Racial nativism grew only when it fixed on an identifiable new immigrant type

Evidence

Many if not most of these men in the early nineties remained oblivious of the new immigration, assuming that the immigrants as a whole lacked the Anglo-Saxon’s ancestral qualities. However, the avant-garde of racial nationalists was discovering during those years the shift in the immigrant stream. ‘lhe discovery was important, because it lent a new sharpness and relevance to race-thinking. By making the simple (and in fact traditional) assumption that northern European nationalities shared much of the Anglo- Saxon’s inherited traits, a racial nativist could now understand why immigration had just now become a problem. Also, the cultural remoteness of southern and eastern European “races” suggested to him that the foreign danger involved much more than an inherited incapacity for self-government: the new immigration was racially impervious to the whole of American civilization! ‘Thus Anglo- Saxon nativism, in coming to focus on specific ethnic types, passed beyond its first, subordinate role as a corollary to anti-radical nativism. It found its own raison d’étre, and in doing so served to divide the new immigrants from their predecessors in an absolute and fundamental way. Racial nativism became at once more plausible, a more significant factor in the history of immigration restriction, and a more precisely formulated ideology. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 832

Categorization

• XREF: Directly bears on the reader’s research question: racialization as one transitional form the ‘enemy’ category passes through, contingent on identifying a concrete, bounded target rather than a diffuse mass. — connects to: Racial nativism matured only when public confidence recovered — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 762; Racial nativism began as a defensive swing requiring no new intellectual input — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 804; Darwinism prepared but did not directly cause racial nativism — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 787 (+3 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The mechanism claim — that manufactured-enemy solidarity requires an identifiable subtype, and dividing newcomers absolutely from predecessors triggers escalation — is dense and resonant beyond immigration history.

Broader Connections

• American nativism racialized over time rather than starting as racism #corroborates (0.90) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 2003
• Nativism’s ideological enemies got remade as biologically fixed racial ones #expands (0.85) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 1580