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The Exclusion of Immigrants in a “Nation of Immigrants”:
The History of Nativism in the United States 
Hidetaka Hirota, Assistant Professor 

I am a historian of the United States, specializing in hostility to foreigners, or “nativism,” and immigration law. By analyzing archival documents, I examine the history of anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States. My research is characterized by an interdisciplinary approach that combines History—especially social and legal history—with Literature, Cultural Studies, Political Science, and Law.

What is Nativism?

The term, “nativism,” may not sound familiar to many people. It signifies intense hostility toward foreigners rooted in fear that they threaten the country.

Anti-immigrant sentiment stemmed from various reasons. They could be about immigrants’ legal status, race, or religious faith. The targets of nativism changed throughout American history. The current Trump administration has actively promoted opposition to undocumented immigration from Mexico, strengthening border control.

What were the origins of immigration restriction in the United States?

While the United States is often referred to as a “nation of immigrants,” it also has a long history of immigration restriction. When did American immigration control start? Where did it come from? My research revealed a surprising fact that substantially revises the previous scholarly consensus on these questions.

American historians have long identified the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, legislation passed by the federal government to restrict Chinese immigration, as the beginning of immigration control in the United States. America’s borders, in this interpretation, had been open until the passage of this law, which largely emerged from anti-Asian racism on the West Coast. (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The origins of immigration restriction in the United States
The standard narrative argues that American borders were open until the passage of the federal Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. In the political cartoon, a Chinese man is kicked away by Uncle Sam, who represents the United States.

 

Since the 1840s, however, immigration restriction against the poor had actively operated on the East Coast at the state level. Though not explicitly stating in their provisions, these state-level policies in practice aimed to deport impoverished Irish immigrants. When I accidentally discovered a small reference to this fact at the end of a book I was reading, I was shocked. It was a fact that even scholars specializing in American immigration history had overlooked. While the exclusion of Asian immigrants by the federal government is well known, the earlier state-level exclusion of European immigrants was a discovery that fundamentally revises our understanding of American immigration history.

In the course of my research, I learned that even American citizens of Irish descent were unlawfully deported to Ireland or England. Furthermore, I found cases of Irish immigrants who were refused landing merely because of their destitute appearance and inspecting officials’ assumption that they would not be able to financially support themselves (Figure 2).

Although the United States is often called a “nation of immigrants,” a ”nation of selected immigrants” reflects the reality more accurately.

Figure 2: Impoverished Irish immigrants
The potato blight that hit Ireland during the 1840s resulted in a devastating famine. To escape from malnutrition, poverty, and starvation, over two million Irish men and women emigrated to other countries, including the United States and Canada.

 

A book revealing the origins of American immigration policy

My book, Expelling the Poor: Atlantic Seaboard States & the 19th-Century Origins of American Immigration Policy, explores the origins of immigration restriction in the United States.(Figure 3).

Figure 3: Book cover
Expelling the Poor: Atlantic Seaboard States & the 19th-Century Origins of American Immigration Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017)
My doctoral dissertation examined the deportation of Irish immigrants by analyzing 19th-century newspapers; American, British, and Irish public documents; records of welfare institutions; and letters and diaries written by immigrants. The dissertation was revised and published as the book.
Prizes awarded to the book and articles that emerged from the project are listed in the link below. I was the first Japanese historian who won these recognitions.
https://www.waseda.jp/inst/wias/other-en/2018/08/01/5627/

As shown in the political cartoon on the cover of the book, nineteenth-century Americans felt that inmates in entire poorhouses (charitable institutions like modern homeless shelters) in Ireland were coming to the United States to become burdens on Americans. Many destitute Irish immigrants entered public poorhouses soon after landing in the United States. As these institutions were run by Americans’ taxes, nativists accused Irish immigrants as “leeches” upon American tax payers.

It was precisely anti-Irish sentiment of this kind that drove immigration restriction at the state level. The origins of American immigration restriction, then, lay in hostility toward impoverished Irish immigrants in Atlantic seaboard states in the early 19th century. America’s borders were closed to certain immigrants even before the enactment of federal immigration laws.

My book reveals that immigration control is much more deeply rooted in the history of the United States than most Americans would think.

A general history of nativism in America

My current project is a general history of American nativism. This study explores how anti-immigrant sentiment developed in the United States from the American Revolution in the eighteenth century to the present.

While books providing an overview of American nativism have been published in the past, nearly 60 years have passed since the last study of this kind was released. In this project I hope to produce a comprehensive study of the history of American nativism that integrates recent scholarship on the subject. By combining social, cultural, and intellectual history approaches with the perspectives of law, economics, politics, and diplomacy, I seek to offer an interdisciplinary analysis of the history of American nativism.

Intolerance with, and hostility to, foreigners can be found throughout the world, including Japan. I hope that my research on American history helps scholars and general readers better understand immigration politics in their own countries and the world.

 

Interview and Composition:Misao Matsudaira
In cooperation with: Waseda University Graduate School of Political Science J-School

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