With his latest round of attacks on four first-year members of Congress who are women of color, President Trump has once again touched the raw nerve of racism in American life. He has also tapped into one of the oldest strains in our politics — the fear and vilification of immigrants and their descendants. …
Anti-immigration sentiments emerged in force in the 1830s, when U.S. citizens descended primarily from English and Scottish settlers bridled at the influx of Irish. …
In the 1840s and 1850s, political parties formed in the U.S. to oppose the permissive immigration policies of the time. Some of these parties embraced the term “Native American,” spawning the label “nativist” that has stuck to succeeding generations of immigration opponents ever since. CONT.
Ron Elving, NPR News
