A history of xenophobia in America

I just finished reading “America for Americans: A history of xenophobia in the United States” by Erika Lee. It is an unsparing analysis of the way xenophobia is woven into the fabric of American law and culture.

When you read “America for Americans,” does it conjure an image of native Americans asserting their rights to the lands that were over-run by western Europeans? Of course not. The people who use that expression are overwhelmingly whites of western European descent. The folks who were here before them don’t count. Likewise, the slogan “America for Americans” wasn’t intended to include the involuntary immigrants from Africa, whose residence here antedates the ancestors of many American xenophobes today.

That’s just the beginning.

 

For all the right-wing bleating about “open borders,” the US had open borders until the late 19^th century, when Chinese immigrants were legally excluded. Lee points out that anti-Asian xenophobia was by no means restricted to the US.

Initially, American xenophobia focused on German immigrants. With time, Germans—at least Protestant Germans—became honorary white people. Italian, Irish and East European/Russian Jews each were targets of American xenophobia. Each group was tarred with the same brush:  they were dirty, illiterate, poor, insular and prone to crime and prostitution. The anti-Catholicism of the Know-Nothing movement embodies another xenophobic charge—Immigrants were ultimately loyal to their home country (or for Roman Catholics, to the Pope in Rome) and could not be assimilated as patriotic Americans.

The patriotism issue came into full flower after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when tens of thousands of American citizens of Japanese descent were rounded up and put in concentration camps, while their homes and stores were taken without compensation. This was ultimately approved by the Supreme Court on grounds of military necessity. One thing I learned from this book is that many people of Japanese descent living in Peru were involuntarily deported to the US and taking to concentration camps, to be kept as hostages to exchange with Japan for American soldiers.

Xenophobia towards Muslims has long been active in the US, but hit a fevered pitch after the 9/11 attacks. When Donald Trump gained the White House, he tried to force through a total ban on immigration from Muslim-majority countries. On the third try, a partial ban succeeded. Meanwhile, xenophobic violence towards Muslims in America skyrocketed, as an equivalency between being Muslim and terrorism took hold in the popular imagination.

The writing in this book is detailed and scholarly while remaining lucid and engaging. I have a minor quibble: Lee lumps in Iran with Arab nations, but while Iran is majority Muslim, it is not an Arab nation. I’d definitely recommend this as a solid historical survey of xenophobia in the US.

My personal reaction to this book is that xenophobia is a reflection of tribalism. Tribalism is hard-wired in our species, both the affinity and loyalty to tribe members and the suspicion and fear of outsiders. It is certainly not a uniquely American phenomenon: the Crusades of the Middle Ages, the pogroms in Europe and Russia, the Holocaust of World War II and the persecution of the Uyghurs in present-day China are just a few examples. 

Andrew Young said you should never trust anyone who says they’re not racist. You should say “I’m working on my racism.” The task can’t be to extirpate or deny American xenophobia, but to tame it through laws that afford legal protection to immigrants and curb violent behavior against them. The closer we can come to the ideal of the Declaration of Independence—that all people are created equal and endowed with the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the better our nation will be.