The lies that President Donald Trump tells about immigrants
are highly effective however hardly new. In occasions of uncertainty and alter, immigrants
have at all times served as America’s scapegoat for financial, worldwide,
non secular and cultural insecurities.
Regardless of how geographically or culturally totally different,
immigrant teams have confronted frequent stereotypes. At his inauguration, Trump used
the outdated standby that immigrants “from everywhere in the world” are “harmful
criminals.” Accusations of homicide and rape predominate. Different frequent themes
embody invasion, disloyalty to the nation and contamination. When Congress
handed the 1924 Immigration Act 100 years in the past, the invoice’s sponsor claimed that
“a stream of alien blood” was poisoning the nation.
Underpinning a lot of the anti-immigrant sentiment are racist
theories of white European superiority and white America’s concern of “alternative”
by folks of shade. When immigration from Jap Europe and Asia peaked within the
late nineteenth century, so did anti-immigrant sentiment and membership within the Klu
Klux Klan. Racist pseudo-scientific theories abounded. Teams we now consider
as white – Italians, Greeks and Jap European Jews – have been
“swarthy” (not white) and regarded to be biologically inferior.
When a mob lynched 20 Italian immigrants, a commentator wrote, the nation “debated
whether or not all Italian-People have been by some means all disposed to criminality by their
genetic endowment or cultural inheritance.” The racism of yesteryear shouldn’t be
over. It nonetheless permeates our therapy of immigrants.
Simply as immigrant teams confronted frequent stereotypes, they
shared the results of hatred: discrimination in employment, schooling,
segregation in faculties and housing, the flexibility to purchase property and entry to
well being care, to call a number of. All of them confronted violence, particularly lynching and
massacres. Mexicans, Chinese language and Native People have been favourite targets. And of
course, whole Black communities.
The press has fed the hatred with sensational adverse
tales about immigrants, depicting them as legal, subhuman and beast-like.
When a white mob destroyed Omaha’s Greek City after an immigrant was accused of
rape, one native newspaper opined that “if California has a Japanese
drawback, the folks of Omaha had higher evaluate the rising Italian, Greek,
Bulgarian and Serbian drawback in their very own yard.”
Within the Eighteen Eighties, when roughly 2 million Jap European
Jews immigrated, antisemitism elevated dramatically. They weren’t thought of
white – the Census Bureau listed their race as “Hebrew.” Previous cliches nonetheless
inspire violence towards Jews. In 2018, utilizing Hitler’s phrases, Trump claimed
immigrants would “infest our nation.” That very same 12 months, the Pittsburgh synagogue
gunman who killed 11 folks and wounded six mentioned Jews have been “invaders.” The
gunman known as them “an infestation” and “evil.”
An 1882 regulation banned Chinese language laborers, the nation’s first
federal exclusion. One other regulation later prolonged the restrictions to different Asian
international locations. Assuming that they might be disloyal to the U.S., the federal government
rounded up and detained 120,000 Japanese People, principally residents, for the
length of WW II. A century in the past, Horace Greeley known as Chinese language People
“uncivilized, unclean, and filthy …” After Pearl Harbor, the federal government
rounded up and detained 120,000 Japanese People, principally residents, for the
length of WW II, on the belief that they might be disloyal to the U.S. In
2020, Trump known as COVID-19 a “Chinese language virus,” and violence towards all Asian
People spiked.
Mexicans are the most important group of immigrants within the United
States. We’ve an extended, sophisticated relationship with Mexico and our insurance policies
have been inconsistent. We have invited Mexicans in, solely to deport them a number of
years later. Trump’s first time period introduced mass deportations, separating households
and kids. Final week he declared a “nationwide emergency” on the
border. He has repeatedly accused Mexican immigrants of bringing medicine and
crime to the nation. But a number of days in the past he pardoned Ross Ulbricht, a white
millionaire serving a life sentence for operating an underground on-line drug
market, Silk Highway, the place sellers and cash launderers engaged in additional than
$200 million in unlawful commerce.
After 9/11, Congress focused immigrants from 25
majority-Muslim international locations, requiring fingerprints and registration. Polls discovered
about 33% of adults within the U.S. thought it acceptable to detain Arab-People
in camps much like the internment camps of WW II. In 2015, Trump mentioned he
needed “surveillance packages” and a “database”” for American
Muslims. In 2017, he banned folks from seven Muslim international locations from entry. Unsurprisingly,
anti-Muslim hate crimes rose once more to 2001 ranges. Nonetheless claiming that Muslims
are terrorists, he has simply ordered a brand new expanded ban.
What are you able to do? At all times counter the lies. At all times. Take care of
immigrants and acknowledge the connections between us – immigrants are our
neighbors, colleagues and pals. Perceive the connections between racism
and anti-immigrant rhetoric and actions. Educate your self about immigrants and our frequent histories. Help
teams working to cease anti-immigrant hate. Doing nothing is not an
choice.
Pat Langley is a Springfield Immigrant Advocacy Community
board member.
