America for Americans

September 2, 2019
As University of Minnesota historian Lee (The Making of Asian America) demonstrates in this fascinating but disturbing study, xenophobia is not “an exception to America’s immigration tradition” but is as American as apple pie. Moreover, hostility to migrants, she argues, has derived far more from racist ideologies than it has from anxieties about foreign policy or economic concerns. Lee takes a chronological approach to this topic, starting with Benjamin Franklin’s fears regarding newly arrived Germans in pre-Revolutionary Pennsylvania and moving on to the mid-19th-century “Know Nothing” party’s hatred for Irish Catholics, the federal government’s exclusion of Chinese migrants at the end of the 19th century, the Bostonian intellectual elite’s early-20th-century dismissal of Jews and Eastern Europeans as “beaten men from beaten races” in the early 20th century, and the demonization of Japanese immigrants for decades prior to Pearl Harbor. While readers might be tempted to see these events as dark but foregone moments in the nation’s history, Lee’s later sections make it clear that similar anxieties continue to legitimize fear and hatred of Mexicans and Muslims, and even of “model minority” groups of Asian Americans. She persuasively expresses that current hostilities over national borders are no exception to the nation’s history. This clearly organized and lucidly written book should be read by a wide audience.

September 15, 2019
Thoroughgoing survey of an old strain in American history: racial and cultural animus toward newly arrived non-Americans. "The target of our xenophobia may have changed from decade to decade, but our fear and hatred of foreigners has not." So writes Lee (Chair, Immigration History/Univ. of Minnesota; The Making of Asian America: A History, 2015, etc.), opening her discussion with examples from the last electoral cycle and the current occupant of the White House--who, though his statements are "either patently false or grossly misleading," nevertheless cannily taps into that ancient fear. Xenophobia is a powerful motivating factor in American politics, writes Lee, even if it goes against the equally powerful notion that the U.S. is a nation of immigrants. "Even as it has welcomed millions from around the world," she observes, "it has also deported more immigrants than any other nation--over fifty-five million since 1882." Even as the current administration is widening its field of targets to include legal as well as illegal immigrants and to curtail both, it draws on former movements: the Know-Nothings of the 19th century, for instance, who "argued that Catholicism and Catholics were dangerous to American values and institutions"--and it's no accident that the Hispanic migrants are mostly Catholic, even as Islam is also singled out for exclusion today. Lee charts various movements in the nation's history, from Benjamin Franklin's lament even before the Revolution that German immigrants would not be able to assimilate to anti-Irish measures in the years around the Civil War, and then the fervor those very Irish exercised in opposing immigration by Italians, Asians, and Jews. Throughout, the author notes that xenophobia is good business for its purveyors--politicians, TV commentators, radio hosts, and the like--and it is likely to remain a point for those people to flog in the coming election, as the president proclaims, "Our country is full." A carefully constructed history of wide interest to students of American politics.

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October 1, 2019

Part of the American mythos is that America is a nation of immigrants. While there is truth in that, Lee (history, Univ of Minnesota; The Making of Asian America: A History) exposes another truth: America is also a nation of xenophobes. This book examines different episodes of xenophobia in American history, from Benjamin Franklin's writings against German immigrants in the mid-18th century and the Know Nothings' campaigns against Irish immigrants and the Chinese Exclusion Act of the 19th century to the 1924 Immigration Act and Japanese-American internment of the early 20th century, discrimination against Mexican and Muslim immigrants in recent decades, and more. Immigration restriction is a central hallmark of President Trump's administration. Lee reveals that the rhetoric Trump and his supporters employ when speaking about immigration and immigrants--fears about bringing crime, taking away jobs, failing to assimilate--has long been part of American political discourse from Colonial times to the present. VERDICT This thoroughly researched, informative, and lucid work is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States, and how it influences the current political environment.--Joshua Wallace, Tarleton State Univ. Lib. Stephenville, TX

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