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From ABC-CLIO's American History website https://americanhistory2.abc-clio.com/
Nativism
Nativism, similar to xenophobia, refers to the favoring of native inhabitants of a country and a prejudice toward people perceived as outsiders or foreigners. At various times in U.S. history, nativism in the form of anti- Catholicism, anti-Semitism, and anti-immigrant sentiment has dominated public opinion and political circles. Americans may lapse into nativism during times of economic decline, warfare, and heavy immigration, when they feel economically, socially, and politically threatened by new as well as long-standing "foreigners."
During the late 18th century, nativism became widespread for the �rst time in American history due to the instability of the new national government. A young and fragile nation with a weak military and a relatively open political system, the United States in the 1790s increasingly attracted immigrants from Europe. Many Americans feared the rising tide of French immigrants �eeing the violent French Revolution. Despite the assistance rendered by the French to the U.S. during the American Revolution, Americans feared the newcomers, who they thought might bring radical ideas to upset the U.S. political scene.
Anti-Catholicism
Anti-Catholicism was related to nativism during the mid-1800s. Following the massive immigration of 2 million Irish Catholics to the U.S. during the 1840s–1850s, many American Protestants expressed fear of "contamination" by what they saw as cultural inferiority of Irish people. Those new American Catholics were labeled as subversive and linked to foreign in�uence and anti-American behavior. Many Protestant Americans feared that the pope would soon become a powerful political �gure within the U.S.
Some organizations promoted anti-Catholic nativism in the mid-19th century. For example, the United American Mechanics was a working-class, white, Protestant organization that targeted groups that it felt threatened the rights of American working men. By 1855, more than 50,000 men belonged to the organization. The Know- Nothing Party also emerged during this time. Founded in New York City in 1849 as the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, the organization grew into a powerful nativist organization. Members believed that Catholics were involved in a conspiracy to undermine religious and civil liberty in the United States.
Anti-Catholic nativism resurfaced in the late 19th century due to the growing power of the Catholic Church in the U.S. Several anti-Catholic organizations �ourished and declined in the 1880s. In 1887, the American Protective Association was founded. Highly secretive, like the Know-Nothings, it quietly supported anti-Catholic candidates.
Anti-Chinese Sentiment
In the western U.S., Chinese immigrants endured a nativist movement that was strong in California during the 1870s and 1880s. The discovery of gold in 1849 induced hundreds of thousands of Chinese people, predominantly men, to immigrate to California. White American miners saw them as economic competition and pushed for a miner's tax to encourage Chinese (and other foreign miners) to leave the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where most of the gold was located. The Chinese became business owners and railroad workers in the late 1860s and 1870s and established "Chinatowns" in Western cities to survive economically.
After a severe recession and a series of industrial strikes hit the U.S. in the 1870s, anti-Chinese sentiment grew in California. The movement received widespread support from the Irish working class and was led by Denis Kearney, an Irish worker and political activist in San Francisco. The anti-Chinese movement also drew strong support from unions and newspapers across the nation. The Knights of Labor, a popular labor union, pushed Congress in the late 1870s to reduce Chinese
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competition with white workers. Congress eventually passed a bill known as the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), restricting the immigration of Chinese people to the U.S. to only a few individuals each year.
Anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism was also linked to nativist thought in the 19th century. Anti-Semitism is prejudice and hostility toward Jewish people. It had a deeper and more lasting in�uence on American culture than anti-Catholicism. Immigration served as a catalyst for anti-Semitism in much the same way as it did for anti-Catholic sentiment; anti-Semitism increased when millions of Jewish people from eastern Europe immigrated to the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Encouraged by propaganda by political groups hostile to Jewish in�uence in Europe, discrimination against Jews became commonplace in American life. Anti-Semitism also increased due to the upward social movement of successful German Jews who �rst arrived in the 1850s. Despite anti-Semitic nativism, many Jewish Americans achieved economic and political success by the late 19th century, which in turn brought a backlash from white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants.
Resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) began in the 1860s in the post–Civil War South, where it used violence and terror to intimidate newly freed Black people and to prevent them from taking advantage of their new rights. The KKK's targets following World War I included African Americans, Jews, and Catholics. The Klan targeted Jewish business owners and white Catholics who sympathized with Black Americans in their quest to achieve equality following the end of slavery. It was revived and renamed the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 20th century. The revived group's founder, William Simmons hired an Atlanta public relations organization to disseminate Klan rhetoric, a tactic that helped the Klan rise to the height of its power by the mid-20th century.
World War I ended in 1917, and the United States anticipated a �ood of war refugees, particularly from the new Soviet Union. American Protestants believed they would bring anarchy and bloodshed to the U.S. political and social scene. In the 1920s, however, the Klan began to lose members following the passage of the Immigration Act (1924), which severely cut back immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe. By the end of the 1920s, following an era of prosperity for the white middle class, the Klan had only 82,000 members. The 1928 election, however, was shaped by Klan anti-Catholic rhetoric. Democratic presidential candidate Alfred E. Smith lost to Republican Herbert Hoover due in part to Smith's Catholic background.
After World War II, the Klan grew steeply; 2 million Americans joined its ranks. In small rural towns across the South, many white Americans became angry that the federal government supported the civil rights movement. The Klan o�ered them an answer to the decline of white control over economic and political power. According to the FBI, in the 1950s–1960s, the Klan was responsible for the deaths of numerous civil rights leaders, including NAACP organizer Medgar Evers. Sheri�s, policemen, and even judges in Southern cities were often members of the Klan, so Klan murderers were rarely prosecuted.
Nativism in the 21st Century
In the early years of the 21st century, nativism focused on anti-Semitism and anti-immigrant sentiment. Heavy immigration from Mexico and China since 1980 and the perceived problem of border patrol in Southwestern states fueled a resurgence of nativism in Florida, California, New York, Texas, and Arizona in the 1990s. Like the white, male, working-class fear of Chinese immigrant workers in the 1870s in California, a disgruntled white working class once again supported anti-immigrant sentiment in California. In 1994, Pete Wilson won his second term as governor of California by condemning the high level of Mexican immigration to California. The issue of
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undocumented immigrants from Mexico continues to play a role in the political debate over immigration reform in the U.S.
Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Muslim Americans and Arab Americans were subject to civil rights violations, harassment, and hate crimes. The 19 terrorists who perpetrated the September 11 attacks were all members of Al Qaeda, an Islamist militant group. They had legally entered the U.S. the previous year. These details lead some to argue that practices like racial pro�ling at airports and other ports of entry were necessary to keep the country safe. The identity of the hijackers as "Islamic terrorists," repeated constantly in
the press, also led to a spike in crimes against Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim. Anti-Arab sentiment rose sharply in the U.S., with reported attacks on mosques and people of Arab descent. The threat of terrorism from terrorist groups like ISIS has perpetuated biased attitudes and crimes against people of Arab descent well into the 21st century.
The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, which �rst emerged in China, brought a new wave of anti-Chinese sentiment to the U.S. in 2020. Some referred to COVID-19 as "the China virus," blaming Chinese people for the outbreak. Asian Americans and Paci�c Islanders have been subjected to increasing hostility, including verbal harassment and physical attacks. In response, President Joe Biden issued an executive memorandum in January 2021 calling attention to the risks of xenophobic attacks to Asian American and Paci�c Islander communities. The statement highlighted in�ammatory rhetoric about COVID-19 contributing to stigma and racism. In March 2021, Biden announced that his administration would take action with a new task force on xenophobia linked to COVID-19 fears, funding for research on xenophobia, and projects to recognize Asian American contributions to U.S. society. Jason Newman Further Reading
Billington, Ray Allen. The Protestant Crusade, 1800-1860: A Study of the Origins of American Nativism. New York: Macmillan, 1938; Gallagher, Charles A., and Cameron D. Lippard, eds. Race and Racism in the United States: An Encyclopedia of the American Mosaic. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2014; Jackson, Kenneth T. The Ku Klux Klan in the City, 1915-1930. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992; Reimers, David M. Unwelcome Strangers: American Identity and the Turn against Immigration. New York: Columbia University Press,1998.
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Image Credits
Red scare political cartoon: Library of Congress
Ku Klux Klan initiation ceremony: The Illustrated London News Picture Library
Political cartoon in support of the Chinese Exclusion Act (The Wasp, March 3, 1882): CPA Media Pte Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo
Immigrants land in New York: Corbis via Getty Images
APA Citation Newman, J. (2024). Nativism. American History. Retrieved July 6, 2024, from https://americanhistory2.abc- clio.com/Search/Display/263245 http://americanhistory2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/263245? sid=263245&cid=0&oid=0&subId=0&view=print&lang=&useConcept=False Entry ID: 263245
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