The following article summarizes the original event which is listed below the summary.
April speaker addressed the history of American xenophobia
Prof. Erika Lee, director of the U’s Immigration History Research Center and an author of several books, addressed the complicated nature of the United States’ approach to immigration and provided a “quick tour” of the country’s history of xenophobia, beginning in the mid 1700s when Benjamin Franklin voiced his concerns about the “swarthy threat” posed by German immigration to Pennsylvania.
Lee noted recent dramatic shifts in immigration policy under the Trump administration, exemplified by the change in the mission statement of the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services in early 2018, when the federal agency eliminated the words USCIS “secures America’s promise as a nation of immigrants” and replaced them with “administers the nation’s lawful immigration system.”
Lee characterized this shift in policy as rooted in a belief that the U.S. is under siege from immigrants and, therefore, that anti-immigrant sentiment is a natural consequence of these social forces. Nevertheless, it is a shift from the country’s recent past which, since 1965, has had a law excluding explicit racism and racial preference from immigration policy. The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act “was seen as a turning point, making xenophobia a thing of the past,” Lee said. “But Trump has laid bare the nation’s (residual) xenophobia, nativism, and racism.”
Lee explained that there is an historical pattern that has targeted immigrants: Germans (1770s and 1910–20), Irish Catholics (1840s–80s), Chinese (1880s), Japanese (1940s), and Mexicans at various periods. Sometimes anti-immigrant movements were related to economic depressions and wars, but not always. And the U.S. treated these various immigrant threats in exceedingly different ways: restrictions for southern and eastern Europeans, exclusion and incarceration for Asians, and mass deportation for Mexicans.
The current period is starkly different because of the economic prosperity of the U.S. and its primacy as a world power, Lee said. She is concerned that xenophobia has become resistant to humanitarian concerns and fails to honor the greater American tradition that the U.S. is truly a nation of immigrants. “Xenophobia is an American tradition, but we don’t have to accept it,” she concluded.
—Bill Donohue, Program Committee
April Luncheon At a Glance
Thu, April 5 2018, 10:30am
Conference Room ABC, Campus Club, Fourth Floor, Coffman Memorial Union
APRIL
LUNCHEON MEETING
Tuesday, April 24, 2018
11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Featured Speaker
Dr. Erika Lee, director,
Immigration History Research Center
Location
Conference Room ABC
Campus Club, Fourth Floor
Coffman Memorial Union
Menu
Mustard-crusted chicken topped with spinach pesto; roasted potatoes; coffee and tea.
For special dietary needs, please request when making your reservations.
Reservations ARE required.
Deadline: Thursday, April 19, 2018
Reserve and Pay Online
Prepayment of $16 per person.
Annual prepayers, please make reservations.
To reserve your place(s) and parking,
send your check payable to UMRA to:
UMRA Reservations
c/o Judy Leahy Grimes
1937 Palace Ave., St. Paul MN
55105-1728
Or, contact her before the deadline
at 651-698-4387; e-mail: [email protected].
Please honor the reservation deadline date;
to cancel, please call by Thursday, April 19
Parking
University ramps and reserved space in East River Road Ramp
with UMRA's discount coupon―$6 for the day.
Upcoming Events
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