Nativism’s core charges repeat for centuries and shift only toward racism

Evidence

Hardly any aspect of American xenophobia over its course from the eighteenth to the twentieth century is more striking than the monotony of its ideological refrain. Year after year, decade after decade, the same charges and complaints have sounded in endless reiteration. Variously combined, formulated, and documented, adapted to different and changing adversaries, rising and falling in intensity and acceptance, nearly all of the key ideas persisted without basic modification. But in one major respect the pattern of nativist thought changed fundamentally. Gradually and progressively it veered toward racism. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 757

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: American nativism racialized over time rather than starting as racism — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 2003; Nativism abandoned ideological conversion for permanent racial exclusion once radical threat dissolved — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 1580; Nativism’s ideological enemies got remade as biologically fixed racial ones — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 1580 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Nativism abandoned ideological conversion for permanent racial exclusion once radical threat dissolved #expands (0.85) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 1580
• Nativism’s ideological enemies got remade as biologically fixed racial ones #expands (0.85) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 1580
• American nativism racialized over time rather than starting as racism #contradicts (0.80) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 2003