Each nativist wave permanently transforms American society rather than merely repeating

Evidence

History may move partly in cycles but never in circles. With every revolution some new direction opens, and some permanent accretion is carried into the next phase. Hach upthrust of nativism left a mark on American thought and society. The consequences of the anti-foreign wave that flowed without pause for two decades in the early twentieth century are still too recent to be clearly evident; yet who can doubt their primary significance? — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 1983