Late-century immigrant resentment was primarily class hatred, not ethnic feeling
Evidence
Since the new groups entered into an already tense situation as creatures of the employers, they encountered resentments that were more than ethnocentric and went beyond economic competition. The immigrants seemed both symbols and agents of the widening gulf between capital and labor. The hatred of them was a hatred of the corporations for trying “to degrade native labor by the introduction of a class who, in following the customs of their ancestors, live more like brutes than human beings.” — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 275
Categorization
- XREF: Directly feeds the reader’s research question: the ‘enemy’ of the 1880s native worker was constructed as the employer’s tool — a manufactured enemy — supporting the claim that group animus is built, not primordial. — connects to: Early hostility to new immigrants was cultural contempt, not nativism — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 391; Anti-immigrant hostility resurfaced first among humanitarian reformers, not conservatives. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 209; Official nationalism redirected resentment onto imported ethnic minorities — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 382 (+1 more)
- QUESTION: Central to reader’s hypothesis: is the immigrant ‘enemy’ category here transitional — standing in for capital — before it hardens into racial nativism? Chases the enemy-capital displacement thread.
Broader Connections
- Official nationalism redirected resentment onto imported ethnic minorities
#contradicts(0.80) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 382 - A new nationalism rechanneled existing race feelings onto immigrant targets
#contradicts(0.80) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 1012