2: Nativism: Anti-Immigrant Backlash

+Italian Emigration and Immigration Notes

Nativism

Favoring those borns in America and opposing immigrants.

Differences: Reasons for Anti-Immigrant Backlash Regarding Second and Third-Wave Immigrants

What factors influenced anti-immigrant sentiments?

• Religion

• Racialism

• Radicalism

• Rural Resentment

• Economic Resentment

Religion (Difference and Conflict) 2nd and 3rd Wave

• Americans were Protestant and prejudiced against Catholic immigrants.

• Protestants saw the Pope as the Antichrist and viewed Catholics as terrorists out to overthrow American democracy.

• Children’s game: “Break the Pope’s Neck.”

• All public schools required students to say Protestant prayers, which led to the creation of Catholic parochial schools.

Racialism (Differences and Conflict)

• With Britain supplying only a minority of new immigrants, differences in language, culture, and ethnicity set the new immigrants apart.

• Ethnocentrism: 19^th-century racial theories: New immigrants belonged to a separate and inferior race.

• Did not want to be polluted by “foreign ways”

Radicalism (Differences and Conflict)

• 2nd - 3rd Wave immigrants were socialists and formed labor unions.

• Taboo during the 19th century.

Rural Resentment (Differences and Conflict)

• Lived on farms in the country and disliked the growth of cities that accompanied the immigrants.

• Shared Thomas Jefferson’s belief in a rural ideal America: Viewed cities and poor immigrants as alien and a threat to American social order.

Economic Resentment (Differences and Conflict)

• Immigrants stole jobs from “real Americans,”

• Decreased wages and increased unemployment.

• Frequent riots between Nativist Protestant and Irish Catholic workers in East Coast cities resulted in the first police departments.

Know-Nothings

• First anti-immigrant political party

• 19^th-century nativist group called the American Party

• Members pledged secrecy and responded “I know nothing.”

• Defended Protestantism.

• Sought to limit elective office to native-born, require 21 years of naturalization to achieve citizenship, and restricted immigration.

• Popularity faded with the Civil War when Irish Americans displayed valor fighting for the Union.

“The Yellow Peril'“

• Asian-Americans received a strong nativist backlash.

• Widespread anti-Chinese prejudice in the West led to riots and mobs by the 1880s.

• Despised for their “foreign ways” and race.

• Chinese were resented for being “scabs” during strikes.

• Discriminatory State and local laws were passed against Chinese workers.

• 1882: Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which stopped Chinese immigration.

• Racial prejudice against Chinese-Americans kept them from being allowed to become U.S. Citizens until 1943.

Mezzogiorno (term)

areas south and east of Rome from which most Italians in the third wave emigrated. 

Italy: North vs South Comparison

• Misgovernment in the south.  

• Healthy economic conditions in the north 

• The lack of administration of education (Coppino Law 1887) prevented the south from improving the way the north did.

• South: distrusted "progress".

• North: Sought to improve conditions

• Neither cared for unification

• The government did not care for agricultural improvement.

• Feeble economic growth, industrial lag, and unimaginative leadership, natural disasters, depleted resources.

Factors contributing to the desire for Italians to “uproot” regarding aristocracy:

• The aristocracy did not care for the peasants well-being.

• The national focus was on overseas colonial aspirations.

• The church-state power struggle

• The peasants were oppressed by the church

• Taxed heavily to fund the Army and Navy.

Where did Italians send their children to school?

• southern Italians practiced Catholic “folk religion” Different from Irish Catholicism. 

• Sent them to public schools rather than parochial schools. 

Why did Italians send their children to these schools? (side-effects)

• Catholic schools were run by Irish Catholic nuns who discriminated against the Italians.  

  1. The youth resented school and became more "Italian" or traditionally oriented

  2. Attempted to cope with both worlds and suffered deep anxiety as unable to be fully accepted in either world;

  3. Rejected the traditional Italian values, rebelled, and attempted to gain full entry into American society, sacrificing family, friends, language, etc. 

Differing cultural norms and values—Italian vs American 

Italian immigrants valued family and had no sense of national identification or loyalty.  Their identification was more regional. 

American values—nationalism and independence 

Italian values—familism and interdependence “amoral familism.” 

Generation in Conflict

Second Generation —conflict between family and country 

Politics (Italians in America)

• Politicians in the US “bought” Italian immigrant votes by constructing a brick building and calling it a social club. 

• Expected the immigrants to pay them back with their votes. 

• Italian immigrants never voted in Italy as they did not understand the value of a vote. 

 

The 3rd Wave: (Time and Peak)

• 1880s-1920s

• 1880-1910

3rd Wave Total Immigrants

22.3 Million Immigrants

Where did 3rd Wave Immigrant come from?

1900: Southern and Eastern Europe (Italy, Russia, Austro-Hungary).

3rd Wave: Emigration Push Factors (Repel)

1. No need for Italian citrus produce (cali)

2. Phylloxera (plant lice)

3. France imposed tarrifs on Italian wine

• Population growth in South and East Europe.

• Lack of jobs and food “Bread and Work”

• Scarcity farmland availability

• Mechanization of agriculture, which pushed peasants off the land.

• Religious persecution of Russian Jews, who fled their villages after pogroms.

3rd Wave: Pull Factors (attract)

• Democracy.

• Freedom of religion

• Land Availability

• Other forms of economic opportunity due to Industrial Revolution

• Expansion of industries like steel and railroads advertised for workers in Hungary and Poland.

Reasons for resentment of Italian Immigrants by those already in the US: 5

• Cultural differences (language, dress, food, norms, values.)

• Religious differences

• Opportunity for Irish to move one rung up on the social ladder

• Darker complexion of those from the south

• Willingness to interact with AA’s / “Negroes”

How did transportation improvements speed 3rd wave immigration?

By the late 19^th century, steamships replaced sailing ships, Atlantic voyage went from 3 months to 2 weeks.

3rd Wave Immigrants Crossing the Atlantic:

Most poor immigrants traveled in 3^rd class or steerage. They slept in the open area below deck on metal bunks often getting sick.

Ellis Island (America)

• 1st and 2nd-Class passengers disembarked at Hudson River piers directly into New York City,

• 3rd-Class passengers in steerage had to be processed at Ellis Island, the new federal immigrant processing center.

• They waited in line with papers that proved they were entitled to gain admittance.

• Spent hours showing their papers and passing through medical and psychological tests to prove they were worthy (no illiterates, no anarchists, no contagious disease carriers)

Settling In Cities (Ellis island Immigrant)

• 2/3 of Ellis Island immigrants traveled

• Most 3^rd Wave immigrants settled in poor urban neighborhoods with cheap housing, among others of their own ethnic group (“Little Italy”).

• Subject to discrimination from landlords who refused to rent to them

• Clauses in deeds guaranteed they would never sell to a Catholic, Jew or black

• Employers refused to hire them

• Jews suffered restrictions on their membership in many civic organizations and were kept out of many colleges

• Could get help from Immigrant Aid Societies of churches or ethnic organizations such as the Sons of Italy or Polish National Alliance.

Opposition and Restrictions (3rd Wave Immigrants)

What were they accused of?

‘Different”

1. Taking jobs away from “native” Americans (WASPS).

2. Being difficult to Americanize due to their lack of education, tendency to cluster in urban ethnic ghettos, and attachment to their languages and customs.

3. “Racially Inferior” - The Theory of Nordic Supremacy

The Immigration Restriction League

• Ellis Island-1910s: Anarchists were banned from entry to America.

• Japanese immigration was ended in 1907 and all immigration from Asia soon after.

• During World War I , immigration declined, but nationalist xenophobia increased and German immigrants were persecuted and lynched.

The End of the Third Wave:

• European economic collapse after WWI led to a surge in immigration,

• Xenophobia exploded due to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the Red Scare bombings of 1919.

• The US economy sank into a depression, making foreigners seem a threat to US workers’ jobs.

• The KKK returned

• 1921, the Congress passed the 1921 Immigration Quota Act

Immigration Quota Act

• capped annual immigration 150,000 per year.

• Written to restrict southern and eastern Europeans.

• Banned all immigrants from Asia, but exempted western-hemisphere immigrants from any quotas: Canadians and Mexicans freely came.