Nativism

The United States is often described as a “nation of immigrants;” however, a long tradition of viewing immigrants with suspicion, contempt, and/or hostility by U.S.-born American citizens has characterized nearly every major wave of immigrations throughout the nation's history. In both past and present times, immigration has been one of the most emotional and contentious social and political topics in American society.

The term nativism refers to passionate feelings of fear and dislike of foreign-born persons, typically driven by the perception among the native-born population that particular immigrant groups pose an alleged threat to the United States. These perceived threats may be linguistic, cultural, social, economic, or militaristic in nature. Nativist sentiments are driven by visceral beliefs that members of a particular immigrant group are incompatible with, or antithetical to, American society.

Nativism in the United States dates to the colonial era, when Benjamin Franklin first expressed alarm at the German population of Pennsylvania. Since that time, numerous immigrant groups, including Irish Catholics, southern Italians, eastern European Jews, Asians, Mexicans, Middle Easterners, and others have evoked nativist reactions among some segments of the American populace at different times in the nation's history. It should be noted, however, that “nativist” (much like the term racist) is almost never a self-description, but instead is a term used by others rather than oneself.

Persons who espouse negative views of immigrants or foreigners typically see themselves [Page 1594]as “patriots” who love their country and who want to protect the nation from “foreign influences.” Such sentiments overlook the fact that the United States has always been a pluralistic society comprising different religions, languages, and ethnic heritages, just as they overlook the important point that all immigrant groups have gone through a transition period of adjustment to American society.