What group was targeted by nativists in the late 1800's?
1 Answer
Primarily the Chinese, but to a lesser extent Eastern And Southern Europeans as well.
Explanation:
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was specifically targeted to prevent Chinese workers from coming to the US. It is the only law known to have deliberately singled out an ethnic minority for exclusion.
Chinese immigrants were a major part of the labor force which built the railroads of the west. The work was hard, dirty, and dangerous, and railroad companies could not find enough native-born Americans to do the work, so they turned to the Chinese. As a consequence, a large wave of Chinese immigrants arrived in California because there were jobs available for them.
Nativists, however, thought that the Chinese were "stealing" American jobs and depressing wages, so they sought to exclude the newcomers.
To a lesser extent, the same thought and opposition was applied to European immigrants from South, Central, and Eastern Europe--Poles, Irish, Germans, etc., all of whom also came to America in increasing numbers in the mid- to late-1800's. They came to get away from famine and oppression in their native countries and find a new beginning in the United States.
We see the same arguments taking place today concerning immigrants, mainly those from the Middle East and Central America. As Mark Twain once said, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes."
