蜜柚直播

Early in our history an American wrote that immigrants refused to learn our language, lived in their own neighborhoods, went to their own churches and had their own newspapers. This comment, about Germans, is attributed to Benjamin Franklin in the late 1700s. Although this thinking persisted, immigrants continued to arrive. In the beginning of the 19th century, thousands of Irish came to escape the potato famine. They were described then as troublesome fighters and drunkards. We are told of job ads saying 鈥渘o Irish need apply,鈥� but they continued to come.

After the Civil War, the settlement of the West and the transcontinental railroad became a reality. Mines were flourishing. Laborers were needed. Chinese were imported to fill that need. When those projects were finished, these Chinese began to arouse the animosity of the existing population.

Labor leaders, like Denis Kearney of the California Workingman鈥檚 Party, reflected that anger in an 1878 address. He said the Chinese were a race of coolies, 鈥渃heap working slaves who undercut American living standards and thus should be banished from America鈥檚 shores鈥�. They were, he said, 鈥渨ipped (sic) curs, abject in docility, mean, contemptible and obedient in all things.鈥� They work here and 鈥済o back to China with their earnings鈥�. Shortly thereafter, in 1882, we passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which, as it sounds, forbade Chinese from entering this Country. This Act was law until 1943!

Between 1890 and 1920, we saw the greatest influx of immigrants in our history. Eastern Europeans, Jews, Italians and other Europeans arrived by the hundreds of thousands, and met with disdain and excoriation. Writer H.P. Lovecraft, for example, wrote that the Italians 鈥渃ould not by any stretch of the imagination be call鈥檇 (sic) human,鈥� but were 鈥渋nfesting worms or deep-sea unnamabilities (sic).鈥� (This comment from the book 鈥淭he Black Hand鈥� is abridged to avoid offensive language). This influx of Europeans, however, continued unabated until the immigration act of 1924.

In 1916, Madison Grant, well-known, self-acclaimed eugenicist and anthropologist, wrote 鈥淭he Passing of the Great Race,鈥� an influential and definitive work in the 20th century tradition of 鈥渟cientific racism.鈥� It explained his theory of 鈥淣ordic鈥� superiority and categorized 鈥渞aces鈥� as he saw them. His ideas are now rejected, but he wrote the history of what he called the three European races: Nordic, Alpine and Mediterranean.

Nordic was the superior race. In his view, they had arrived early in American history, and were generally white, blonde, blue eyed and came from Northern European Countries and the British Isles. Other 鈥渞aces鈥� were inferior, weaker and, he believed, should eventually be eliminated by selective breeding, sterilization and other means. His views, popular initially, were generally repudiated in America by the 1930s and in Europe after World War II. Not surprisingly they were adopted by Hitler and used in his genocide, primarily of Jews, before and during the war. Grant鈥檚 was the first book authorized by Hitler to be published in Germany after his ascension to power.

The anti-immigrant furor we now see against brown people fleeing South and Central American nations is not new. They are not immigrating, but seek to escape horrible conditions. They come by difficult and sometimes deadly routes to attain asylum, hopefully to be accepted and integrated into our society as earlier arrivals.

If we fail now, future generations may say, in the words of the song, 鈥淥h, when will we ever learn?鈥�