The type of immigration the US has experienced has changed a fair bit over those 300 years, let alone the last 50 years.
My immigrant grandparents came here seeking asylum from persecution in their home country. The other side all came seeking jobs.
How is that different?
Societies regulate the influx of strangers to protect their culture — and the rapid influx of people who don’t share cultural values has damaged American culture.
Americans have only ever been afraid of "uncontrolled immigration" when it was non-white immigrants. It was for racist reasons that we passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, and it's for racist reasons now.
This is racist revisionism.
There was plenty of dislike of white migrants as well, eg, Irish, German, Polish, Italian, etc all received ethnic hatred at various periods.
> it's for racist reasons now
Believing that all nationalism is racism is ideological nonsense meant to poison the well, rather than address serious challenges to your ideology and the impact it has on cultures and human flourishing.
White skinned, but critically, not WASP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Anglo-Saxon_Protestants
Sure, that would be a ridiculous thing to say, which is why I didn't. If I meant "every person who is opposed to immigration is fuelled by racial hatred," I would have said that. I thought that a good-faith reading was one of the rules of HN?
If you look at the times when anti-immigrant sentiment is highest, whether via popular opinion or governmental action, it directly corresponds to when Americans were the most racist about the arriving immigrants.
Irish and Italians in my area would beg to differ. I'll grant it wasn't federal policy, at least.
Going by this chart (the first thing in google), the percent of immigrants between 1850 and 1930 was about the same as 2000-on, with a dip in the middle.
Eg, this. [0]
Why are people surprised by a similar outcome this time?
[0] - https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/immigration-a...
If not, what was different between 1850 and 1900?
Every one of those waves saw the second and third generation speak English and be heavily Americanized. It always happens.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"