In 1924 one of the hardest pieces of anti-immigrant legislation was passed by Congress with widespread support of the mainstream, poisoned by years by nativists who, at that time, openly used racists lines of argumentation. Those racist statements have now been recycled but it is amazing how similar the arguments and the situations are. Roger Daniels brings us a portray of minorities from 1890 to the New Deal, paying special attention to the anti-immigrant movement who succesfully passed in 1924 one of the most shameful monuments to bigotry. If our pro-immigrant leaders do not get somebody to read [not clap, read], we could wake up in 2009 bitterly realizing that it is 1924 again.
Before finishing the introduction and passing to other issue, let's have a minute of silence for Benazir Bhutto, a brave hero and martir of our times.
Roger Daniels (Not like us. Immigrants and minorities in America, 1890-1924. Chicago, 1997. P. 158) says in his very interesting book:
"Even the opposition to immigration has undergone a sea change. In debates over immigration in the 1920s and 1930s, nativists nakedly stated their prejudices; by 1965 most of those resisting a more liberal policy claimed to be unprejudiced. In the 1965 Senate debates, Democrat Sam Ervin of North Carolina, the chief advocate of the status quo, insisted that the McCarran-Walter Act was not discriminatory but rather was "like a mirror reflecting the United States, allowing the admission of immigrants according to a national and uniform mathematical formula recognizing the obvious and natural fact that those immigrants can best be assimilated into our society who have relatives, friends, or others of similar background already here"."
Of course, the accusations against Italians and Poles were discredited by the facts, as both groups, supposedly unassimilable and unavoidably poor, became an important part of the social and economic mainstream of the American society. The so-called invasion that supposedly would come in endless hordes to deprive the native working class of their jobs reversed during the Great Depression (confirming that immigration is a dependent variable of the American labor demand) and nobody claims today what they said then of Italians and Poles and today of Hispanics with respect to the effects of immigration on the labor market and the economy as a whole. If you read Daniels’s book, you will be amazed of how identical the accusations are. As Daniels notes, the difference is that then the accusers were openly racists and today they avoid at any costs to be considered racists.
Our pro-immigrant leaders could learn at least two lessons from this book:
- They could quote (from the book) the arguments given in 1924 and how the facts ended up discrediting them.
- They could also quote the racist justifications the xenophobic Right then stated openly and today denies even though their accusations assume an unsaid premise: "Race determines culture". Actually if you compare the attacks of the xenophobic Right and the attacks made by David Duke, the only difference is that the Duke makes no effort to hide his racist premises.
(3. Did I mention the one about Alexander Hamilton in a previous entry? Yes, I did but of course, nobody even inquired about it).
In 1924 Italians and Poles did not have all the information and precedents we have now; they did not have a strategy to reach the mainstream with their position and even German and Scandinavian immigrants endorsed anti-immigrant positions mistakenly thinking that the new immigration restrictions would not affect them. As a result, the American mainstream massively bought the lies of the xenophobic Right and decades of shame and pain saddened the Founders who, invoking the principle that all men are created equal, denounced the King of Great Britain, among other things, for his restrictive immigration policies. Most of that mainstream were Protestant Christians but forgot that part of the main commandment about loving your neighbor with all your heart and that in no part the Bible excludes immigrants from the concept of neighbor.
If 2007 taught us something is that public support is not enough. In a year in which public support for comprehensive immigration reform reached 72%, the legislative results could not be worse: Agjobs, rejected; Dream Act, rejected; the Kennedy-Kyl bill on comprehensive immigration reform, rejected; the criminalization of employers ignoring the Social Security no-match letters, approved; and 3$ extra billion for internal and at the border enforcement overwhelmingly approved. Nevertheless, a communication strategy is important and three recommendations mentioned above go in that direction.
With respect to the political work, what failed in 2007, it is a useful exercise to compare Daniels’s book with the three articles on immigration that appeared in Politico 119 of December 13 of 2007 in the pages 6, 15 and 25. You will see how sad is to see history repeating itself again. Republicans using anti-immigration attacks to gain easy votes, Democrats taking ambiguous positions or even joining those anti-immigrant attacks and immigrants incapable to understand the way Washington’s politics works and so both incapable of defending themselves and/or giving Democrats a good reason to defend them. A few conclusions you could reach from those three articles are at least that:
- Republicans are positioning demonized concepts on immigration so immigration could play in 2008 the role the gay marriage and terrorism played in 2004, especially in swing states like Iowa and Ohio. For those who follow my entries, you know that there are tactics you can use in swing states despite the fact that you do not have important Hispanic and/or naturalized immigrant presence in such states.
- There is a strategy in the xenophobic Right to distract pro-immigrant groups in silly local battles in order to distract them of the last opportunity these groups are going to have in many years to achieve a good comprehensive immigration reform. For the time these groups realize the trap they are in, their possibilities to influence the 2008 elections in swing states are going to be closed and the new alignment of forces in Congress for 2009 is going to be a sad repetition of 2007 or, worse, of 1924.
- Many Democratic strategists are advocating joining the Republican position on immigration of worrying today for today and addressing tomorrow any possible Hispanic resentment. The problem with this is that 2008 is an electoral year and from 2010 on the problems of energy, balance of payments and the size of the debt with respect to the economy as a whole are going to make very difficult to get any comprehensive immigration reform that could barely resemble what we could get in 2009.
The second semester of 2009 is going to be the last window of opportunity to achieve a good comprehensive reform or the prelude of another 1924. To achieve the former, pro-immigrant groups should be able to participate in the tactic lines I have tirelessly (and depressingly suggested all this time in my entries) in the 2008 elections. To participate in the 2008 elections, the organization to launch such strategy should have been ready yesterday. Nevertheless, what you see is these pro-immigrant groups following the attacks from Hazelton to Prince Williams and from Prince Williams to somewhere else, enthusiastically repeating the tactics that have failed miserably year after year; following happily and carelessly the carrot the xenophobic Right puts before them, as if this were a game and not a matter involving the lives of millions of people; not wanting to realize that in 2009 they could bitterly wake up in 1924.
