This article, written a few years back but relevant today, is an important point in reframing the immigrant-rights debate. Moreover, the nation-of-immigrants argument by immigrant-rights advocates fails to acknowledge history in order to wed immigrants, often the victims of exploitation, as loyalists to that history. Far more has been written on this topic, especially the anti-Black implications of many positions, but this piece is a critical comment about which organizers should be aware.
By Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
A nation of immigrants: This is a convenient myth developed as a response to the 1960s movements against colonialism, neocolonialism, and white supremacy. The ruling class and its brain trust offered multiculturalism, diversity, and affirmative action in response to demands for decolonization, justice, reparations, social equality, an end of imperialism, and the rewriting of history — not to be “inclusive” — but to be accurate. What emerged to replace the liberal melting pot idea and the nationalist triumphal interpretation of the “greatest country on earth and in history,” was the “nation of immigrants” story.
By the 1980s, the “waves of immigrants” story even included the indigenous peoples who were so brutally displaced and murdered by settlers and armies, accepting the flawed “Bering Straits” theory of indigenous immigration some 12,000 years ago. Even at that time, the date was known to be wrong, there was evidence of indigenous presence in the Americas as far back as 50,000 years ago, and probably much longer, and entrance by many means across the Pacific and the Atlantic — perhaps, as Vine Deloria jr. put it, footsteps by indigenous Americans to other continents will one day be acknowledged. But, the new official history texts claimed, the indigenous peoples were the “first immigrants.” They were followed, it was said, by immigrants from England and Africans, then by Irish, and then by Chinese, Eastern and Southern Europeans, Russians, Japanese, and Mexicans. There were some objections from African Americans to referring to enslaved Africans hauled across the ocean in chains as “immigrants,” but that has not deterred the “nation of immigrants” chorus.
Misrepresenting the process of European colonization of North America, making everyone an immigrant, serves to preserve the “official story” of a mostly benign and benevolent USA, and to mask the fact that the pre-US independence settlers, were, well, settlers, colonial setters, just as they were in Africa and India, or the Spanish in Central and South America. The United States was founded as a settler state, and an imperialistic one from its inception (“manifest destiny,” of course). The settlers were English, Welsh, Scots, Scots-Irish, and German, not including the huge number of Africans who were not settlers. Another group of Europeans who arrived in the colonies also were not settlers or immigrants: the poor, indentured, convicted, criminalized, kidnapped from the working class (vagabonds and unemployed artificers), as Peter Linebaugh puts it, many of who opted to join indigenous communities.
Only beginning in the 1840s, with the influx of millions of Irish Catholics pushed out of Ireland by British policies, did what might be called “immigration” begin. The Irish were discriminated against cheap labor, not settlers. They were followed by the influx of other workers from Scandinavia, Eastern and Southern Europe, always more Irish, plus Chinese and Japanese, although Asian immigration was soon barred. Immigration laws were not even enacted until 1875 when the US Supreme Court declared the regulation of immigration a federal responsibility. The Immigration Service was established in 1891.
Buried beneath the tons of propaganda — from the landing of the English “pilgrims” (fanatic Protestant Christian evangelicals) to James Fennimore Cooper’s phenomenally popular “Last of the Mohicans” claiming “natural rights” to not only the indigenous peoples territories but also to the territories claimed by other European powers — is the fact that the founding of the United States was a division of the Anglo empire, with the US becoming a parallel empire to Great Britain. From day one, as was specified in the Northwest Ordinance that preceded the US Constitution, the new republic for empire (as Jefferson called the US) envisioned the future shape of what is now the lower 48 states of the US. They drew up rough maps, specifying the first territory to conquer as the “Northwest Territory,” ergo the title of the ordinance. That territory was the Ohio Valley and the Great Lakes region, which was filled with indigenous farming communities.
Once the conquest of the “Northwest Territory” was accomplished through a combination of genocidal military campaigns and bringing in European settlers from the east, and the indigenous peoples moved south and north for protection into other indigenous territories, the republic for empire annexed Spanish Florida where runaway enslaved Africans and remnants of the indigenous communities that had escaped the Ohio carnage fought back during three major wars (Seminole wars) over two decades. In 1828, President Andrew Jackson (who had been a general leading the Seminole wars) pushed through the Indian Removal Act to force all the agricultural indigenous nations of the Southeast, from Georgia to the Mississippi River, to transfer to Oklahoma territory that had been gained through the “Louisiana Purchase” from France. Anglo settlers with enslaved Africans seized the indigenous agricultural lands for plantation agriculture in the Southern region. Many moved on into the Mexican province of Texas — then came the US military invasion of Mexico in 1846, seizing Mexico City and forcing Mexico to give up its northern half through the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Texas were then opened to “legal” Anglo settlement, also legalizing those who had already settled illegally, and in Texas by force. The indigenous and the poor Mexican communities in the seized territory, such as the Apache, Navajo, and Comanche, resisted colonization, as they had resisted the Spanish empire, often by force of arms, for the next 40 years. The small class of Hispanic elites welcomed and collaborated with US occupation.
Are “immigrants” the appropriate designation for the indigenous peoples of North America? No.
Are “immigrants” the appropriate designation for enslaved Africans? No.
Are “immigrants” the appropriate designation for the original European settlers? No.
Are “immigrants” the appropriate designation for Mexicans who migrate for work to the United States? No. They are migrant workers crossing a border created by US military force. Many crossing that border now are also from Central America, from the small countries that were ravaged by US military intervention in the 1980s and who also have the right to make demands on the United States.
So, let’s stop saying “this is a nation of immigrants.”
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is a long-time activist, university professor, and writer. In addition to numerous scholarly books and articles, she has written three historical memoirs, Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie (Verso, 1997), Outlaw Woman: Memoir of the War Years, 1960-1975 (City Lights, 2002), and Blood on the Border: A Memoir of the Contra War (South End Press, 2005) about the 1980s contra war against the Sandinistas.
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truth.
The distinction between “immigrants” and “migrant workers” is lost on me. Every border in the world was “created by military force.”
Yes, it means that there is a difference between somebody that immigrates and Mexicans/central americans who are indigenous and are only following migratory patterns that our people have for thousands of years, there is also a HUGE difference since this migration north is excacerbated by the US involvement in those countries.
No offense but that is quite different from an asian etc… who is coming to a totally different part of the world.
Immigration by people who want to work hard, are honest, share or will adopt existing values etc. is to be welcomed. They can only be assets. Immigration by people who want what you have, are not particular how they get it, then want to impose the very social hierarchy they usually have run away from, but with them at the top, are to be both feared and stopped. I believe that as the Europeans have already discovered, the vast hordes waiting for their turn from India will eventually overwhelm the USA and completely change forever the culture, values and legal establishment. Money, fake degrees and the ability to find the loopholes in the immigration system do not make for hard working and honest people that are needed.
The article is saying that “immigrant” implies “free and searching for a better life,” but “settlers” only came to displace and exploit. These different ambitions should definitely be distinguished by I don’t know if this is the best way to do so. In any case, imperialist designs aside, people have always migrated around the globe in search of a better life and this story gets lost in nationalist or nativist narratives about immigrants.
But speaking of nativism, to “Chicano” above, are you sure you are not replacing USA nativism with one that is only larger, trying to claim a real “Americanism” because you happen to have been born on this continent? Sure you can say that Asia is a “totally different part of he world” but how big is this world, really? Many Asian people have felt the repercussions of US policy as much as people in South and Central America. On top of that, as RD-O suggests, Asian peoples were among the first comers to the Americas too. So you can cling to “indigenism” or whatever but that’s not going to solve any problems in this tightly interconnected world.
@james – “want what you have, are not particular how they get it, then want to impose the very social hierarchy they usually have run away from, but with them at the top, are to be both feared and stopped”
Kind like US in the Middle East? What’s the difference?
Imagine if EVERY country in the world was an ocean away from America, would half as many people have come? No. But were the Natives here? YES THEY WERE. Some people who honestly don’t believe that are idiots. I think the natives have been badly treated and harshly avoided.
you guys are getting a little goofy here. Most people in the US and Canada because have this “nation of Immigrants” thrust on us unfairly. It doesn’t matter to the arriving immigrant at the time of arrival either; there is space or their isn’t. The historical accuracy here is important but it doesn’t take into account the first true world war. I’m talking about the reformation. Don’t forget Spain launched an invasion of England and through out the counter reformation and reformation set its papal-Spanish Empire agents out across Europe and America. Even though settlers from the new USA and Spanish America co-existed peacefully in many places, the Mexican American has perhaps been a tragic victim of this historically antagonistic relationship between emerging nation states. So your beef should be as much with Spain as the US. Immigration? mostly complete by the 1920′s in the US and Canada. Most of Canada was built and fought for (in two world wars) by wasps, French and eastern European Catholics of various sects. Canada is diverse but not the multicultural nation of immigrants that they keep on about. Its a global world I take comfort in seeing some non-Judaic-Christian people here. Like Buddhists and other Ancient Indian religions. But this is a Christian country with the most sizable minority being its own true indigenous peoples. Not our choice when most of us were indeed shot out of canons for empire. Yes its Christian along with its other founding nations but no! We have to be responsible to these cultures and not every soul who covets access our economy and culture. Sorry sweets its more British and not Hispanic. Yes there are temporary foreign workers here but we don’t owe you anything more than a ticket home. Your middle class and Fat over educated South American Elites should not be jumping ship just to live in a “more white” country. Concerned about restless young men in your country? Try birth control. Same with the Arab world. Is the skilled middle class so redundant in the middle-east that they can afford to have them all move here? and then start crowing about what is right and fair in multicultural Canada? Please. Lets integrate who we have here right now in Canada and shut the door to the gravy train. Just fight the fucking war you have with your own corrupt officials and drug lords, stop blaming cold-war Anglo-politics for all your problems. You have your own racist bullshit down there too. So don’t begrudge us defending what has been legally ours for a long time. Why should I celebrate Mexican culture in Canada?
Politics my love is ultimately about power and projection of power.
@Sam Potkins–
I am having a hard time reading your comment based on the slue of grammatical errors/incomplete sentences, but it seems the crux of your complaint against ‘illegals’ stems from the fact that your country is already defined as ‘primarily ango-christian’ and those people should focus on their own country. If this understanding of your rant is true, you seem to be willing to acknowledge the evolution from the past for your country without viewing the future. While the country is predominantly WASP, defining the country by a religious creed and ethnic disposition that is not indigenous to your country. And, conversely, according to your argument, why should the true indigenous people have to put up with your ‘culture’? Or does that not count, since your ‘people’ ‘earned’ the land they live on?
@ Sam Potkins:
Thank you for demonstrating to everyone here how racist and bigoted Canada remains. I think you are dead-wrong in your summation of the religious and cultural demographics of Canada. I’m sorry to have to break it to you that you are the one sucking all of the resources – and hope for a different future – from this place. Moreover, your legal entitlement to do so was stolen by means of the brutal decimation and displacement of indigenous people here. It is a shameful, living legacy, and it’s yours.