Stigmatization against immigrants

DEFINITION: The judging of foreign immigrants to be unsuitable for admission to the United States because of their presumed low morals, poor health, objectionable political or religious views, or other reasons 

SIGNIFICANCE: An essential irony of US immigration history has been the propensity of Americans to stigmatize members of certain groups and categories. Although the types of immigrants who have been denigrated have changed from era to era, a fundamental cause for their stigmatization has generally been some form of fear, such as fear of loss of hegemony by the majority groups, fear of cultural change, or fear of criminal behavior. 

Unlike some countries, such as the Philippines, the United States does not have a legal definition of “undesirable alien.” In the United States, the concept of undesirable aliens derives from popular, not legal parlance, primarily in journalism and in the rhetoric of speakers and writers opposed to immigration by members of certain groups. The closest equivalent in law, one that turns up in statutes and court cases having to do with immigration, naturalization, and deportation, is the term “undesirable resident.” However, even this term seems to lack a clear definition. Moreover, it might be applied to native-born citizens as well as foreigners.  

Outside the legal community, the term “undesirable aliens” has traditionally been leveled against a wide range of groups for an equally wide range of reasons, with race and religion perhaps prompting its most frequent application. From the days of the early republic through the early twentieth century, French, German, Irish, and Italian immigrants were often stigmatized simply because many of them were Roman Catholics.  

Discrimination against immigrants based on race has a long legal history in the United States as well. Through much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, various laws prohibited or severely restricted immigration from eastern and southern Europe and non-European countries. Anti-Chinese sentiment was especially vitriolic, resulting in such discriminatory legislation as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which all but ended immigration from China for decades, and such atrocities as the 1887 massacre of nearly three dozen Chinese workers at Snake River, Oregon. The perception of non-Whites as “undesirables” also led to some of the most shameful court cases in American history, such as Ozawa v. United States (1922), in which Japanese people were declared not to be “White” and thus to be ineligible for citizenship, and United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923), in which a World War I veteran of Punjabi origin was denied US citizenship because people from the Indian subcontinent were judged to be neither “White” nor “Caucasian.” 

Beyond Race and Religion

Numerous other factors have led certain groups of immigrants to be tagged as undesirable in the United States. One of the most obvious is the fear of political subversion or sabotage. The first instance of such a fear resulting in legislation happened early in the republic when tensions between the United States and France moved legislators to pass the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which allowed authorities to deport noncitizens who were deemed threats to the government. 

Similar worries of officials and the public led to discrimination against Germans during both World War I and World War II. During the latter conflict, the state of Minnesota passed a law forbidding German from being spoken. However, the most glaring example of fear causing an immigrant population to be seen as “undesirable” because they threatened national security was the internment of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. 

Fear of political subversion spread in the aftermath of President William McKinley’s assassination in 1901 by a Polish American anarchist. That same fear, refocused on communists, increased after World War II during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. During the early twenty-first century, in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, fear of subversion by Islamic militants surged, resulting in acts of prejudice against both aliens and citizens of Middle Eastern descent. 

After race, religion, and political persuasion, perhaps the most prominent force that creates circumstances in which members of alien groups come to be perceived as “undesirable” is fear of submersion. In these instances, Americans who see themselves as “mainstream” or “typical” fear the loss of their way of life because of a large influx of immigrants with cultures and folkways different from theirs. For example, Irish and Italian people had been present in small numbers before the American Revolution, but xenophobic attitudes toward them as groups did not emerge on a large scale until large waves of them came, first the Irish during the Great Irish Famine during the mid-nineteenth century and then when similar economic disasters befell Italy in the latter half of the century. Only after these groups appeared in great numbers did anti-Irish and anti-Italian rhetoric appear and violence occur, such as the notorious signs reading “No Irish Need Apply” in windows of businesses and the slaying of eleven Italian Americans in the streets of New Orleans in 1890 because of their suspected but unproven connection to the killing of a local police chief. Likewise, much xenophobic propaganda about Latinos stresses the large number of recent immigrants and feeds on the fear that “Anglo” culture will be subsumed and English will be replaced by Spanish.  

During the COVID-19 pandemic in late 2019 and 2020, those of Asian descent faced increased discrimination and hate crimes in the United States. Studies indicate that some Americans designated Asian Americans as foreigners and outsiders in the country to spread disease. The physical and emotional well-being of many was severely affected. This damaging rhetoric was supported by some who were racist and misinformed about Asians as an ethnic group and public health and disease. In 2020, President Trump issued a proclamation that attempted to restrict students and researchers from China from immigrating to the United States. This stigma against Asians and Asian Americans also exposed the power of social media in perpetuating modern stereotypes and spreading misinformation, perpetuating discrimination. 

Ironically, data shows that naturalized immigrants and their second-generation children in countries such as the United States and Canada are more likely to achieve higher rates of economic success than native-born citizens. These outcomes are common to all immigrant nationalities, genders, and historical eras. Immigrants are more prone to good health and also less likely to experience divorce or revert back to poverty compared with those born in the United States. These characteristics of immigrants, termed "the immigrant advantage," may themselves be a cause for native-born animosities which lend to negative stereotypes and caricatures. 

An ethnic group may be the subject of positive stereotyping. In the 2020s, such sentiments pre-supposed that those of Asian ancestry were uncommonly disciplined and proficient in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematic (STEM) subjects. Though not outwardly negative, this type of messaging is subject to the whims of other social groups. These other social groups may later find it convenient to negatively alter a stereotype for self-beneficial purposes. A prime example is the spike in violence that occurred against people of Asian descent in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic.   

During the 2024 presidential election campaign, GOP candidate Donald Trump ran on a platform whose policies were decidedly anti-immigrant. Referring to a new trend where large numbers of Chinese citizens were seeking entry through the United States' southern border, Trump stereotyped these Chinese people as "spies" and as members of "an army" seeking to wage war on the United States. Asian advocacy groups again noted the negative impacts such stereotyped messaging had on their communities. 

Bibliography

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