Anti-Immigrant Nativism

The Colonial and Postcolonial Immigration Stream

During the early colonial era, the English, French, Dutch, and Spanish engaged in conflict over territory and tried to keep other religious or ethnic groups from entering their colonies. In the 13 English colonies and after independence, two groups joined the English Protestant settlers: the Protestant Scotch-Irish and Protestant Germans. Scotch-Irish were viewed as drinkers and brawlers, while both the Scotch-Irish and the Germans were accused of illegally squatting on land. Hostile incidents occurred between these groups, but both groups were incorporated into what would become American society. Subsequently, three more waves of immigration, each marked by inter-ethno/racial conflict, have occurred.

The First Wave (1821–1890)

During the first wave, approximately 4 million northwestern European immigrants from Ireland, Germany, the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, and some areas of southern and eastern Europe arrived via the eastern United States. The Irish were still stereotyped as drinkers and brawlers. Yet nativistic responses focused on Irish and German Roman Catholicism. During this period, Anglo and German Protestants stereotyped the Catholic clergy as capable of lurid sexual acts and regarded the political influence of the pope with suspicion.

In California and elsewhere in the western United States, hostility developed toward Chinese immigrants. Workers blamed the Chinese for taking jobs and then accepting low wages and poor working conditions. They also connected them to organized crime (“triads”), opium use, and prostitution. The end result was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Subsequently, hostility toward the Japanese over economic issues ensued. In 1907, the United States signed the Gentleman's Agreement with Japan, ending Japanese immigration to America during the second great wave of immigration.

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