Nativism was driven by internal anxieties, not by the immigrants themselves

Evidence

Painful though these epithets were, they failed to touch the springs of nationalism. Nativists in the eighties almost wholly ignored the rising new immigration. The points of departure for modern American nativism lay not in external stimuli but in internal conditions, not in new peoples or ideas but in new problems reacting upon the recessive traditions of American nationalism. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 397

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s research question on whether solidarity is sustained by a constructed enemy vs primordial identity — Higham locates the ‘enemy’s’ salience in internal conditions, not the outgroup’s objective traits. — connects to: Industrialists abandoned nativism once immigrant labor seemed docile — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 1389; Fear-driven nationalism roused nativists but failed to assimilate immigrants — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 1424; 1880s nativism attacked immigrants indiscriminately, not by ethnic type yet. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 383 (+7 more)
• QUESTION: If internal conditions drive nativism rather than immigrant traits, what happens to those movements when the internal strain eases but the immigrant presence persists, or vice versa?

Broader Connections

• Institutional confidence loss, not ethnic competition, drives nativism to the national agenda #corroborates (0.85)
• The removal of economic threat deflated nativism regardless of rising immigration #corroborates (0.80) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 618
• Early hostility to new immigrants was cultural contempt, not nativism #qualifies (0.75) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 391