ATTITUDES TOWARD IMMIGRANTS.   Term Paper ID:26670 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examines history of discrimination & acceptance since late 19th Cent. Causes, statistics, stereotypes, laws, types of bias, literacy tests.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Examines history of discrimination & acceptance since late 19th Cent. Causes, statistics, stereotypes, laws, types of bias, literacy tests. Paper Introduction: This research will trace the actions and attitudes of Americans toward immigrants over the past 100 years. The research will set forth elements and patterns of change and continuity that can be discerned from the behavior of Americans with regard to the presence and behavior of immigrants during this period and then discuss factors that appear to have influenced attitudes toward immigrants, as well as evaluate the influences themselves. Until recently, America has been the promised land for Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Over the years, the quota system has beenattacked and defended. 1 7), peaked in the 192 s (Barkan, p. 152-3) cites theconclusion by one Professor Edward Alsworth Ross that "immigrants weresubcommon and that they would racially cripple the American population ifpermitted unrestricted entry." Indeed, what Kraut describes as theprimitive research methods of the day appear to have trickled down into thegene pool of public-health doctors, one of whom explained that inspectorsat Ellis Island "know that almost every race has its own type of reactionduring the line of inspection. 2), seemed tobe a national menace. Medical and social scientists gathered data and compiled statistics to"prove" that the new immigrants were less intelligent, less law-abiding, orless loyal than those of Anglo-Saxon descent. "The Literacy Test." Congressional Record, March 16, 1896. Much discussion of changing patterns of immigration and anti-immigrantfeeling in the US has occurred with regard to the European case, attitudestoward immigration of non-Europeans belong to a different category, whichcan be summed up in the phrase of popular culture Yellow Peril, and whichtook shape as public policies of restriction. Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish of New York City. 15). Little, Brown, 1951.Kazan, Elia, dir. . . They had expected that the test would cut down the flow from southern Europe because they had sincerely believed in the racial inferiority of the people of that region. Thus the effect is that the fate of the social experience of those whohave come and who are still arriving is in doubt. The Immigration Act of 1965formally put an end to racial restrictions on Asian immigration, which hadbeen in force since 1882. 156-7) refer to "new pluralism," "heightenedethnic consciousness," and an interrogation of and challenge to thefamiliar "melting pot" theory of American society. The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics: Politics and Culture in the Seventies. The Study Notes (pp. Wheeling, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1982.Lodge, Henry Cabot. What this comesdown to is that a variety of influences in public and private life alike,at least as many grounded in hatred as in positive energy, have been andcontinue to be at work where immigration old or new is concerned. Restitution of property doesnot appear to have been made after the war. This research will trace the actions and attitudes of Americans towardimmigrants over the past 1 years. Reference hasalready been made to KKK activities, the Sacco and Vanzetti case, and thePalmer Raids, which were not the only instances of the kind that occurredin the first half of the 2 th century. Study Notes, 129.Mullan, E.H. 164). And all of this coincided with thePalmer Raids in the 192 s, the name given to Attorney General MitchellPalmer's authorization of arrest, prosecution, and deportation of radicalaliens and other political subversives on account of the Red Scare in thewake of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, which was associated withsometimes violent union activities, which in turn were associated with thestrong new-immigrant presence in industrial factories and mines (Kraut, pp.174-5). For others, it was a refuge fromoppression. In his veto of the McCarran law,Truman analyzes the attitudes informing the original 1924 law, the new law,and the public-policy actions of Congress (which overrode the veto): Since Americans of English, Irish, and German descent were most numerous, immigrants of those three nationalities got the lion's share- -more than two-thirds--of the total quota. . In his study of immigration of the period,Handlin describes this surprise, which came to advocates of thecontroversial literacy test when things did not turn out as they had hoped: Their own faith defeated the restrictionists. The remaining third was divided up among all the other nations given quotas. Workers were needed for thegrowing industries; farmers were needed to fill out the wide spaces in theWest, and pamphlets and posters advertised the riches and beauty of thecountry in order to encourage the settling of the prairies (Kraut, p. In 19 5-19 6, SanFrancisco school officials sought to confine Japanese pupils to schools inChinatown. If, as some have said (e.g., Novak, passim, and Glazer andMoynihan, passim), the melting pot theory does not work, does thatnecessarily mean instead that the notion of a salad, mosaic, rainbow, orother metaphor does (or should) work? 15).During this period and continuing afterward, America was the destination ofthe greatest mass migration the world had ever seen. 19), and their main anti-immigrant targets (hatred of black people belonged to a more important butrather different exercise for the KKK) were Catholics, Jews, and thepolitically dangerous (Kraut, p. For still others, it was (or it turned out to be) both. And theultimate conclusion is that far too many of them seem far too far away frombeing resolved. Darryl F. In 1916, forexample, writer Madison Grant deplored "the passing Of the great (Nordic)race," using that phrase as the title of a book on the subject (Kraut, p.153). In other words, the races most affected by the illiteracy test are those whose emigration to this country has begun within the last twenty years and swelled rapidly to enormous proportions, races with which the English-speaking people have never hitherto assimilated, and who are most alien to the great body of the people of the United States (Lodge, Study Guide, p. One might also cite the 1947 motionpicture Gentleman's Agreement, an adaptation of a then timely novel aboutrampant antisemitism in upper-crust urban American intelligentsia andsociety; the film was directed by Greek immigrant Elia Kazan. Prod. However, such policies can more easily be reflected in thebehavior of Americans toward the immigrants--especially the new immigrants,whose racial, ethnic, and cultural roots were outside the Americanmainstream or standard--who had already been in the country. On the other hand, as Fallows notes (p. 2d ed. Others wondered if democracy was safe in view of the influx, and thisfound expression in the 192 s in the trial and execution of Sacco andVanzetti, two Italians with anarchist (i.e., radical) political views(Barkan, p. Thus, for some, America was the golden land ofeconomic or social opportunity. . Boston. What is important about the nature of immigrationafter 188 , however, is that it became evident that the nature anddefinition of the immigration phenomenon had changed. Attitudes of Americans towardimmigrants, which take as the standard of judgment the American system,method, and culture of the mainstream, explain why, once the possibility ofrestricting entry into the country entered public debate, the issue isframed in that way. In thecase of both groups, hostility toward inability to speak English and towardbilingual education that might foster acculturation have been in evidence(Barkan, p. 163) as a means of selecting out immigrants from south andeastern Europe. 2 th Century-Fox. 99). The outcome was disappointing. What isvery important about this lack of reticence in racial or xenophobic hatredis that it was not confined to popular books or to socially marginaldemagogues but in debates over national public policy and the rule of law.Consider the 1896 speech by Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (whosegrandson, also a senator, was on the Republican presidential ticket withRichard Nixon in the election of 196 ) regarding the use of a literacy testfor new immigrants, which had been proposed in 1894 by a Boston Brahmingroup (Kraut, p. Asian communities in the US clustered aroundkinship, via mutual-assistance organizations (Kraut, p. 19; Kraut, p. For, asBarkan points out, "Migration involves the choices and actions ofindividual men and women and their families" (p. 94),agricultural growers who hire many illegals were saying in 1983 thatAmericans would rather go on welfare than accept the hard physical work andlow pay of farm labor. The research will set forth elementsand patterns of change and continuity that can be discerned from thebehavior of Americans with regard to the presence and behavior ofimmigrants during this period and then discuss factors that appear to haveinfluenced attitudes toward immigrants, as well as evaluate the influencesthemselves. "Mental Examination of Immigrants, Administration and Line Inspection at Ellis Island." United States Public Health Reports 18 May 1917: 733-739.Novak, Michael. . If it is the case that America is amagnet for immigrants worldwide, how is it that the perceived value of OldWorld ethnic cleavages overtake, in the American context, the perceivedvalue of an American identity and culture? Meanwhile,economic insulation in the form of various entrepreneurial service venturesfor the Chinese and in the form of agriculture, real estate, and otherbusinesses for the more highly educated Japanese took place. A man outside the law will accept workingconditions a citizen would not--and should not. Report of the President's Commission on Immigration and Naturalization. Once the illegal immigranthas the job, the citizen must choose between accepting similar conditionsor going without work." Meanwhile, there is the factor of ethnic-whiteresurgence that seeks recognition in the manner of nonwhite minorityassertions of civil rights legitimacy for ethnic/cultural identitypolitics/nationalism (Barkan, p. And forothers, it was a disappointment, not least because of the kind of receptionthey received or because of their inability to transform their dream ofAmerica into their lived experience of reality. In other words, the attitudesand actions of Americans toward Asian immigrants must by and large be seenas informed by the perception of Asians as the Yellow Peril. At the turn of the century, ethnic consciousness and social theory asthey are now understood were not necessarily a part of the discourse ofimmigration. And Still They Come: Immigrants and American Society, 192 to the 199 s. As Kraut puts it (p. Whereas the earlierimmigration had originated primarily in northern and western Europe, thelater groups of immigrants came largely from southern and eastern Europe--from Italy, Poland, and Russia in particular. A similar dynamic of fear and loathing can be seen in the record ofintimidation and hostility of Americans toward the newest new immigrants ofrecent years--namely, the Asian-refugee influx following the Vietnam Warand the illegal-immigrant influx from Central and South America. . . In the case of the illegal immigrants, the main sourceof hostility is the view that ethnically alien illegals are taking jobsthat Americans might otherwise have and are receiving public services thatthey do not deserve. Between 184 and 188 , about 1 million immigrants came to the UnitedStates. 171), the war "lent new authority to therestrictionist movement launched years earlier." In any case,restrictionist ideas about immigration did not collapse. Indeed, by the 19 7 Nationality Act, native-born American women who married noncitizens lost their citizenship; it wasrepealed in 1922 (Barkan, p. 168). In the late twentieth century, there is evidence of anti-immigrantfeeling among Americans and among immigrants of long standing who appear tofear the newer waves of immigrants. 739, in Study Notes, p.36). The so-called Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 haddenied citizenship naturalization to Chinese laborers. 4). Works CitedBarkan, Elliott Robert. But this didnot prevent West Coast Japanese immigrants and second-generation Japanese,or Nisei (i.e., citizens) from having their sometimes extensive propertyholdings appropriated by white business competitors and real estatedevelopers and from being transported inland and interned at various sites,after the Japanese empire bombed Pearl Harbor. The converse is also true" (Mullan, p. 129).There is nothing very subtle or latent about this statement, which pointsup the presumption of the innate superiority of Anglo-American and north-European culture and language. 288, 29 ).Ironically, the failure of the literacy test to keep out the culturalundesirables did not deter public officials who opposed new immigration.They do not appear to have been embarrassed that their scientific theorieshad been exposed. On the line if an Englishman reacts toquestions in the manner of an Irishman, his lack of mental balance would besuspected. The Uprooted. 148-9). xi). Before the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Americans ingeneral appear to have welcomed the newcomers. On the other hand, Barkan also cites ageneral ethos that he describes as the "legitimation of diversity" (p.192), which can be interpreted as an unwillingness on the part ofimmigration opponents to be seen articulating racial, ethnic, or culturalhatreds. There was far less reticence about directly and openlyarticulating anti-immigrant feeling for what today would be seen as themost primitive and politically and socially retrograde of reasons. Today that attitude would be consideredovertly and aggressively racist, for it may be readily identified withwhite-supremacist or militant militia-type organizations. Such a concept is utterly unworthy of our traditions and our ideals (Truman, Study Notes, p. After several abortive attempts from the 189 s onward, Congressofficially dammed the new-immigrant tide in 1921 with a quota system thatprivileged immigrant status for those of northern and western Europeanstock (Study Notes, p. 194) cites a 1993 Newsweekpoll in which 6 % of respondents considered "old" immigration good for theUS and "new" immigration bad. One blatant law was the 1924 National Origins Act, whichprivileged new immigration based on existing numbers of nationals alreadypresent in the country, to be followed in 1952 by the Walter-McCarranImmigration Act, which changed the details and percentage assignments ofthe 1924 law but kept the quota system. Barkan (p. In any case, in the background of discourse aboutimmigration is always the question of whether and/or by how muchimmigration to the US should be restricted. The most striking expression of this perception wasthat a new nationalism (i.e., nativism, xenophobia), stimulated by WorldWar I but not only attributable to it, was directed against theseimmigrants. . But there is actually an interesting surprise associated with the factthat the literacy test--which was passed in Congress and vetoed by severaldifferent presidents over the years before finally becoming law in 1917over Woodrow Wilson's veto. Apart from the fact thatthe simple and simplistic answers of popular culture and public policyoffered over the years to the vexed problems associated with immigrationthere is the persistent fact that original questions about it remainunanswered. 139). The practical effect of restrictive immigration policies on people whodesired to enter the US but who were prevented from doing so may beimagined. The Huddled Masses: The Immigrant in American Society, 188 - 1921. Until recently, America has been the promised land for millionsthroughout the world. The illiteracy test will bear most heavily upon the Italians, Russians, Poles, Hungarians, Greeks, and Asiatics, and very lightly, or not at all, upon English-speaking emigrants or Germans, Scandinavians, and French. Gentleman's Agreement. On theother hand, must all conform to a standard of religion, culture orlanguage, or is there room for a pluralism of cultures? The idea behind this discriminatory policy was, to put it baldly, that Americans with English or Irish names were better people and better citizens than Americans with Italian or Greek or Polish names. 17 ). Antisemitism as rational socialpolicy was articulated by an assortment of Ivy League scholars, Henry Adams(descendant of two presidents), Lodge, and others, and schools such asHarvard de facto excluded Jews from admission while articulating a publicpolicy of acceptance (Kraut, p. That seemingly simple statement, however, conceals amore complex truth about the immigrant experience of America. . "The President's Veto Message." Whom We Shall Welcome. "Immigration: How It's Affecting Us." The Atlantic, November 1983: 45-1 6.Glazer, Nathan, and Moynihan, Daniel P. New York: Macmillan, 1972.Truman, Harry S. Washington, D.C.: US Government, 1953. If American identity is soimportant, how can room be made for difference, assuming difference isimportant, too. Study Notes, p. After diplomatic initiatives by the Japanese government withPresident Theodore Roosevelt that reversed that discrimination, there camethe 19 7 Gentlemen's Agreement, whereby Japan prevented Japanese commonlaborers from emigrating. In the popular imagination of America, as well as in the halls ofpower, these "new immigrants," as they were called (Kraut, p. 5). Between 188 and 1914, at least another 2 million arrived (StudyNotes Diagram, p. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1972.Handlin, Oscar. 137-42. Peasants, who until then had had no incentive to do so, now set themselves the task of learning to read and succeeded. Fallows also cites the view that immigrants who takevery low-paying jobs "put unfair pressure on the American citizenscompeting for similar jobs. Wheeling, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1996.Fallows, James. The national membership of the Ku KluxKlan, which marched through Washington, D.C., in full regalia in 192 (Kraut, p. Zanuk. And is it better to integrate or parse those differences,and do not good and bad consequences flow from doing either or both? With Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, John Garfield.Kraut, Alan M. 154-5). Kraut (p. The proportion of Mediterranean and Balkan folk among new arrivals proved no smaller than before (Handlin, p. This is true whetherthe individuals in question are making choices in their country of birth orin the United Sates. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.