Studying Immigration in Nativist Times: Reflections from the United States

Introduce:

prof.ssa Francesca Decimo, Università di Trento

Abstract

America has long been profoundly ambivalent about immigration and the resulting
ethno-racial diversity. On the one hand, the US is known as a “nation of immigrants”
with a history of immigrant integration and upward mobility. More than a quarter of the
US population are now immigrants or the children of immigrants. Despite the Trump
administration’s deportations and last year’s virtual end to refugee admissions,
immigration continues to have a profound effect on America’s demography and
economy. Yet the nation also has deep tendencies towards racial exclusion and nativist
populism. During the second Trump administration we experienced a resurgence of
anti-immigrant sentiment as well as sometimes brutal anti-immigrant policies
reminiscent of the 1920’s. Both the federal government and right-wing media have
sought to link unauthorized migration to criminality, despite clear evidence to the
contrary. The Trump administration has also tried—so far unsuccessfully—to end
birthright citizenship.
Yet counter tendencies are also evident: the broad resistance to ICE and border patrol
raids in Minneapolis and the election of a popular, young Muslim mayor of New York
City are recent examples. The courts have proved less reliable defenders of minority
rights than the left generally hoped them to be. Still, they have, in some cases,
continued to provide guardrails against the excesses of the present administration.
In this lecture we will explore the origins and current extent of anti-immigrant sentiment,
regional and rural/urban differences in American attitudes towards ethnic diversity, the
“culturalization of citizenship” and how the increasingly nativist landscape effects the
work of migration researchers. This will hopefully lead to general discussion of the
similarities and differences between the current situations in the US and in Europe.