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What were the primary goals of the nativists in the 1920s?
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Nativists in the 1920s aimed to restrict immigration to preserve the "American way of life" and political system. They associated immigration with increased crime, overcrowding, and cultural dilution, fearing threats to democratic ideals. Their efforts led to restrictive laws like the Emergency Quota Act and the National Origins Act, targeting immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe and Asia. Nativist sentiment, driven by xenophobia, often involved promoting dominant cultural values and was linked to racism and ethnocentrism.
The main goals of nativists were to restrict immigration to the United States and to preserve the American way of living and the American political system. The nativists claimed that immigration to the country led to many problems, including increased crime, overcrowding in the cities, more pollution, and the arrival of new diseases. They claimed that increased immigration led to the weakening of the American way of living, as immigrants often didn’t know the language and had different customs, religions, and traditions. They also claimed that immigrants were anarchists, who wanted to do away with the democratic ideals and institutions that existed in the American political system.
Because of these fears, various groups and political parties formed. The Know Nothing Party formed in the 1840s and the Ku Klux Klan developed after the Civil War ended. Restrictive immigration laws such as the Emergency Quota Act and the National Origins Act...
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were passed in the 1920s limiting immigration from South and East Europe and from Asia. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 barred immigration from China. Nativists were determined to preserve what they believed was the American way of living by passing laws that limited immigration, by spreading fear about the impact of increased immigration, and by terrorizing those individuals who didn’t fit their view of whom an American should be.
During periods of increased immigration feelings of xenophobia tend to sweep the population. Xenophobia is defined as a fear of foreigners. This acrimony toward foreigners is what drove nativists in the United States at various times in history including the 1830s and 1920s. The primary goal of nativists is to stop the flow of new immigrants to the host country. The popular nativist sentiment is that a loss of culture is imminent when other cultural groups enter the country in large numbers. Their perception is that the citizens that have been in the country the longest should have their interests protected above those that are just arriving. A secondary goal of nativists is to celebrate or promote the qualities of the dominant culture. Nativist organizations tend to be associated with racism and ethnocentrism.