It's still that way today to some degree. However, for example, if you were Irish or Scottish or Italian often you were discriminated against in the 1800s when you first arrived and might not get a job. Your home (if you built one) might be burned down, for example, because of ethnic hatreds.
Today people often focus on Racial differences simply because ethnic ones are less of a problem now than they were in the 1950s when I was a child. But, ethnic problems from my own point of view could be worse than racial problems in the 1950s. Why?
Because races were kept separate still in the 1950s so if you were of a different race you lived in a ghetto of one kind or another. So, in the 1950s for example, you might not ever see someone of a different race at all unless you watched them on TV.
However, different ethnic groups might not live in a ghetto then and might live next door to you. For example, my father's side was originally from Switzerland and my mother side came from Scotland but we lived on streets where Italians and Scottish and Irish and English all got along okay in the suburbs of Los Angeles and San Diego.
People in California have always been known to be less racist and less discriminatory towards other ethnic groups. I think this came from how everyone in California hasn't lived here very long (except for the California native Americans). Also, Californians tend to move around a lot more than people from other places too like we easily move from San Francisco, to Los Angeles or to San Diego or wherever. People in California just are very mobile generally and don't always put down roots like people from other areas as much. It's just a different much more mobile way of thinking.
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