Nativism can collapse even as the immigrant influx it fears soars

Evidence

This remarkable collapse of nativism during the last years of the nineteenth and first years of the twentieth century ran exactly counter to the currents of immigration. The return of confidence coincided with a surge of immigration caused by a tremendous torrent from southern and eastern Europe. While migration from northern Europe remained at a low ebb, in 1899 the new immigration began a fantastic nine-year climb. In 1900 it reached three hundred thousand for the first time. In 1903 it passed six hundred thousand. In 1907 it stood at an all-time high of close to a million. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 644

Categorization

• XREF: Directly answers the reader’s core question about whether solidarity tracks actual threat levels or manufactured/perceived ones — here perceived threat collapses while objective diversity rises. — connects to: The removal of economic threat deflated nativism regardless of rising immigration — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 618; Institutional confidence loss, not ethnic competition, drives nativism to the national agenda; Anti-Catholic nativism peaked after mass Catholic immigration, not before it — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 287 (+10 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: Undercuts a materialist reading of xenophobia; the ‘enemy’ is plainly constructed from confidence and crisis, not demographic fact.

Broader Connections

• The removal of economic threat deflated nativism regardless of rising immigration #corroborates (1.00) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 618
• Anti-immigrant solidarity collapsed almost instantly when the anarchist threat faded #exemplifies (0.95) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 660
• Anti-Catholic nativism peaked after mass Catholic immigration, not before it #exemplifies (0.90) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 287
• Institutional confidence loss, not ethnic competition, drives nativism to the national agenda #corroborates (0.72)