Know-Nothing Flag

Every time America experiences a wave of immigration, it is inevitable that xenophobes and restrictionists bring out the same old tropes. “They’re going to ruin our country!” “They aren’t loyal!” And time and time again, they are met with defeat.

The truth is immigrants come to America, and assimilate. But we also absorb pieces of immigrant culture, fusing the two into one distinct American culture. There is hardly a better example of this than annual St. Patrick’s Day celebrations across the country. Once vilified for their immigration, St. Patrick’s Day has become a staple of American culture. This St. Patrick’s Day, we think it’s important to look back at the evolution of the Irish in America and see the parallels to our immigration debate today.

Standing against the Irish immigration of the 19th century were the Know-Nothings — a group of white Protestant males whose entire platform consisted of severe immigration restrictions, English-only legislation, and decades long waiting periods for citizenship. Sound familiar to you? Currently Republicans all around the country are seeking to eliminate birthright citizenship, to build walls and electric fences at the border, and even use violence against those who want to immigrate.

But the restrictionists’ efforts are sure to fail, just as they have before. The Know-Nothings relied on an ever decreasing portion of the population, just as today’s modern Republican Party does, exploiting prejudice and racism. But those tactics are unsustainable, as history clearly demonstrates. It’s time for today’s Know-Nothings to recognize that we’ve been down this road before. There is no need to repeat history.

Take our quiz, and see if you can tell the difference between today’s Know-Nothings and the ones who fought tooth-and-nail against Irish immigration. Then, take action and tell the modern day Know-Nothings they should avoid repeating history!

Categories: comprehensive immigration reform, fourteenth amendment, know-nothings

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  • TxAnnie

    Massacres, the slave trade, and the theft of vast tracts of other people’s land, have all been justified by claims of religious, cultural and racial superiority. Such myths often hide the harsh reality of exploitation and colonization. Facts are if the US had been able to implement anti immigration laws beginning in 1776: Those from German, Irish, Scottish, Eastern Europe, Catholic, Jews, Asia, Italian ancestors would not be citizens today.
    Just think of all the former anti-immigration movements had took hold, this country would still belong to Indigenous people, including Mexicans.

    Few of their children in the country learn English … The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages … Unless the stream of their importation could be turned they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious.
    -Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father, on German immigration to Pennsylvania, 1750s

    We should build a wall of brass around the country.
    - John Jay, first chief justice of Supreme Court, regarding “Catholic alien invaders,” 1750s

    What means the paying of the passage and emptying out upon our shores such floods of pauper emigrants — the contents of the poor house and the sweepings of the streets? — multiplying tumults and violence, filling our prisons, and crowding our poor-houses, and quadrupling our taxation, and sending annually accumulating thousands to the poll to lay their inexperienced hand upon the helm of our power?
    - Lyman Beecher, Leader of the Second Great Awakening, on English immigrants, 1834

    Standing behind them are Christian employers of this land, who would rather import heathen willing to work for barely enough to sustain life than retain a brother Christian at a wage sufficient to live as becomes a Christian. We do not want Opium or the Chinese who grow it.
    - Terence Powderly, Irish-American labor leader, 1892

    After all we built up this country and then we allow a lot of foreigners, the scum of Europe, the offscourings of Polish ghettos to come and run it for us.
    – John Dos Passos, early 20th century novelist, on U.S. immigration policy

    If there were in existence a ship that could hold three million human beings, then three million Jews of Poland would board to escape to America.
    -Congressional hearing, 1920

  • http://ATnT Terry Devon

    You cannot compare legal Irish immigrants to ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS FROM LATIN AMERICA who do not wait in line, but PUSH, PUSH our patience with their lawlessness.

  • http://american-rattlesnake.org/ Gerard

    It’s a bit of a tautology, don’t you think?

    Individuals arguing against continued, unfettered, third world immigration will lose the debate because the people in charge will continue to ignore their legitimate questions and increase the scale of unfettered, mass immigration.