In late nineteenth-century debates on American immigration, many scholars and government officials privileged immigrants from northern Europe over those from southern Europe, such as Italians and Greeks, because the officials felt these southern people were a separate and inferior biological race with primitive ways. This is an example of

a. elitism.
b. ethnocentrism.
c. genocide.
d. ethnocide.

b.ethnocentrism.                                              

Explanation:

Ethnocentrism is a term that is being determined as an individual's belief that the customs, norms, traditions, values, and ideology of his or her subculture or culture are considered as superior to that of the characters of some other cultural setting. In other words, it is described as a process through which a person feels that his or her culture is the correct way of 'living'. Ethnocentrism was proposed by William Graham Sumner during 1906.

As per the question, the correct answer is ethnocentrism.

answer; american middle class;