Description
Sadly, down to the present moment, immigration remains one of the most divisive issues in this nation. It seems that ever since the massive influx of southern and eastern European immigrants from 1880-1910, white America (WASPs) simply could not and cannot accept anyone who doesn’t look or appear like them. Witness the most recent tragedy in El Paso, stoked by Donald Trump’s obvious racism and nativism. Why has such fear of the other permeated US history? What made those immigrants from southern and eastern Europe so loathsome and fearful to white America? Why can’t we get past this absurd issue, especially given the fact that the majority of current Americans are essentially a people of color, meaning not White, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant. Sure the immigrants who came here during the period noted above were Caucasian, but why were they so disdained by white America? In short, in an in-depth essay, tell me why white America has been so xenophobic toward the other? Have immigrants been a positive contribution to this nation’s history? I would of course argue yes, because I am the son of Italian immigrants who came to the US in the 1920s and I promise you they were not welcomed but hey, we’re here and we are not going anywhere.