1880s nativism attacked immigrants indiscriminately, not by ethnic type yet.

Evidence

The authentic nativism of the eighties contained no assertion of—much less any emphasis upon—a broad, fundamental distinction between immigrant types. In its anti-immigrant aspect, the hatred struck at foreigners indiscriminately. Particular targets, such as German anarchists, Irish Catholics, and Slavic contract labor, might receive the brunt of the attack, but in each case the xenophobe interpreted his particular enemy as symbolic of a generalized foreign danger. He made no effort to select any part of the immigrant stream as the bearer of all of its vice. ‘The point is important, for historians have usually traced the beginnings of modern nativism to a shift in the sources of immigration, a shift from an “old immigration” of northwestern Europeans to a “new immigration” from southern and eastern Europe. A turn in the immigrant tide was indeed under way in the eighties, but later observers saw it more clearly and took it more seriously than anyone could at the time. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 383

Categorization

• XREF: Direct core evidence for the reader’s thesis that racialized selection of an ‘enemy type’ came later rather than the shift in immigration sources being the cause. — connects to: Early hostility to new immigrants was cultural contempt, not nativism — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 391; Nativism was driven by internal anxieties, not by the immigrants themselves — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 397; Racial nativism grew only when it fixed on an identifiable new immigrant type — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 832 (+2 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: flagged by the selector, no supporting note recorded

Broader Connections

• Anti-immigrant hostility in the 1880s targeted culture, not subversiveness or unassimilability #expands (0.85) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 391
• Early hostility to new immigrants was cultural contempt, not nativism #expands (0.82) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 391
• Racial nativism grew only when it fixed on an identifiable new immigrant type #expands (0.78) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 832
• Nativism was driven by internal anxieties, not by the immigrants themselves #corroborates (0.75) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 397
• Early 1900s nativism ranked white immigrant groups into inferior castes. #qualifies (0.72) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 232