Any American hearing all the talk these days about “illegal” immigrants might be surprised to learn how relatively modern the term is. Originally, there was no such thing as illegal immigration; all immigrants to the U.S. were legal. You arrived, you stayed for two years (5 years beginning in 1795) and presto, you were a citizen. And so were your existing or future children.
That all changed beginning around the middle of the Nineteenth Century, when many “nativists” (those who believe that the only real Americans come from the stock of the Caucasians who stole the land they live on) began to get paranoid about the number of new immigrants arriving on “their” shores. Interestingly, however, it wasn’t the fear of ethnic minorities that initially prompted immigration restriction, but the fear of religious minorities – especially Catholics.
To soundbite their cause, the nativists came up with the slogan “America First”. What this meant was “screw everyone who is not already an American”. It was a slogan that would be resuscitated several times during the ensuing decades, by several different movements and factions. And it has never, ever been used in a constructive fashion – it has always been cited in support of bigotry, xenophobia and isolationism.
The next notable landmark came in 1875 with the passage of an immigration law designed specifically to keep out the Chinese. This was followed by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Once the “coolies” had built railroads and done the laundry, many Americans wanted nothing more to do with them.
The anti-immigration forces really hit their stride in 1924 with the passage of the Immigration Act (aka the Johnson-Reed Act), which had the goal of protecting Christian nationalism and claims to white supremacy by restricting immigration. It established quotas based supposedly on the percentages of demographic groups already residing in the country. But those percentages were derived from an outdated census taken decades earlier; and in the interim, there had been a greatly increased influx across the board.
Meanwhile, the bigotry had been spurred on repeatedly by cries of “America First”. The phrase was freely used by the KKK. And it was invoked by those in the government who wanted to stay neutral during both World War I and World War II. During the latter period, it was coupled with antisemitism – with an urge to keep Jews out of the country, resulting in many refugees from Nazi Germany being turned away and sent back to certain death. Indeed, some of the people who proclaimed “America first” were, then as now, Nazi sympathizers.
Jewish political cartoonist Theodor Geisel, later to be known as Dr. Seuss, spelled it out very clearly in a number of cartoons.
In 1965, the Immigration Law of 1924 was superseded by the Immigration Nationality Act, which effectively established the immigration system as we know it today. So when you hear people say that their grandparents or great-grandparents came here through Ellis Island and everyone else should do as they did, you know that these people don’t know what they’re talking about (especially if their forebears arrived before 1924).
But while the 1965 law was in some ways a victory for civil rights and human rights, it still left the door open for discrimination. In fact, while ending quotas for overseas arrivals, it established, for the first time, a cap on the number of immigrants accepted from the Western Hemisphere — thereby permanently skewing public perception of those who come from Latin America.
Today, bigotry and nationalism are alive and well — in fact, they’ve shown a resurgence with the spawning of the MAGA cult. And you’ll hear “America First” from many political, media and religious figures who either don’t know or don’t care about the term’s history. Or actually are proud of it.
They speak in terms of “defending our borders”, as if the nation were under attack from hostile forces. Indeed, they often refer to the flow of migrants as an “invasion”. And to buttress this characterization, they circulate many other misconceptions, myths and downright lies. Which we’ll examine in another post.
The Propaganda Professor 
Thanks again for another article about our strange aversion to points of Origin, race, and cetain religiouns, while calling ourselves compassionate. I was unaware of the signifcance of dates like 1795, 1875, 1882, 1924, with exception for 1965, the last being the only era I lived through, and which was full of hopeful changes, but which now, Trump and his henchmen are actively seeking to politically carpet bomb any of us who value the ideal kinds of progress which some of the founder worked hard to bring about in our future. Back then black people “knew their place,” and “coolies (as you say,)”did our laundry while working very dangerous jobs that were needed to build the famous Railroad which joined the east and the west. I have read that whenever a job required the use of dynamite, “coolies,” were given the task of risking their lives by setting up the blasts. And currenty it is still amazing that the number of conservatives who seem ready to give their souls to bring back times when there were no souls, except maybe for some who came here here on the Mayflower, who actually believe that is what American was created for?
As a High school student in the 60s it seemed that in my small town school, many people had no idea how the first amendment worked and why it is one of the most fundimental right we have. We were told many times that it could not be used to scream fire in a crowded buiding where no fires were burning. Similarly, freedom of speech cannot be used to jeopordize the freedoms of others, by using it as a rationalization for conservative neo-nazi groups to violnetly attack our own capitol. And I still cannot fathom why the Oath Keepers and the Skin Heads etc. keep attracting people into their ranks, some of whom know full well, what the limits of their personal rights actually are?
Recently I have had a lady who comes over to help clean my apartment and do small errands as part of my health insurance coverage. She is from the philippines, has lived here for many years, but still tells me that one of her neighbors asked her why she didn’t go back to live in her, “own country?” I don’t know if my cleaner is a legal citizen or not, but she was amazed when I told her how persecuted and discriminted against, black Americans still are, and the terrible history they share of being considered nothing more than the property of wealhy land owners. I also told her that despite the compassion expressed at the Statue of liberty, our history contains vast amounts of bias and unfair discrimination, aimed at nearly everyone who is different, or has ever tried to be different.
It is really sad when long time citizens are so ignorant that the believe nationaisim and prejudice are not only theirs to use, but how they think such beliefs will be much better for us whilte guys, while members in the swamp use their golden toilets, and conceive of our president as being a king? Money is always important, but if some of these hate groups come to power, they will reject and distort the role played to establish common human compasson and empathy which has enbled us to understand that under law, we are all equal citizens and human beings who deserve to cherish our ideals while we hope to help
estabish a “more perfect Union!”
Excellent as usual, but one minor quibble (I would’ve said this in Email but I have no Email address for you): Dr. Seuss’s real full name is “Theodor Seuss Geisel.” There’s only one “e” in “Theodor” and two in “Geisel.”
Thank you. Somehow I neglected to do my usual double checking of spellings. No excuses, but it’s been a long month. I’ll correct it.
Don’t worry, as I grow older I find that sometime it takes as long to proofread as it takes to write a long comment, and even then I still make unexpected mistakes.
When people say, “My people came through Ellis Island”, they’re probably ignorant of all the other ways people could come into America. My people came through Canada.
Mine came from Finland to Ellis Island to claim a free quarter section of land from the government in exchange for making improvement to their land, like clearing fields and establishing small farms. In my life nobody in my area was really biased against Finns but when my parents were born they had to learn English and were not allowed to speak Finnish in school, and my mother recalled that as a grade school student some of the other kids taunted her and through rocks at she and her friends!! Considering the compassionate message conveyed by the Statue of liberty it really is amazing how often and how vehemently we enterain bias and hatred towards anyone who we consider a easy target?
I meant, “When my parents grew up in America… “