Yeah, sorry OP.
Racism has always and will always be a part of America’s identity. I’d go so far as to say I think it’s part of human nature, given how pervasive and common it’s been throughout all of human history.
The USA prided itself on a nation of immigrant, heck even the Statue of Liberty says it. When did immigrants (US citizens from the old world) become anti immigrant and why?
Submitted 4 hours ago by Patnou@lemmy.world to [deleted]
Comments
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
False@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
People hated immigrants DURING the time period you’re thinking of. And it wasn’t always a skin color thing either, the Irish were one of the big targets for a long time.
jqubed@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Italians were also targeted. Being from a Catholic country was sometimes enough to get targeted. Always found it funny (Woody Allen marriage funny, not Woody Allen film funny) that the Protestants who came to what is now Massachusetts seeking “religious freedom” meant it only for themselves and drove out anyone who didn’t subscribe to their views.
Plebcouncilman@sh.itjust.works 1 minute ago
You need to put it in context, many if not most of the denominations that came to America seeking religious freedom did so because continental Christians considered them extremists. So yes, they were seeking it only for themselves.
floo@retrolemmy.com 3 hours ago
The term “black Irish” didn’t come from nowhere
Hideakikarate@sh.itjust.works 2 hours ago
There was a reason businesses would put a sign out front that said “NINA”. No Irish Need Apply.
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 3 hours ago
It was always racism at it’s core.
European immigrants accepted immigrants as long as they were other European immigrants. At the same time they were encouraging immigrants, they were systematically eliminating the original inhabitants or forcing them to assimilate to European culture.
It’s always been a variation of white nationalism … they don’t mind the world becoming more open and inclusive … as long as it only includes other white European people and cultures.
protist@mander.xyz 3 hours ago
European immigrants accepted immigrants as long as they were other European immigrants.
This is just not the case. Read again
Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 55 minutes ago
One way the wealthy and powerful stay that way is by constantly promoting the narrative that it’s those poorer than you who are your enemy, not the bosses who starve you both.
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 4 hours ago
Everything can be summarized in one Chinese idiom (成语):
过河拆桥Aka: Crossing the river, then dismantle the bridge.
You’re already crossed it, why care about the bridge, you wont be using it anymore.ieatpwns@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
They pull up the ladder behind them
garbagebagel@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
So like burning your bridges in English? Although I guess that’s more for people. Maybe more like pulling up the ladder behind you.
lemmyng@piefed.ca 3 hours ago
The English version is "I got mine, fuck you."
Also applies to immigrant minorities who them vote conservative to keep other immigrants out.
NABDad@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
I think how generally “burning bridges” is used refers to not leaving yourself a way out. However in this case we’re talking about not leaving others a way in.
TimewornTraveler@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 hours ago
I love Chinese four letter aphorisms and I’m glad you shared this one but i dont think this really answers the when or the why 😛
eatCasserole@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Perhaps along with de-industrialization; as more labour is outsourced, less labour_ers_ are needed.
hddsx@lemmy.ca 2 hours ago
What and the conservative states trying to prosecute people in the Democrat states is 合久必分分？
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 2 hours ago
What?
Nah, that phrase more accurately applies to US Civil War.
flop_leash_973@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Its called “ladder pulling”.
frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io 4 hours ago
Within a single generation. My grandfather showed up here at 11 from Romania. Never became a US citizen. His son, my father, is a rabid anti-immigrant racist Fox News fan boy. It's disgusting. Ironically my mother's great-great grandmother lost her birthright citizenship by marrying a Finnish immigrant before the 14th amendment existed and had to reapply for her own citizenship along with her husband because women's status was tied to the male head of household at the time, and now he rants about how birthright citizenship is wrong, despite being the exact person who benefits from it.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
His son, my father, is a rabid anti-immigrant racist Fox News fan boy.
Ding!
Ask not for whom the right-wing propaganda tolls, rest-of-the-world, it tolls for thee
CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 4 hours ago
Here’s a wiki article about the topic, because it would be a bit much to list it all out in a lemmy comment: en.wikipedia.org/…/Nativism_in_United_States_poli…
TheFlopster@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Mostly personal opinion incoming, with a few facts mixed in: I think the message on the Statue of Liberty was what the best of us at the time wanted the majority of us to be. I’m not sure we ever were.
First we get the Puritans, wiping out Native Americans, and trying to push their religion on everyone.
Then you get the slave trade, which is not immigration, but a large influx of a new population regardless, that was suddenly a problem for some when those people were free and citizens.
Then you get the Ellis Island years. Immigrants would get here, get sucked into “the American dream” of capitalism (which can help only very specific people), then want to close the door behind them. That way none of the new, filthy immigrants from (insert ethnic/religious group of your choice) could get the same advantages. But everyone kept coming.
Now, in power due to the way everything got handled (badly) after our civil war, you have a combination of the religious right, who want christianity to continue to be number one, and the racists, who want to make sure their daughter doesn’t sleep with anyone who’s the wrong color. They were always here, festering in the background, but now they’ve gained power, and they’re louder than before.
The rest of us are still here, suffering, watching the country we were told was great reveal its ugliest population to everyone. I’m left wondering if we were ever a country who actually wanted immigrants. Or if it was merely aspirational.
Steve@communick.news 2 hours ago
Blaming immigrants is classic political trope.
Right along with blaming the poor.Even when the nation was welcoming immigrants, handing them a weapon, and shoving them to the front line. They were being denigrated and demonized by other Americans.
SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
The Unites States was founded by religious extremists who were pressured to leave their community because of their extremist Christian beleifs.
Until we force wealth equality people in the US will not be equal.
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 4 hours ago
As soon as they settled down and thought, now they have got something to loose.
Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org 2 hours ago
The Statue of Liberty wasn't something commissioned by the USA. It was just how one French guy saw us. The New Colossus is not law, it's a poem.
We've never really been proud of immigration. The only President with a reasonable take on immigrants was Teddy Roosevelt - and his belief was that the only path forward is full assimilation.
slazer2au@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
When immigrants from the “wrong” country started applying.
What is the wrong country? What ever the media says it currently is.
muntedcrocodile@hilariouschaos.com 2 hours ago
The us has always been anti illegal immigration and accepting of legal immigration. Its incredibly harmful that the 2 concepts are being combined and treated the same now.
Fondots@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
The us has always been anti illegal immigration
The US actually made it almost the first hundred years of its history without many meaningful immigration laws
I’m sure someone will argue otherwise, but one thing commonly cited as the first US immigration law was the steerage act of 1819, which was pretty much just “you can’t overcrowd your ships, you have to have enough food and water for everyone, you have to have a list of your passengers and account for anyone who died on the way”
So not really limiting immigration, more making sure that the ships bringing immigrants here were providing at least basic livable conditions for the trip.
Immigration overland was totally unregulated.
And with some minor alterations here and there, that was pretty much the state of things until the 1870s and 80s with the Page Act and Chinese Exclusion Act. Until then there really wasn’t such a thing as “illegal immigration” and borders were pretty much wide-open.
To be thorough, between 1776 and the Page Act, we did have the Alien Friends and Alien Enemies acts to allow the US to deport non-citizen immigrants under certain circumstances, and we took a few steps forwards and backwards at times regarding the naturalization process, but we also had the 14th amendment and “An Act to Encourage Immigration” in there as well.
And of course after that, shit went downhill pretty damn quickly.
So it’s a bit of a mixed bag, but again for almost half of US history there really wasn’t any such thing as “illegal” immigration for anyone to be against (general anti-immigrant sentiments are another story)
count_dongulus@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Anti-immigrant sentiment in the US has been a thing for hundreds of years. Consider watching Scorcese’s “Gangs of New York” for a (fictionally dramatized) depiction of it in times past.
As for why mass deportations are possible today - - until the late 1800s, immigration to the US was essentially unregulated. The Chinese Exclusion Act and later systems of quotas and literacy tests introduced around the turn of the 20th century instituted the first national immigration policies.
I frankly don’t find it unfair or unreasonable that the US government’s executive branch has chosen to enforce existing immigration laws for political gain. Americans should change their immigration laws if they get upset when they’re actually enforced. If anything, the executive branch was utterly failing to enforce laws that representatives had placed and kept on the books for a long time. If you want more immigrants, make it easy and legal to receive more immigrants without tests, long wait periods, or country of origin quotas.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
See the 1947 US Army video: “Don’t be a Sucker”:
archive.org/details/DontBeaS1947
It’s always been a hypocritical ideal. Even the US Army acknowledged our xenophobic tendencies, and the constant struggle against them. That’s the point.
…But I think the radical shift of the “attention economy” is what makes it feel like the ideal is finally collapsing. The population is sucked into doomscrolling Fox News (for example) at such scale that makes this US Army video feel quant. If they did the same thing today, no one would even notice.
the_q@lemmy.zip 1 hour ago
Lead and propaganda.
sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 4 hours ago
Owner class wants cheap slaves... But they don't want to be blamed for it.
So they got Indigenous population to blame the slaves while they exploit both.
Indigenous Americans are just useful idiots fighting culture wars. They should know better but propaganda be good!
HubertManne@piefed.social 2 hours ago
Once we took everything from the natives fully to the west coast we stopped being keen on it.
dangling_cat@piefed.blahaj.zone 4 hours ago
Because immigrants don’t participate in politics. They are too busy to do actual work that creates value for the country instead of voting or being social butterflies and running champions.
Lembot_0004@discuss.online 4 hours ago
Somewhere after the Great War. No idea why though.
Successful_Try543@feddit.org 4 hours ago
There have been resentments against different groups of immigrants even before, e.g. Italians, Irish, or Chinese.
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
There’s a great fictional movie called Gangs of New York that covers the real life anti immigration riots that happened in New York City during the civil war.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 hour ago
Daniel Day Lewis is so good in it
BakerBagel@midwest.social 19 minutes ago
They became anti-immigrant once they had kids and saw other people arriving to the boat. My sister in law’s family are refugees from El Salvador. Now they are all raging Trumpers, despite half of them not being naturalized yet.