The old-new immigration distinction was read backward onto the eighties by later nativists

Evidence

The authentic nativism of the eighties contained no assertion of—much less any emphasis upon—a broad, fundamental distinction between immigrant types. In its anti-immigrant aspect, the hatred struck at foreigners indiscriminately. Particular targets, such as German anarchists, Irish Catholics, and Slavic contract labor, might receive the brunt of the attack, but in each case the xenophobe interpreted his particular enemy as symbolic of a generalized foreign danger. He made no effort to select any part of the immigrant stream as the bearer of all of its vice. ‘The point is important, for historians have usually traced the beginnings of modern nativism to a shift in the sources of immigration, a shift from an “old immigration” of northwestern Europeans to a “new immigration” from southern and eastern Europe. A turn in the immigrant tide was indeed under way in the eighties, but later observers saw it more clearly and took it more seriously than anyone could at the time. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 383

Categorization

• XREF: Directly supplies the reader’s central hypothesis: the ‘enemy’ category (here, generalized foreignness) precedes and is not caused by its specific racialized content. Contradicts the view that racial nativism flowed from the arrival of the new immigrants. — connects to: Religious justifications for subordination were recycled across successive immigrant groups; A new nationalism rechanneled existing race feelings onto immigrant targets — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 1012; Early hostility to new immigrants was cultural contempt, not nativism — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 391 (+1 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that the enemy category precedes and generates its racialized content—rather than the racial group arrival creating the enemy—is a strong, nuanced thesis with broad comparative reach.
• SEED: Essay angle: how later movements retroactively project a clean old-vs-new, race-based origin story onto an earlier, messier indiscriminate xenophobia—useful for the reader’s question of whether correction against a threat-hardened belief succeeds.

Broader Connections

• Religious justifications for subordination were recycled across successive immigrant groups #complicates (0.72)
• A new nationalism rechanneled existing race feelings onto immigrant targets #corroborates (0.72) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 1012