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Anti-immigration fervor rooted in culture

Wednesday, February 22, 2006


The tougher immigration laws and the resulting immigrant reactions, including demonstrations such as the Feb. 14 strike by immigrant labor, seem to be creating a new situation for the country.

But, in fact, the history of immigration in the United States has long been one of the most controversial and difficult.

This history began in 1620 with the arrival of 102 English immigrants in what was later known as Plymouth, Mass. The pilgrims came seeking religious freedom.

Just 18 years later, the first Swedish colony was established in Delaware. According to the Library of Congress (at www.loc.gov, one of the main sources for this column), the Swedish settlers had to relinquish their land to the Dutch, who arrived shortly thereafter.

Drawn to United States

Virtually all foreigners have been drawn by the prospect of wealth and freedom in this country, with only one exception -- African slaves. According to the Web site "Digital History," 150 slaves were brought to work for the first time at Virginia plantations in 1640.

There have been massive immigration cycles throughout history, for a variety of reasons.

In a 1798 book, Essay on the Principles of Population, English economist Thomas Malthus wrote the population in England was growing at a faster rate than the economy, and consequently, the theory went, people would soon begin to starve. This theory concerned the British government to the point that, for the first time in their history, they encouraged the departure of their citizens. The majority of them migrated to the United States.

Then, it was Ireland, where the potato was the staple of the diet. The 1845 and 1846 potato harvests were almost a total loss, which brought about what we know as the Potato Famine. Estimates are that 350,000 people died and, in the following 10 years, two million Irish migrated to the United States.

Avoiding hardships

In Philadelphia, there is a poignant monument to the Potato Famine, which is also highlighted in the documentary On Eagle's Wing by John Anderson.

Several sources -- among them the famous Turning Points in U.S. History produced by Ambrose videos -- indicate that in 1848, after an unsuccessful revolution, the Germans started to leave their country in hordes.

Similarly, the French sought refuge in the United States due to another ill-fated revolution. Around 20,000 of them arrived between 1848 and 1851.

The Russian migration began in earnest in 1881, following the murder of Czar Alexander II. Between 1890 and 1900, 650,000 Italians made the journey to the United States.

This rate of migration to the United States continued throughout the 20th century until the first large-scale arrival of Hispanics took place. One of the most recent was in 1998 after the devastating Hurricane Mitch swept through Central America.

The repeated arrival of these large groups of people has given rise to clashes and local persecutions. The 2002 movie, Gangs of New York, documents this subject by telling a true story.

For centuries, the government, the police and the legislators have been concerned with the immigration issue.

On the one hand, they have tried to control the borders. On the other hand, they have tried to restrict the immigrants, who are considered a threat.

For example, because of the success of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, then-Attorney General Mitchell Palmer and his special assistant J. Edgar Hoover, who later became the infamous FBI director, endorsed and used the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 to target leftist radicals.

Reports from the time indicate that between 1917 and 1919, 10,000 people -- primarily immigrants -- were arrested under suspicion of being communists or anarchists.

Yet, laws against immigrants began a long time before that. The Naturalization Act was approved in 1795, granting citizenship only to those white people who renounced their country of origin.

Keeping out others

The Alien and Sedition Act of 1798 authorized the deportation of foreigners who were considered dangerous.

Conversely, in 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo granted American citizenship to 80,000 Mexicans who lived in the territory ceded to the United States in the war with Mexico.

During the 1849 gold rush, California encouraged immigration from China.

However, in 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was approved, prohibiting all Chinese people from entering the country and imposing strong sanctions against smugglers.

That same year, a new Immigration Act banned those considered mentally ill from entering the country.

In 1885, the Alien Contract Labor Law prohibited businesses from hiring foreigners.

In 1891, Congress denied entrance to "people accused of polygamy, to the loathsome, to those with infectious diseases, and to those accused of moral turpitude."

In 1901, President William McKinley was assassinated by a Polish anarchist, which resulted in the Anarchist Exclusion Act.

The Expatriation Act of 1907 decreed that any American woman who married a foreign citizen would lose her citizenship.

That same year a law dictated that Japanese workers could immigrate only to Hawaii.

In 1917, by law, all individuals with mental retardation and similar handicaps, epileptics and others, were banned from entering the United States. Also excluded were all those who could not read a language.

The Cable Act later amended the Expatriation Act, stripping American citizenship from only women who married Asian men.

Also in 1917, the Jones-Shafroth Act granted American citizenship to the people from Puerto Rico.

In 1924, the National Origin Act barred Asians from the country, including their wives and children born in the United States.

That same year, New York Congressman Emanuel Celler, while defending his Immigration Act bill, stated: "We were afraid of foreigners; we distrusted them; we didn't like them."

In 1942, Executive Order 9066 confined 112,000 Japanese-Americans to isolation camps on the Pacific coast. That same year, the Mexican Braceros program was established.

In 1950, the Internal Security Act prohibited the presence of communist foreigners who were involved in political activities.

In 1986, three million undocumented individuals were granted amnesty.

Denying services

In 1995, California approved Proposition 187, denying public education, health and government assistance to undocumented immigrants.

In 2004, Arizona approved Proposition 200 after an intense campaign called Protect Arizona Now. This law denies all public services to undocumented immigrants. After that, there have been rumors of a similar campaign at the national level called Protect America Now.

In 2006, in addition to the activities of several anti-immigrant groups, the so-called "Sensenbrenner-King" bill is now being discussed.

The bill would make it mandatory to build a wall along the border with Mexico, designate the presence of undocumented immigrants an aggravated federal felony and grant local, non-federal law enforcement agencies the authority to enforce immigration laws.

All in all, this bill -- if approved -- will neither be the first nor the last.

The writer is editor of Nuestra Comunidad, a Spanish-language weekly published by the Courier-Post. This column appears on this page and in the weekly Wednesdays.