I occasionally get into immigration debates where some argue that this wave off immigrants is somehow “different”. I contend that the language is always the same and is some variation of “they don’t share our values and won’t assimilate”. I often cite Benjamin Franklin’s diatribe against German immigrants. Is there a good web page that collects these attitudes over the years? Since I’m almost always arguing against white people it would be good to list screeds against Europeans, like the Irish and Italians.
You can take a look at organizations like Pew Research on Immigration Attitudes. Pew specializes in tracking public sentiment over time and produce a lot of content that highlight different elements of people’s beliefs.
Thanks Shal. It’s not quite what I was looking for but I read some of the articles and they are interesting.
I don’t have a webpage to recommend, but you are absolutely right about the language being the same. I read old newspapers, and immigration was a very big deal in the 1896 (I think it was 1896) election. Virtually every article published on the subject in 1896 could be printed again today with only minor changes (change ‘Italian’ to ‘Mexican’, for example). Exactly the same arguments – ‘they don’t contribute to our economy, they send the money home’, etc etc. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ has old newspapers with digital search if you want to search for articles.