Blog #2 Nativism in America

As America was growing in the 19th and 20th centuries, I think there was more than one opinion as to what Nativism meant. To the white Americans, that didn’t seem to include the American born children of immigrants. To them, they were supposed to be the work force that did the dirty work that would help achieve the American dream and Manifest Destiny. Americans did not want these future miners, factory workers, railroad workers and farm laborers to take the better, privileged jobs that the “real” Americans should have. They were not meant attend schools and become lawyers, doctors, or politicians, but quietly fade into the background as civilized Americans enjoyed the fruits of these foreigners labor. As the population of American born children of immigrants grew and began trying to get educations and better paying jobs, white Americans saw this as a problem and knew thy had to do something to change what it meant for these next generations of Africans, Indians, Mexicans, Irish, Chinese, Japanese, and Jewish to assimilate themselves into mainstream American society. White Americans did this by creating laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act, Burke Act, and Alien Land Law, along with using tactics like taking land, putting restrictions on the number of incoming immigrants or not allowing family of the immigrants at all, or wage cuts that almost guaranteed the entry of these young adults into manual labor to help their family.
To the American born children of immigrants however, Nativism and their assimilation into American society meant something different altogether. In their minds, they should be awarded the same privileges any other American born citizen were afforded. Most of them spoke better English than they did their own language, and were more accustomed to the practices and culture of America than their own countries which they had never even seen. They had grown up in America and watched their parents work themselves to the bone for Americans, why shouldn’t they be able to get an education and obtain the same jobs as white Americans? As this generation was growing up, most embraced the American way of life as their own. They were converting to a Christian religion, speaking English, and dressing like civilized Americans. They bought into the American dream, thinking that if you followed the rules, worked hard, and got an education, you could own land or get a better job than the one your parents had to do. These young people wanted the things that were guaranteed to the white Americans so easily but not to them. Contrary to the opinion of the whites, these young men and women felt that they were Americans, and full citizens, and should be eligible for the same privileges as their American bothers and sisters.