Nativism: Its Evolution throughout American History

The aspects that nativism focuses on the change throughout time. Nativism is the extreme opposition of a minority based on the majority’s perception of the minority being foreign and endangering their way of life. (Hingham, 2002) Nativism is based on the fears that the majority population has. If we were able to look into the future it is reasonable to believe that issues that Americans hold dearest and seek to protect would be much more different than the ones that we care about currently. It is important then to keep in mind these fears are often focused on minority groups that very rarely have anything to do with the issue and more importantly a way to protect themselves. As we look at nativism’s progress through American history we will

Where the main themes are similar to those which were implied earlier. Americans did not like that there were non-English speaking minorities around. They feared multiculturalism in which immigrant’s minority identity could benefit them in such forms as welfare. They also held a belief that foreigners were a drain on America’s resources. “Weapons for those who wanted foreigners to assimilate: deportation, time limit on naturalization and adoption of the English language, suppression of the foreign-language press, internments, the denial of industrial employment to aliens” (Hingham, 2002). As time progresses we see that these tactics are used on all non-white immigrant minorities, including the one who were later considered

Kevin Beck presented some information to us about day labors in New York. The part that stood out was that the community around the designated labor site was perceived to be an area where there was an excess of crime even though there had been no real record of such an event. This claim of crime contributed to the shutdown of the only legal means that unauthorized immigrants had to obtain work within the city (Beck). A similar situation happened in Manassas, Virginia where the exclusionary ordinance that was passed in city council was based purely on anecdotal evidence that there was a rise in crime caused by the “illegal immigrants”. When the facts were examined, there was actually a consistent yearly drop in crime in the city (Eric Byler,