Nativism is the political policy of promoting or protecting the interests of
native or
indigenous inhabitants over those of
immigrants
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
, including the support of
immigration-restriction measures.
In scholarly studies, ''nativism'' is a standard technical term, although those who hold this political view do not typically accept the label.
Arguments presented for immigration restriction
According to
Joel S. Fetzer, opposition to immigration commonly arises in many countries because of issues of national, cultural, and religious
identity. The phenomenon has been studied especially in
Australia,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by total ...
,
New Zealand, the
United Kingdom, and the
United States, as well as in continental
Europe. Thus nativism has become a general term for
opposition to immigration
Opposition to immigration, also known as anti-immigration, has become a significant political ideology in many countries. In the modern sense, immigration refers to the entry of people from one state or territory into another state or territory ...
based on fears that immigrants will "distort or spoil" existing
cultural values. In situations where immigrants greatly outnumber the original inhabitants, nativist movements seek to prevent cultural change.
Immigration restrictionist sentiment is typically justified with one or more of the following arguments against immigrants:
*Economic
** Employment: Immigrants acquire jobs that would have otherwise been available to native citizens, limiting native employment; they also create a surplus of labor that lowers wages.
**
Government expense: Immigrants do not pay enough taxes to cover the cost of the services they require.
**
Welfare
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...
: Immigrants make heavy use of the social welfare systems.
** Housing: Immigrants reduce vacancies, causing rent increases.
*Cultural
** Language: Immigrants isolate themselves in their own communities and refuse to learn the local language.
** Culture: Immigrants will outnumber the native population and replace its culture with theirs.
**
Crime
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...
: Immigrants are more prone to crime than the native population.
** Patriotism: Immigrants damage a nation's sense of community based on ethnicity and nationality.
*Environmental
** Environment: Immigrants increase the consumption of limited resources.
**
Overpopulation: Immigration contributes to overpopulation.
Hans-Georg Betz examines three facets of nativism: economic, welfare, and symbolic. Economic nativism preaches that good jobs ought to be reserved for native citizens. Welfare chauvinism insists that native citizens should have absolute priority in access to governmental benefits. Symbolic nativism calls on the society and government to defend and promote the nation's cultural heritage. Betz argues that economic and welfare themes were historically dominant, but that since the 1990s symbolic nativism has become the focus of radical right-wing populist mobilization.
By country and region
Asia-Pacific
Australia
Many Australians opposed the influx of Chinese immigrants at time of the nineteenth-century gold rushes. When the separate Australian colonies formed the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, the new nation adopted "
White Australia
The White Australia policy is a term encapsulating a set of historical policies that aimed to forbid people of non-European ethnic origin, especially Asians (primarily Chinese) and Pacific Islanders, from immigrating to Australia, starting i ...
" as one of its founding principles. Under the White Australia policy, entry of Chinese and other Asians remained controversial until well
after World War II, although the country remained home to many long-established Chinese families dating from before the adoption of White Australia. By contrast, most
Pacific Islander
Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the Pacific Islands. As an ethnic/racial term, it is used to describe the original peoples—inhabitants and diasporas—of any of the three major subregions of Ocea ...
s were deported soon after the policy was adopted, while the remainder were forced out of the canefields where they had worked for decades.
Antipathy of native-born white Australians toward British and Irish immigrants in the late 19th century was manifested in a new party, the
Australian Natives' Association
The Australian Natives' Association (ANA) was a mutual society founded in Melbourne, Australia in April 1871. It was founded by and for the benefit of native-born white Australians and membership was restricted exclusively to that group.
The A ...
.
Since early 2000, opposition has mounted to
asylum seeker
An asylum seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country and applies for asylum (i.e., international protection) in that other country. An asylum seeker is an immigrant who has been forcibly displaced and m ...
s arriving in boats from Indonesia.
Hong Kong
Nativism in
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta ...
, which is often used as a synonymy with localism,
strives for the autonomy of Hong Kong and resists the influence in the city of Chinese authorities. In addition to their strong anti-communist and pro-democracy tendency, nativists often hold strong anti-mainland and anti-
Mandarin
Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to:
Language
* Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country
** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China
** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stan ...
sentiments, especially opposing the influx of the mainland tourists and Mandarin-speaking immigrants, seeing them as a threat to Hong Kong's
Cantonese culture and identity.
Pakistan
The Pakistani
province
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outs ...
of
Sindh
Sindh (; ; ur, , ; historically romanized as Sind) is one of the Administrative units of Pakistan, four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the Geography of Pakistan, southeastern region of the country, Sindh is the third-largest province of ...
has seen nativist movements, promoting control for the
Sindhi people over their homeland. After the 1947
Partition of India
The Partition of British India in 1947 was the change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in South Asia and the creation of two independent dominions: India and Pakistan. ...
, large numbers of
Muhajir people
Muhajir or Mohajir ( ar, مهاجر, '; pl. , ') is an Arabic word meaning ''migrant'' (see immigration and emigration) which is also used in other languages spoken by Muslims, including English. In English, this term and its derivatives may refe ...
migrating from India entered the province, becoming a majority in the provincial capital city of
Karachi
Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former c ...
, which formerly had an ethnically Sindhi majority. Sindhis have also voiced opposition to the promotion of
Urdu, as opposed to their native tongue,
Sindhi.
These nativist movements are expressed through
Sindhi nationalism and the
Sindhudesh separatist movement. Nativist and nationalist sentiments increased greatly after the
independence of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971.
Taiwan
After the
Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on mainl ...
, Taiwan became a sanctuary for Chinese nationalists who fled from communists who followed a Western ideology. The new arrivals governed through the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) until the 1970s. Recently the natives have assumed power.
Western Hemisphere
Brazil
The Brazilian elite desired the
racial whitening of the country, similarly to
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
and
Uruguay. The country encouraged European immigration, but non-white immigration always faced considerable backlash. On July 28, 1921, representatives Andrade Bezerra and Cincinato Braga proposed a law whose Article 1 provided: "The immigration of individuals from the black race to Brazil is prohibited." On October 22, 1923, representative Fidélis Reis produced another bill on the entry of immigrants, whose fifth article was as follows: "The entry of settlers from the black race into Brazil is prohibited. For Asian
mmigrantsthere will be allowed each year a number equal to 5% of those residing in the country.(...)".
[RIOS, Roger Raupp. Text excerpted from a judicial sentence concerning crime of racism.](_blank)
Federal Justice of 10ª Vara da Circunscrição Judiciária de Porto Alegre
Porto Alegre (, , Brazilian ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Its population of 1,488,252 inhabitants (2020) makes it the twelfth most populous city in the country and the center of Brazil's fift ...
, November 16, 2001 (Accessed September 10, 2008)
In the 19th and 20th centuries, there were negative feelings toward the communities of
German,
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional It ...
,
Japanese, and
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...
immigrants, who conserved their languages and cultures instead of adopting Portuguese and
Brazilian habits (so that nowadays, Brazil has the most communities in the Americas of
Venetian
Venetian often means from or related to:
* Venice, a city in Italy
* Veneto, a region of Italy
* Republic of Venice (697–1797), a historical nation in that area
Venetian and the like may also refer to:
* Venetian language, a Romance language s ...
speakers, and the second-most of German), and were seen as particularly likely to form ghettos and to have high rates of
endogamy
Endogamy is the practice of marrying within a specific social group, religious denomination, caste, or ethnic group, rejecting those from others as unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships.
Endogamy is common in many cultu ...
(in Brazil, it is regarded as usual for people of different backgrounds to miscegenate), among other concerns.
It affected the Japanese more harshly, because they were Asian, and thus seen as an obstacle to the whitening of Brazil. Oliveira Viana, a Brazilian jurist, historian and sociologist described the Japanese immigrants as follows: "They (Japanese) are like sulfur: insoluble". The Brazilian magazine "O Malho" in its edition of December 5, 1908 issued criticised the Japanese immigrants in the following quote: "The government of São Paulo is stubborn. After the failure of the first Japanese immigration, it contracted 3,000 yellow people. It insists on giving Brazil a race diametrically opposite to ours".
[SUZUKI Jr, Matinas. História da discriminação brasileira contra os japoneses sai do limbo ''in'' Folha de S.Paulo, 20 de abril de 2008](_blank)
(visitado em 17 de agosto de 2008) In 1941 the Brazilian minister of justice, Francisco Campos, defended the ban on the admission of 400 Japanese immigrants into São Paulo writing: "their despicable standard of living is a brutal competition with the country's worker; their selfishness, their bad faith, their refractory character, make them a huge ethnic and cultural cyst located in the richest regions of Brazil".
Years before World War II, the government of President
Getúlio Vargas
Getúlio Dornelles Vargas (; 19 April 1882 – 24 August 1954) was a Brazilian lawyer and politician who served as the 14th and 17th president of Brazil, from 1930 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1954. Due to his long and controversial tenure as Braz ...
initiated a process of
forced assimilation
Forced assimilation is an involuntary process of cultural assimilation of religious or ethnic minority groups during which they are forced to adopt language, identity, norms, mores, customs, traditions, values, mentality, perceptions, way of ...
of people of immigrant origin in Brazil. In 1933, a constitutional amendment was approved by a large majority and established immigration quotas without mentioning race or nationality and prohibited the population concentration of immigrants. According to the text, Brazil could not receive more than 2% of the total number of entrants of each nationality that had been received in the last 50 years. Only the Portuguese were excluded. The measures did not affect the immigration of Europeans such as Italians and Spaniards, who had already entered in large numbers and whose migratory flow was downward. However, immigration quotas, which remained in force until the 1980s, restricted Japanese immigration, as well as Korean and Chinese immigration.
During World War II they were seen as more loyal to their countries of origin than to Brazil. In fact, there were violent revolts in the Japanese community of the states of
São Paulo and
Paraná when
Emperor Hirohito declared the Japanese surrender and stated that he was not really a deity, which news was seen as a conspiracy perpetrated in order to hurt Japanese honour and strength. Nevertheless, it followed hostility from the government. The Japanese Brazilian community was strongly marked by restrictive measures when Brazil declared war against Japan in August 1942. Japanese Brazilians could not travel the country without
safe conduct issued by the police; over 200 Japanese schools were closed and radio equipment was seized to prevent transmissions on short wave from Japan. The goods of Japanese companies were confiscated and several companies of Japanese origin suffered restrictions, including the use of the newly founded Banco América do Sul. Japanese Brazilians were prohibited from driving motor vehicles (even if they were taxi drivers), buses or trucks on their property. The drivers employed by Japanese had to have permission from the police. Thousands of Japanese immigrants were arrested or expelled from Brazil on suspicion of espionage. There were many anonymous denunciations because of "activities against national security" arising from disagreements between neighbours, recovery of debts and even fights between children.
Japanese Brazilians were arrested for "suspicious activity" when they were in artistic meetings or picnics. On July 10, 1943, approximately 10,000 Japanese and German immigrants who lived in
Santos
Santos may refer to:
People
* Santos (surname)
* Santos (DJ) (born 1971), Italian DJ
* Santos Benavides (1823–1891), Confederate general in the American Civil War
* Santos Balmori Picazo (1899–1992), Spanish-Mexican painter
* Santos (football ...
had 24 hours to close their homes and businesses and move away from the Brazilian coast. The police acted without any notice. About 90% of people displaced were Japanese. To reside in
Baixada Santista, the Japanese had to have a safe conduct.
In 1942, the Japanese community who introduced the cultivation of pepper in
Tomé-Açu, in
Pará
Pará is a state of Brazil, located in northern Brazil and traversed by the lower Amazon River. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas and Roraima. To the northwest are the borders of Guyana and ...
, was virtually turned into a "concentration camp" (expression of the time) from which no Japanese could leave. This time, the Brazilian ambassador in Washington, D.C., Carlos Martins Pereira e Sousa, encouraged the government of Brazil to transfer all the Japanese Brazilians to "internment camps" without the need for legal support, in the same manner
as was done with the Japanese residents in the United States. No single suspicion of activities of Japanese against "national security" was confirmed.
Nowadays, nativism in Brazil affects primarily migrants from elsewhere in the
Third World, such as the new wave of
Levantine Arabs (this time, mostly Muslims from
Palestine instead of overwhelmingly
Christian
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
from
Syria and
Lebanon), South and
East Asians (primarily
Mainland Chinese), Spanish-speakers and Amerindians
from neighbouring South American countries and, especially, West Africans and
Haitians. Following the
2010 Haiti earthquake
A disaster, catastrophic Moment magnitude scale, magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake struck Haiti at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. The epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, Ouest (department), Ouest department, a ...
and considerable illegal immigration to
northern Brazil and São Paulo, a subsequent debate in the population was concerned with the reasons why Brazil has such lax laws and enforcement concerning illegal immigration.
According to the 1988's
Brazilian Constitution, it is an unbailable crime to address someone in an offensive racist way, and it is illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis of his or her race, skin colour, national or regional origin or nationality; thus, nativism and opposition to multiculturalism would be too much of a polemic and delicate topic to be openly discussed as a basic ideology for even the most right-leaning modern
political parties
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or po ...
.
Canada
Throughout the 19th century, well into the 20th, the
Orange Order in Canada attacked and tried to politically defeat the Irish Catholics. In the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
, traditions of
anti-Catholicism in Britain led to fears that Catholics were a threat to the national (British) values. In Canada, the Orange Order campaigned vigorously against the Catholics throughout the 19th century, often with violent confrontations. Both sides were immigrants from Ireland and neither side claimed loyalty to Canada.
The
Ku Klux Klan spread in the mid-1920s from the U.S. to parts of Canada, especially Saskatchewan, where it helped topple the Liberal government. The Klan creed was, historian Martin Robin argues, in the mainstream of Protestant Canadian sentiment, for it was based on "Protestantism, separation of Church and State, pure patriotism, restrictive and selective immigration, one national public school, one flag and one language—English."
In
World War I, Canadian naturalized citizens of German or Austrian origins were stripped of their right to vote, and tens of thousands of Ukrainians (who were born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire)
were rounded up and put in internment camps.
Hostility to the Chinese and other Asians was intense, and involved provincial laws that hindered immigration of Chinese and Japanese and blocked their economic mobility.
In 1942 Japanese Canadians were forced into detention camps in response to Japanese aggression in World War II.
Hostility of native-born Canadians to competition from English immigrants in the early 20th century was expressed in signs that read, "No English Need Apply!" The resentment came because the immigrants identified more with England than with Canada.
United States
According to the American historian
John Higham, nativism is:
an intense opposition to an internal minority on the grounds of its foreign (i.e., “un-American”) connections. Specific nativist antagonisms may and do, vary widely in response to the changing character of minority irritants and the shifting conditions of the day; but through each separate hostility runs the connecting, energizing force of modern nationalism. While drawing on much broader cultural antipathies and ethnocentric judgments, nativism translates them into zeal to destroy the enemies of a distinctively American way of life.
=Early republic
=
Nativism was a political factor in the 1790s and in the 1830s–1850s. There was little nativism in the
colonial era Nativism became a major issue in the late 1790s, when the
Federalist Party
The Federalist Party was a conservative political party which was the first political party in the United States. As such, under Alexander Hamilton, it dominated the national government from 1789 to 1801.
Defeated by the Jeffersonian Republ ...
expressed its strong opposition to the
French Revolution by trying to strictly limit immigration, and stretching the time to 14 years for citizenship. At the time of the
Quasi-War
The Quasi-War (french: Quasi-guerre) was an undeclared naval war fought from 1798 to 1800 between the United States and the French First Republic, primarily in the Caribbean and off the East Coast of the United States. The ability of Congr ...
with the
French First Republic
In the history of France, the First Republic (french: Première République), sometimes referred to in historiography as Revolutionary France, and officially the French Republic (french: République française), was founded on 21 September 1792 ...
in 1798, the Federalists and Congress passed the
Alien and Sedition Acts, including the Alien Act, the Naturalization Act and the Sedition Act.
Thomas Jefferson and
James Madison
James Madison Jr. (March 16, 1751June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Father. He served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for hi ...
fought by drafting the
Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. In 1800. Jefferson was elected president, and reversed most of the hostile legislation.
=1830–1860
=
The term "nativism" was first used by 1844: "Thousands were Naturalized expressly to oppose Nativism, and voted the Polk ticket mainly to that end." Nativism gained its name from the "Native American" parties of the 1840s and 1850s. In this context "Native" does not mean
Indigenous Americans or
American Indians but rather those descended from the inhabitants of the original
Thirteen Colonies. It impacted politics in the mid-19th century because of the large inflows of immigrants after 1845 from cultures that were different from the existing American culture. Nativists objected primarily to
Irish Roman Catholics because of their loyalty to the
Pope
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Catho ...
and also because of their supposed rejection of
republicanism
Republicanism is a political ideology centered on citizenship in a state organized as a republic. Historically, it emphasises the idea of self-rule and ranges from the rule of a representative minority or oligarchy to popular sovereignty. It ...
as an American ideal.
Nativist movements included the
Know Nothing or "American Party" of the 1850s, the
Immigration Restriction League
The Immigration Restriction League was an American nativist and anti-immigration organization founded by Charles Warren, Robert DeCourcy Ward, and Prescott F. Hall in 1894. According to Erika Lee, in 1894 the old stock Yankee upper-class foun ...
of the 1890s, the anti-Asian movements in the
Western states
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania. , resulting in the
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years. The law excluded merchants, teachers, students, travelers, and diplo ...
and the "
Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907
The was an informal agreement between the United States of America and the Empire of Japan whereby Japan would not allow further emigration to the United States and the United States would not impose restrictions on Japanese immigrants alread ...
", by which the government of
Imperial Japan
The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent forma ...
stopped
emigration
Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...
to the United States.
Labor unions
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
were strong supporters of Chinese exclusion and limits on immigration, because of fears that they would lower wages and make it harder for workers to organize unions.
Nativist outbursts occurred in
the Northeast from the 1830s to the 1850s, primarily in response to a surge of Irish Catholic immigration. In 1836,
Samuel Morse
Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American inventor and painter. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegrap ...
ran unsuccessfully for
Mayor of New York City
The mayor of New York City, officially Mayor of the City of New York, is head of the executive branch of the government of New York City and the chief executive of New York City. The mayor's office administers all city services, public propert ...
on a nativist ticket, receiving 1,496 votes. In
New York City, an Order of United Americans was founded as a nativist fraternity, following the
Philadelphia Nativist Riots of the preceding spring and summer, in December 1844.
[Billington, ''The Protestant Crusade, 1800–1860''] The American historian
Eric Kaufmann has suggested that American nativism has been explained primarily in psychological and economic terms due to the neglect of a crucial cultural and ethnic dimension. Furthermore, Kauffman claims that American nativism cannot be understood without reference to an
American ethnic group which took shape prior to the large-scale immigration of the mid-19th century.
The nativists went public in 1854 when they formed the "American Party", which was especially hostile to the immigration of Irish Catholics, and campaigned for laws to require longer wait time between immigration and naturalization; these laws never passed. It was at this time that the term "nativist" first appeared, as their opponents denounced them as "bigoted nativists". Former President
Millard Fillmore
Millard Fillmore (January 7, 1800March 8, 1874) was the 13th president of the United States, serving from 1850 to 1853; he was the last to be a member of the Whig Party while in the White House. A former member of the U.S. House of Represent ...
ran on the American Party ticket for the Presidency in 1856.
Henry Winter Davis, an active Know-Nothing, was elected on the American Party ticket to Congress from Maryland. He told Congress the un-American Irish Catholic immigrants were to blame for the recent election of Democrat
James Buchanan
James Buchanan Jr. ( ; April 23, 1791June 1, 1868) was an American lawyer, diplomat and politician who served as the 15th president of the United States from 1857 to 1861. He previously served as secretary of state from 1845 to 1849 and rep ...
as president, stating:
The recent election has developed in an aggravated form every evil against which the American party protested. Foreign allies have decided the government of the country -- men naturalized in thousands on the eve of the election. Again in the fierce struggle for supremacy, men have forgotten the ban which the Republic puts on the intrusion of religious influence on the political arena. These influences have brought vast multitudes of foreign-born citizens to the polls, ignorant of American interests, without American feelings, influenced by foreign sympathies, to vote on American affairs; and those votes have, in point of fact, accomplished the present result.
The American Party also included many former
Whigs who ignored nativism, and included (in
the South) a few Roman Catholics whose families had long lived in
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
. Conversely, much of the opposition to Roman Catholics came from
Protestant Irish immigrants and
German Lutheran immigrants, who were not native at all and can hardly be called "nativists."
This form of
American nationalism
American nationalism, is a form of civic, ethnic, cultural or economic influences
*
*
*
*
*
*
* found in the United States. Essentially, it indicates the aspects that characterize and distinguish the United States as an autonomous political ...
is often identified with
xenophobia
Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...
and
anti-Catholic sentiment
Anti-Catholicism is hostility towards Catholics or opposition to the Catholic Church, its clergy, and/or its adherents. At various points after the Reformation, some majority Protestant states, including England, Prussia, Scotland, and the ...
. In
Charlestown, Massachusetts
Charlestown is the oldest neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. Originally called Mishawum by the Massachusett tribe, it is located on a peninsula north of the Charles River, across from downtown Boston, and also adjoins t ...
, a nativist mob
attacked and burned down a Roman Catholic convent in 1834 (no one was injured). In the 1840s, small scale riots between Roman Catholics and nativists took place in several American cities. In
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1844, for example, a series of nativist assaults on Roman Catholic churches and community centers resulted in the loss of lives and the
professionalization of the police force. In
Louisville, Kentucky, election-day rioters killed at least 22 people in attacks on German and Irish Catholics on 6 August 1855, in what became known as "
Bloody Monday."
The new Republican Party kept its nativist element quiet during the 1860s, since immigrants were urgently needed for the Union Army. European immigrants from England, Scotland, and Scandinavia favored the Republicans during the
Third Party System (1854–1896), while others especially Irish Catholics and Germans, were usually Democratic. Hostility toward Asians was very strong in the Western region from the 1860s to the 1940s. Anti-Catholicism experienced a revival in the 1890s in the
American Protective Association. It was led by Protestant Irish immigrants hostile to the Irish Catholics.
=Anti-German nativism
=
From the 1840s to the 1920s,
German Americans
German Americans (german: Deutschamerikaner, ) are Americans who have full or partial Germans, German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 43 million in 2019, German Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by ...
were often distrusted because of their separatist social structure, their German-language schools, their attachment to their native tongue over English, and their neutrality during
World War I.
The
Bennett Law caused a political uproar in
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 25th-largest state by total area and the List of U.S. states and territories by populatio ...
in 1890, as the state government passed a law that threatened to close down hundreds of German-language elementary schools. Catholic and Lutheran Germans rallied to defeat Governor
William D. Hoard. Hoard attacked German American culture and religion:
:"We must fight alienism and selfish ecclesiasticism.... The parents, the pastors and the church have entered into a conspiracy to darken the understanding of the children, who are denied by cupidity and bigotry the privilege of even the free schools of the state."
[Quoted on p. 388 of William Foote Whyte]
"The Bennett Law Campaign in Wisconsin,"
''Wisconsin Magazine Of History'', 10: 4 (1926–1927), p. 388
Hoard, a Republican, was defeated by the Democrats. A similar campaign in Illinois regarding the "Edwards Law" led to a Republican defeat there in 1890.
In 1917–1918, a wave of nativist sentiment due to American entry into
World War I led to the suppression of German cultural activities in the United States, Canada, and Australia. There was little violence, but many places and streets had their names changed (The city of "Berlin" in Ontario was renamed "Kitchener" after a British hero), churches switched to English for their services, and German Americans were forced to buy war bonds to show their patriotism. In Australia thousands of Germans were put into internment camps.
=Anti-Chinese nativism
=
In the 1870s and 1880s in the
Western states
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania. , ethnic White immigrants, especially
Irish Americans
, image = Irish ancestry in the USA 2018; Where Irish eyes are Smiling.png
, image_caption = Irish Americans, % of population by state
, caption = Notable Irish Americans
, population =
36,115,472 (10.9%) alone ...
and
German Americans
German Americans (german: Deutschamerikaner, ) are Americans who have full or partial Germans, German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 43 million in 2019, German Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by ...
, targeted violence against Chinese workers, driving them out of smaller towns.
Denis Kearney
Denis Kearney (1847–1907) was a California labor leader from Ireland who was active in the late 19th century and was known for his anti-Chinese activism. Called "a demagogue of extraordinary power," he frequently gave long and caustic speeches ...
, an immigrant from Ireland, led a mass movement in
San Francisco in the 1870s that incited attacks on the Chinese there and threatened public officials and railroad owners. The
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years. The law excluded merchants, teachers, students, travelers, and diplo ...
was the first of many nativist acts of Congress which attempted to limit the flow of immigrants into the U.S.. The Chinese responded to it by filing false claims of American birth, enabling thousands of them to immigrate to California. The exclusion of the Chinese caused the western railroads to begin importing Mexican railroad workers in greater numbers ("
traqueros").
=20th century
=
In the 1890s–1920s era, nativists and labor unions campaigned for immigration restriction following the waves of workers and families from Southern and Eastern Europe, including the
Kingdom of Italy
The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to ...
,
the Balkans,
Congress Poland
Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It w ...
,
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1 ...
, and the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...
. A favorite plan was the
literacy test to exclude workers who could not read or write their own foreign language. Congress passed literacy tests, but presidents—responding to business needs for workers—vetoed them.
Senator
Henry Cabot Lodge
Henry Cabot Lodge (May 12, 1850 November 9, 1924) was an American Republican politician, historian, and statesman from Massachusetts. He served in the United States Senate from 1893 to 1924 and is best known for his positions on foreign policy ...
argued the need for literacy tests, and described its implication on the new immigrants:
Responding to these demands, opponents of the literacy test called for the establishment of an immigration commission to focus on immigration as a whole. The United States Immigration Commission, also known as the
Dillingham Commission
The United States Immigration Commission (also known as the Dillingham Commission after its chairman, Republican Senator William P. Dillingham of Vermont) was a bipartisan special committee formed in February 1907 by the United States Congres ...
, was created and tasked with studying immigration and its effect on the United States. The findings of the commission further influenced immigration policy and upheld the concerns of the nativist movement.
Following
World War I, nativists in the 1920s focused their attention on Southern and Eastern Europeans due to their
Roman Catholic and
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...
faith, and realigned their beliefs behind racial and religious nativism.

Between the 1920s and the 1930s, the
Ku Klux Klan developed an explicitly nativist, pro-
Anglo-Saxon Protestant,
anti-Catholic,
anti-Irish,
anti-Italian
Anti-Italianism or Italophobia is a negative attitude regarding Italian people or people with Italian ancestry, often expressed through the use of prejudice, discrimination or stereotypes. Its opposite is Italophilia.
In the United States
Anti- ...
, and
anti-Jewish
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
stance in relation to the growing political, economic, and social uncertainty related to the
arrival of European immigrants on the American soil, predominantly composed of
Irish people
The Irish ( ga, Muintir na hÉireann or ''Na hÉireannaigh'') are an ethnic group and nation native to the island of Ireland, who share a common history and culture. There have been humans in Ireland for about 33,000 years, and it has been co ...
,
Italians
, flag =
, flag_caption = The national flag of Italy
, population =
, regions = Italy 55,551,000
, region1 = Brazil
, pop1 = 25–33 million
, ref1 =
, region2 ...
, and
Eastern European Jews
The expression 'Eastern European Jewry' has two meanings. Its first meaning refers to the current political spheres of the Eastern European countries and its second meaning refers to the Jewish communities in Russia and Poland. The phrase 'Eas ...
.
The racial concern of the anti-immigration movement was linked closely to the
eugenics movement that was sweeping in the United States during the same period. Led by Madison Grant's book, ''
The Passing of the Great Race
''The Passing of the Great Race: Or, The Racial Basis of European History'' is a 1916 racist and pseudoscientific book by American lawyer, self-styled anthropologist, and proponent of eugenics, Madison Grant (1865–1937). Grant expounds a the ...
'' nativists grew more concerned with the
racial purity of the United States. In his book, Grant argued that the American racial stock was being diluted by the influx of new immigrants from the Mediterranean, Ireland, the Balkans, and the ghettos. ''The Passing of the Great Race'' reached wide popularity among Americans and influenced immigration policy in the 1920s.
In the 1920s, a wide national consensus sharply restricted the overall inflow of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. The
Second Ku Klux Klan, which flourished in the United States during the 1920s, used strong nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Jewish rhetoric,
but the Catholics led a counterattack, such as in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
in 1921, where ethnic Irish residents hanged a Klan member in front of 3,000 people.
After intense lobbying from the nativist movement, the United States Congress passed the
Emergency Quota Act
__NOTOC__
The Emergency Quota Act, also known as the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921, the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921, the Per Centum Law, and the Johnson Quota Act (ch. 8, of May 19, 1921), was formulated mainly in response to the larg ...
in 1921. This bill was the first to place numerical quotas on immigration. It capped the inflow of immigrations to 357,803 for those arriving outside of the western hemisphere.
However, this bill was only temporary, as Congress began debating a more permanent bill. The Emergency Quota Act was followed with the
Immigration Act of 1924
The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the Asian Exclusion Act and National Origins Act (), was a United States federal law that prevented immigration from Asia and set quotas on the number of immigrants from the Eastern ...
, a more permanent resolution. This law reduced the number of immigrants able to arrive from 357,803, the number established in the Emergency Quota Act, to 164,687.
Though this bill did not fully restrict immigration, it considerably curbed the flow of immigration into the United States, especially from Southern and Eastern Europe. During the late 1920s, an average of 270,000 immigrants were allowed to arrive, mainly because of the exemption of Canada and Latin American countries.
Fear of low-skilled Southern and Eastern European immigrants flooding the labor market was an issue in the 1920s, the 1930s, and the first decade of the 21st century (focused on immigrants from
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Gua ...
and
Central America
Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Cen ...
).
An
immigration reduction
Opposition to immigration, also known as anti-immigration, has become a significant political ideology in many countries. In the modern sense, immigration refers to the entry of people from one state or territory into another state or territory ...
ism movement formed in the 1970s and continues to the present day. Prominent members often press for massive, sometimes total, reductions in immigration levels. American nativist sentiment experienced a resurgence in the late 20th century, this time directed at
undocumented workers
Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwar ...
, largely
Mexican, resulting in the passage of new penalties against illegal immigration in 1996. Most immigration reductionists see
illegal immigration
Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwa ...
, principally from across the
United States–Mexico border, as the more pressing concern. Authors such as
Samuel Huntington have also seen recent Hispanic immigration as creating a national identity crisis and presenting insurmountable problems for US social institutions.
Noting the large-scale
Mexican immigration in the Southwest, the Cold-War diplomat
George F. Kennan in 2002 saw "unmistakable evidences of a growing differentiation between the cultures, respectively, of large southern and southwestern regions of this country, on the one hand", and those of "some northern regions". In the former, he warned:
David Mayers argues that Kennan represented the "tradition of militant nativism" that resembled or even exceeded the Know Nothings of the 1850s. Mayers adds that Kennan also believed American women had too much power.
=21st century
=
By late 2014, the "
Tea Party movement
The Tea Party movement was an American fiscally conservative political movement within the Republican Party that began in 2009. Members of the movement called for lower taxes and for a reduction of the national debt and federal budget deficit ...
" had turned its focus away from economic issues, spending, and
Obamacare
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and colloquially known as Obamacare, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by Pres ...
, and towards President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
's immigration policies, which it saw as a threat to transform American society. It planned to defeat leading Republicans who supported immigration programs, such as Senator
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III (August 29, 1936 – August 25, 2018) was an American politician and United States Navy officer who served as a United States senator from Arizona from 1987 until his death in 2018. He previously served two term ...
. A typical slogan appeared in the ''Tea Party Tribune'': "Amnesty for Millions, Tyranny for All." The ''New York Times'' reported:
:What started five years ago as a groundswell of conservatives committed to curtailing the reach of the federal government, cutting the deficit and countering the
Wall Street
Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for ...
wing of the Republican Party has become a movement largely against immigration overhaul. The politicians, intellectual leaders and activists who consider themselves part of the Tea Party have redirected their energy from fiscal austerity and small government to stopping any changes that would legitimize people who are here illegally, either through granting them citizenship or legal status.
Political scientist and pollster
Darrell Bricker, CEO of
Ipsos
Ipsos Group S.A. () (an acronym of ) is a multinational market research and consulting firm with headquarters in Paris, France. The company was founded in 1975 by Didier Truchot, Chairman of the company, and has been publicly traded on the ...
Public Affairs, argues nativism is the root cause of the early 21st century wave of populism.
:
e jet fuel that’s really feeding the populist firestorm is nativism, the strong belief among an electorally important segment of the population that governments and other institutions should honour and protect the interests of their native-born citizens against the cultural changes being brought about by immigration. This, according to the populists, is about protecting the “Real America” (or “Real Britain” or “Real Poland” or “Real France” or “Real Hungary”) from imported influences that are destroying the values and cultures that have made their countries great.
:Importantly, it’s not just the nativists who are saying this is a battle over values and culture. Their strongest opponents believe this too, and they are not prepared to concede the high ground on what constitutes a “real citizen” to the populists. For them, this is a battle about the rule of law, inclusiveness, open borders, and global participation.
In his 2016 bid for the presidency, Republican presidential candidate
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
was accused of introducing nativist themes via his controversial stances on temporarily banning foreign Muslims from six specific countries entering the United States, and erecting a
substantial wall between the
US-Mexico border to halt
illegal immigration
Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwa ...
.
Journalist John Cassidy wrote in ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' that Trump was transforming the GOP into a populist, nativist party:
:Trump has been drawing on a base of alienated
white working-class and middle-class voters, seeking to remake the G.O.P. into a more
populist
Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group against " the elite". It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. The term developed ...
, nativist, avowedly protectionist, and semi-isolationist party that is skeptical of immigration, free trade, and military interventionism.
Donald Brand, a professor of political science, argues:
:Donald Trump's nativism is a fundamental corruption of the founding principles of the Republican Party. Nativists champion the purported interests of American citizens over those of immigrants, justifying their hostility to immigrants by the use of derogatory stereotypes: Mexicans are rapists; Muslims are terrorists.
=Language
=

American nativists have been promoting
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national id ...
and deprecated the use of
German and
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
.
English Only proponents in the late 20th century proposed an English Language Amendment (ELA), a
Constitutional Amendment
A constitutional amendment is a modification of the constitution of a polity, organization or other type of entity. Amendments are often interwoven into the relevant sections of an existing constitution, directly altering the text. Conversely, t ...
making English the official language of the United States, but it received limited political support.
Europe
In recent decades Islamophobia, racism and populism have become major themes in considering political tensions in Europe. Many observers see the post-1950s wave of immigration in Europe as fundamentally different to the pre-1914 patterns. They debate the role of cultural differences, ghettos, race,
Muslim fundamentalism
Islamic fundamentalism has been defined as a puritanical, revivalist, and reform movement of Muslims who aim to return to the founding scriptures of Islam. Islamic fundamentalists are of the view that Muslim-majority countries should return t ...
, poor education and poverty play in creating nativism among the hosts and a caste-type underclass, more similar to white-black tensions in the US.
Sociologists Josip Kešić and Jan Willem Duyvendak define nativism as an intense opposition to an internal minority that is portrayed as a threat to the nation because of its different values and priorities. There are three subtypes: secularist nativism (focused on Muslims); racial nativism (focused on blacks); and populist nativism that seeks to restore the historic power and prestige of "native" elites.
France
Once Italian workers in France had understood the benefit of
unionism, and French unions were willing to overcome their fear of Italians as
strikebreaker
A strikebreaker (sometimes called a scab, blackleg, or knobstick) is a person who works despite a strike. Strikebreakers are usually individuals who were not employed by the company before the trade union dispute but hired after or during the st ...
s, integration was open for most Italian immigrants. The French state, which was always more of an immigration state than other Western European nations, fostered and supported family-based immigration, and thus helped Italians on their immigration trajectory, with minimal nativism.
[Lucassen 2005]
Algerian migration to France has generated nativism, characterized by the prominence of Jean-Marie Le Pen and his National Front (France), National Front.
Since the 1990s France experienced rising levels of Islamic antisemitism and acts. By 2006, rising levels of antisemitism were recorded in French schools. Reports related to the tensions between the children of North African Muslim immigrants and North African Jewish children.
In the first half of 2009, an estimated 631 recorded acts of antisemitism took place in France, more than the whole of 2008. Speaking to the World Jewish Congress in December 2009, the French Interior Minister Hortefeux described the acts of antisemitism as "a poison to our republic". He also announced that he would appoint a special coordinator for fighting racism and antisemitism.
Germany
For the Poles in the mining districts of western Germany before 1914, nationalism (on both the German and the Polish sides) kept Polish workers, who had established an associational structure approaching institutional completeness (churches, voluntary associations, press, even unions), separate from the host German society. Lucassen found that religiosity and nationalism were more fundamental in generating nativism and inter-group hostility than the labor antagonism.
Nativism grew rapidly in the 1990s and since.
United Kingdom
The city of History of London, London became notorious for the prevalence of nativist viewpoints in the 16th century, and conditions worsened in the 1580s. Many European immigrants became disillusioned by routine threats of assault, numerous attempts at passing legislation calling for the expulsion of foreigners, and the great difficulty in acquiring British citizenship, English citizenship. Cities in the Dutch Republic often proved more hospitable, and many immigrants left London permanently. Nativism emerged in opposition to Irish and Jewish arrivals in the early 20th century. Irish immigrants in Great Britain during the 20th century became estranged from British society, something which Lucassen (2005) attributes to the deep religious divide between Protestantism in Ireland, Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics, Catholics.
=1930s
=
In 1933-1939, many people from Nazi Germany, particularly those belonging to minorities which were persecuted under Nazi rule, especially the Jews, sought to emigrate to the United Kingdom. As many as 50,000 may have been successful. There were immigration caps on the number who could enter and, subsequently, some applicants were turned away. When the UK declared war on Germany in 1939, however, migration between the countries ceased.
[Gerhard Hirschfeld, et al. ''Second chance: two centuries of German-speaking Jews in the United Kingdom'' (Mohr Siebeck, 1991). ]
See also
References
Bibliography
* Betz, Hans-Georg. " Facets of nativism: a heuristic exploration" ''Patterns of Prejudice'' (2019) 53#2 pp 111-135.
* Groenfeldt, D. "The future of indigenous values: cultural relativism in the face of economic development", ''Futures'', 35#9 (2003), pp. 917–29
* Jensen, Richard. "Comparative Nativism: The United States, Canada and Australia, 1880s–1910s," ''Canadian Journal for Social Research'' (2010) vol 3#1 pp. 45–55
* McNally, Mark. ''Proving the way: conflict and practice in the history of Japanese nativism'' (2005)
* Mamdani, M. ''When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism and the Genocide in Rwanda'' (2001)
* Yakushko, Oksana. ''Modern-Day Xenophobia: Critical Historical and Theoretical Perspectives on the Roots of Anti-Immigrant Prejudice'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)
United States
* Alexseev, Mikhail A. ''Immigration Phobia and the Security Dilemma: Russia, Europe, and the United States'' (Cambridge University Press, 2005). 294 pp.
* Kristofer Allerfeldt, Allerfeldt, Kristofer. ''Race, Radicalism, Religion, and Restriction: Immigration in the Pacific Northwest, 1890–1924.'' Praeger, 2003. 235 pp.
* Anbinder, Tyler. "Nativism and prejudice against immigrants," in ''A companion to American immigration,'' ed. by Reed Ueda (2006) pp. 177–20
excerpt* Barkan, Elliott R. "Return of the Nativists? California Public Opinion and Immigration in the 1980s and 1990s." ''Social Science History'' 2003 27(2): 229–83. in Project MUSE
* Billington, Ray Allen. ''The Protestant Crusade, 1800–1860: A Study of the Origins of American Nativism'' (1964
online
* Franchot, Jenny. ''Roads to Rome: The Antebellum Protestant Encounter with Catholicism '' (1994)
* Finzsch, Norbert, and Dietmar Schirmer, eds. ''Identity and Intolerance: Nationalism, Racism, and Xenophobia in Germany and the United States'' (2002)
* Higham, John, ''Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925'' (1955), the standard scholarly history
* Hueston, Robert Francis. ''The Catholic Press and Nativism, 1840–1860'' (1976)
* Hughey, Matthew W. 'Show Me Your Papers! Obama's Birth and the Whiteness of Belonging.' ''Qualitative Sociology'' 35(2): 163–81 (2012)
* Kaufmann, Eric. ''American Exceptionalism Reconsidered: Anglo-Saxon Ethnogenesis in the 'Universal' Nation, 1776–1850,'' Journal of American Studies, 33 (1999), 3, pp. 437–57.
* Lee, Erika. "America first, immigrants last: American xenophobia then and now." ''Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era'' 19.1 (2020): 3–18
online* Lee, Erika. ''America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States'' (2019)
excerpt* Leonard, Ira M. and Robert D. Parmet. ''American Nativism 1830–1860'' (1971)
* Luebke, Frederick C. ''Bonds of Loyalty: German-Americans and World War I'' (1974)
* Oxx, Katie. ''The Nativist Movement in America: Religious Conflict in the 19th Century'' (2013)
* Schrag Peter. ''Not Fit For Our Society: Immigration and Nativism in America'' (University of California Press; 2010) 256 pp
online
Canada
* Houston, Cecil J. and Smyth, William J. ''The Sash Canada Wore: A Historical Geography of the Orange Order in Canada.'' U. of Toronto Press, 1980.
* McLaughlin, Robert. "Irish Nationalism and Orange Unionism in Canada: A Reappraisal," Éire-Ireland 41.3&4 (2007) 80–109
* Mclean, Lorna. "'To Become Part of Us': Ethnicity, Race, Literacy and the Canadian Immigration Act of 1919". ''Canadian Ethnic Studies'' 2004 36(2): 1–28.
* Miller, J. R. ''Equal Rights: The Jesuits’ Estates Act Controversy'' (1979). in late 19c Canada
* Palmer, Howard. ''Patterns of Prejudice: A History of Nativism in Alberta'' (1992)
* Robin, Martion. ''Shades of Right: Nativist and Fascist Politics in Canada, 1920–1940'' (University of Toronto Press, 1992);
* See, S.W. ''Riots in New Brunswick: Orange Nativism and Social Violence in the 1840s'' (Univ of Toronto Press, 1993).
* Ward, W. Peter. ''White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy toward Orientals in British Columbia'' (1978)
Europe
* Alexseev, Mikhail A. ''Immigration Phobia and the Security Dilemma: Russia, Europe, and the United States'' (Cambridge University Press, 2005). 294 pp.
* Art, David. ''Inside the Radical Right: The Development of Anti-Immigrant Parties in Western Europe'' (Cambridge University Press; 2011) 288 pp. – examines anti-immigration activists and political candidates in 11 countries.
* Betz, Hans-Georg. "Against the 'Green Totalitarianism': Anti-Islamic Nativism in Contemporary Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe," in Christina Schori Liang, ed. ''Europe for the Europeans'' (2007)
* Betz, Hans-Georg. ""Facets of nativism: a heuristic exploration" ''Patterns of Prejudice'' (2019) 53#2 pp 111-135.
* Betz, Hans-Georg. ''Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe'' (1994).
* Ceuppens, Bambi. "Allochthons, Colonizers, and Scroungers: Exclusionary Populism in Belgium," ''African Studies Review,'' Volume 49, Number 2, September 2006, pp. 147–86 "Allochthons" means giving welfare benefits only to those groups that are considered to "truly belong"
* Chapin, Wesley D. ''Germany for the Germans?: The Political Effects of International Migration'' (Greenwood, 1997).
* Chinn, Jeff, and Robert Kaiser, eds. ''Russians as the New Minority: Ethnicity and Nationalism in the Soviet Successor States'' (1996)
* Finzsch, Norbert, and Dietmar Schirmer, eds. ''Identity and Intolerance: Nationalism, Racism, and Xenophobia in Germany and the United States'' (2002)
* Lucassen, Leo. ''The Immigrant Threat: The Integration of Old and New Migrants in Western Europe since 1850.'' University of Illinois Press, 2005. 280 pp; . Examines Irish immigrants in Britain, Polish immigrants in Germany, Italian immigrants in France (before 1940), and (since 1950), Caribbeans in Britain, Turks in Germany, and Algerians in France
* Liang, Christina Schori, ed. ''Europe for the Europeans'' (2007)
* Rose, Richard. "The End of Consensus in Austria and Switzerland," ''Journal of Democracy,'' Volume 11, Number 2, April 2000, pp. 26–40
* Wertheimer, Jack. ''Unwelcome Strangers: East European Jews in Imperial Germany'' (1991)
External links
* [http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5046/ Dennis Kearney, President, and H. L. Knight, Secretary, "Appeal from California. The Chinese Invasion. Workingmen’s Address," Indianapolis Times, 28 February 1878.]
"A Nation or Notion" by Patrick J. Buchanan, op-ed, Oct. 4, 2006. A conservative defense of nativism.
Videos of 2008 US Presidential Election Candidates' Positions regarding Immigration
False Diversity in Anti-Immigration organizations.
A Defense of Nativism Conservative Heritage Times.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nativism (Politics)
Anti-immigration politics
Nationalism
Far-right politics
Racism
Xenophobia