To be told you do not fully belong can leave a deep mark. It can shape where you feel safe, how you see yourself, and whether you believe the country’s promises were ever meant for you. America has long spoken in the language of freedom and equality, but it has also drawn lines around who gets to be seen as fully American. When people talk about “the other,” they are naming those who have been pushed outside that line—kept close enough to be part of the country, but never fully welcomed into it.
The “Other” Is Not One Fixed Group
There has never been just one “other.” The label has shifted depending on the time, place, and who had social or political power. At different moments in U.S. history, Native Americans, enslaved Black people and later Black citizens, immigrants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Asians, Latinos, and many others have been pushed into that outsider role. The exact target changes, but the pattern stays familiar: a group is marked as different, suspicious, dangerous, or less deserving.
How This Has Played Out in American History
From the beginning, Native peoples were treated as obstacles to expansion rather than as nations with their own rights and histories. Black Americans were dehumanized through slavery and then denied equal treatment for generations under segregation. Immigrants have often been welcomed for their labor but feared for their language, customs, or religion. At different times, Irish and Italian Catholics were viewed with suspicion, Jewish communities faced exclusion, Chinese immigrants were singled out by law, Japanese Americans were interned during World War II, and Muslim and Latino communities have often been cast as threats in modern political debates. In each case, the message was similar: these people are here, but they do not fully belong.
Why Societies Create an “Other”
Creating an “other” can make people in the majority feel more united. It gives them a simple story: we are the normal, rightful insiders, and they are the problem. That kind of thinking can be politically useful. Leaders can use it to stir up fear, win support, justify unfair laws, or distract people from deeper problems like inequality, economic stress, or political conflict. In other words, “othering” is not just about difference—it is about power.
Why This Question Still Matters
Asking who the “other” is helps us see an important truth about America: exclusion is not an accident at the edges of the story. It has often been part of how the story was told. But history also shows something else. Every time a group was pushed outside the circle, people fought to widen that circle. So the real question is not only who has been treated as “the other,” but also how Americans choose, again and again, whether this country will be built on fear of difference or on a broader idea of belonging.
In the simplest terms, the “other” is anyone a society pushes to the margins and treats as less American, less trustworthy, or less human. Who fills that role has changed over time. The habit of creating outsiders has not.
Minister A Francine Green I June 2026