Running red, white, and blue through the veins of the United States, xenophobia still beats at the heart of modern day American society.
“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” asked former President Trump during a discussion amongst white house officials surrounding the immigration crisis in the United States. In January of 2018, President Trump met with lawmakers to discuss moving forward on immigration deals, particularly those coming from Haiti and several countries in Africa. His blatantly racist and harmful remarks are a prime example of how xenophobia is still very much alive in the US.
Birthed by the lawmakers, and later adopted by the citizens, xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments have plagued the very fabric of American society for since the birth of the nation and has much deeper roots in US policy making than most would like to believe. To some, the idea of xenophobia in the US is a thing of the past; something that was practiced by the older generations and is no longer existing in the current government. Although a concept that would be optimal, this statement is simply not true.
Fabricated and enforced in the laws and policies created by the US government, ranging from over a century ago, xenophobia still has a tight grip over the American population today and their perspectives on immigrants and “the other.” Exemplified in comments made by presidents, to public demonstrations and protests, whether Americans like it or not, xenophobia is still a part of American everydaylife, and is very much still alive at the heart of the United States.
Discriminatory xenophobic attitudes that are witnessed today can be directly traced back to laws passed with the intent of exclusion, keeping immigrants out of American society, and “protecting American sovereignty.” Although passed under different names and, or made under different pretenses, the laws passed regarding immigration in the last decade tend to carry similar intentions to the laws made by our predecessors.
Dating back to the genocide of Native Americans and the treatment of the enslaved African American after the 13th amendment, xenophobia has always existed in the US; however, in the late 19th century and early 20th century is when it reared its ugly head again during the mass immigration movements, linking itself directly to racial and ethnic discrimination. From policies directly banning and excluding immigrants from entering the US solely based on their race, to effects on the social hierarchies on how citizens were allowed to live, these xenophobic attitudes ingrained itself in every aspect of American life.
One of the determinants of legal immigration occurred on the basis of race and racial hierarchy, ultimately shaping ideas of who is and who is not worthy of living in the US based on the color of their skin. During the California gold rush of the 1850’s, many Chinese immigrants arrived in the US with prospects of creating a new life for them. With the mass influx of labor in the up and coming American industries, many of these immigrants were also greatly contributing to the American economy.
However, as more Chinese immigrants made their journey of immigrating to the US, the same group of immigrants that were previously seen to be helping fuel America’s industry were soon labeled as a “dangerous immigrant invasion.” Sentiments of Chinese immigrants “stealing” American citizen’s jobs, and “diluting the American culture” spread in the US, creating mass panic amongst the masses. The panic ultimately came to a head in 1882 where the federal government imposed the Chinese exclusion act, effectively barring Chinese immigrants, specifically Chinese laborers, from entering the US, on the argument that if they become naturalized, it would threaten the structure of American society. This was the first time in US history where a federal law was passed that banned an entire group of people from entering the country solely based on their race and ethnicity.
Such decision whether someone could be classified as a US citizen based on a person’s race only strengthened over time in the development of an American society; where connections between being an “good immigrant” of white-European descent and conversely being a “bad immigrant” of being any other race, mainly those coming from Asia and Southern Europe, or anywhere the US government deemed as “non-white.”
During the creation of Immigration Restriction League in 1894, a racial hierarchy determined which immigrants should be deemed “acceptable” to enter the country and be a benefit to American society by using the factually incorrect ideology of “race science.” It placed northern and western Europeans at the top and all other races and ethnicities below them.
These racially discriminative ideologies later moved from being an idea held amongst the masses to a legal policy, first put into law in the Naturalization Act of 1906. The act effectively limited eligibility for citizenship to race, which only granted “free white persons” that immigrate to the US to become naturalized citizens. This helped merge the idea of race being associated with nationality and whether a person’s skin color should determine their legitimacy as a US citizen.
But you see, these harmful ideas of race were not only practiced by the US government, but as the public started seeing these laws enacted where people of certain races were being excluded, it enabled them to run with their own assumptions about why a certain group of people shouldn’t be eligible to become naturalized and their internalized fears that the American culture would weaken. This not only fed into their own personal narratives, but also further spread harmful racially fueled stereotypes that still exist today.
Despite how hopeful the thought of xenophobia no longer existing in modern day politics, it simply is not true, as it can be continually seen in the current social and political sphere. Exemplified in the on-going immigration crisis at the US-Mexican border where uses of racist and harmful stereotypes of immigrants coming from Latin America are used to fuel fear of “the other” and opposition against their immigration into the US. Seen in the government setting harsh laws at the border, and the deportation of hundreds of thousands Latin-origin peoples, to government officials making racists comments, like Trump calling all Mexican immigrants “rapists and criminals,” they give a very uncanny resemblance to the previous policies over a century ago that were used to create hierarchies. However far society likes to think it has evolved and become more inclusive, the examples set by the government are still reinforcing the same xenophobic patterns.
For example, these actions made by the government allow the public to think that they too can act like this, and these actions are one and the same with the American way of life. From civilians shouting out slurs and offensive language to people speaking Spanish in public, to holding full blown anti-immigrant demonstrations at the border…
As Americans seem to adapt to all the turbulent change in society and politics, one thing seems to have remained a constant: the xenophobic sentiments against foreigners and immigrants. Positively reinforced through their own government leaders, the American public is doomed to evolve and adapt to the “melting pot” of cultures if the same toxic rhetoric is being enforced through policies and laws. By breaking these links between these policies and the harmful racial stereotypes is the only way to create a world with less xenophobia.
Sources
Lee, Erika. America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States. New York, NY: Basic books, 2019.
Lee, Erika. “The Long History of Xenophobia in America.” Tufts Now, September 24, 2020. https://now.tufts.edu/2020/09/24/long-history-xenophobia-america.
Lee, Erika. “Perspective | Trump’s Xenophobia Is an American Tradition – but It Doesn’t Have to Be.” The Washington Post, November 26, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/11/26/trumps-xenophobia-is-an-american-tradition-it-doesnt-have-be/.
“‘other’: A Brief History of American Xenophobia – Densho: Japanese American Incarceration and Japanese Internment.” Densho, December 2, 2021. https://densho.org/learn/other/.
“Xenophobia: Closing the Door.” The Pluralism Project. Accessed October 20, 2023. https://pluralism.org/xenophobia-closing-the-door.
Katy Scott 