to join the middle class, it was because of personal shortcomings related to cultural backwardness, which emphasized the importance of assimilation.