As more and more immigrants arrived in the U.S., they were not automatically placed in a middle caste or shunted into the subordinate one. Black people continued to remain the “floor” of American society, and the minorities who found themselves participating in the caste system also began dehumanizing Black people. By making whiteness (or even close association with white people) seem valuable to these new immigrants, the caste system continued to perpetuate itself in an entirely new group of people.