What about the Immigrants?

Immigration has long been a perplexing problem in this country. Tomorrow is the 140^th anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first significant law restricting immigration into the U.S. But immigration continues to be a contentious and divisive issue.  

Fear of Immigrants

“Yellow Peril” is a racist term that depicted the peoples of East and Southeast Asia as an existential threat to the Western world.  

In the U.S., the racist and cultural stereotypes of the Yellow Peril originated in the 19th century, when Chinese workers, who legally entered the U.S., inadvertently provoked a racist backlash because of their work ethic and willingness to work for lower wages than did the local white populations.

Construction of the first transcontinental railroad in the U.S. began in 1863—in the middle of the Civil War. The completion of that challenging endeavor was celebrated with the driving of the “golden spike” on May 10, 1869, an event captured in this much-publicized photograph: 

Photo by Andrew J. Russell

What is missing in the image is even one Chinese worker, although some 15,000 Chinese laborers helped build the western part of that railroad (see this informative July 2019 article from The Guardian)—and 1,200 died in the process.

In the following decade, resentment against Chinese laborers in the U.S. bloated, especially in California, and President Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act on May 6, 1882. Seeking to stem the Yellow Peril, that Act prohibited the immigration of any more Chinese laborers.

Exploitation of Immigrants

There has long been exploitation of immigrants by capitalists. The treatment of the Chinese railroad laborers is one of the first clear examples. Even after 1882, though, throngs of European immigrants came to this country to work in hard jobs with minimal pay and harsh living conditions.

Some bestselling novels depicted the exploitation of such immigrants. For example, Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle featured the plight of immigrants in the Chicago stockyards and meat-packing industry.

The hard lot of European immigrants working in the Michigan copper mines in 1913-14 are depicted in Mary Doria Russell’s captivating novel The Women of Copper Country (2019). (This was the first and the best of the twelve novels I have read so far this year.)

And while John Steinbeck’s powerful novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) is mostly about domestic migrants, the “Okies” who went to California in the 1930s, in the 19^th chapter he wrote the following about the capitalists engaged in agribusiness:

Now farming became industry . . . . They imported slaves, although they did not call them slaves: Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Filipinos. . . . [The businessmen said,] They don’t need much. They wouldn’t know what to do with good wages. Why, look how they live. Why, look what they eat. And if they get funny—deport them.

Fear of Immigrants Again

And now in 2022 there is considerable opposition to—and latent fear of—immigrants coming across the southern border of the United States.

Granted, the present opposition is ostensibly because such immigrants are “illegal,” but many are coming for the same reason so many Europeans came in the past: the hope for a better standard of living—and until 1924 there was little legal restriction except for Chinese laborers.

The current immigration debate in the U.S. (and many European countries) is between the liberal globalists and the conservative/populist nationalists. The former want a liberal immigration policy partly out of compassion for the needy and partly to promote a multi-cultural, interdependent world.

On the other hand, the nationalists want to protect the well-being of the people of their own country, but often with callous disregard for the needs of those desperate to find safer places to live and a place with better economic conditions.

There are certainly many in this country who strongly side with the nationalists, and Donald Trump’s appeal to them was one of the reasons he was elected President in 2016.*

But as a Christian, I can’t help but side with those showing the most compassion for the immigrants. After all, in Matthew 25:35 Jesus said, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”**

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* In October 2019, PBS aired Zero Tolerance, a documentary about how Steve Bannon used the immigration issue to help get Trump the nomination for the presidency in 2016 and how Trump used that as part of his MAGA appeal that resulted in his election.

** The Greek word translated here as “stranger” is ξένος (xenos), from which the English word xenophobia (=fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners) comes.

The Rebirth of the KKK

As I mentioned in an article earlier this year, the Ku Klux Klan was first formed 150 years ago. It was mostly suppressed, however, during the first term of President Ulysses S. Grant as the Ku Klux Act of 1871 gave the President the power to impose heavy penalties against terrorist organizations and to use military force to suppress the KKK.

A novel and a movie

Over thirty years later, though, Thomas Dixon, a pastor from North Carolina, glorified the Klan’s activities during the first years of Reconstruction. His 1905 novel was titled The Clansman, and I found it quite fascinating when I read earlier this fall.

Dixon’s book largely about the mistreatment of Southern whites after the Civil War is skillfully written. By the time I finished it I momentarily felt like saying, “Thank God for the KKK!” Of course I knew better, and knew more than what was portrayed in a novel. 

In the years following the publication of Dixon’s book, however, there were those who didn’t seem to know better. One such person was William Joseph Simmons, who became the founder of the second Ku Klux Klan. 

Simmons (1880-1945) decided to rebuild the Klan in 1915 not long after he had seen it favorably depicted in the newly released film “The Birth of a Nation,” which was based on Dixon’s novel.

That over-three-hour silent movie was the first movie to be shown in the White House. Woodrow Wilson was the President in 1915, and he was a Southerner (born in Virginia) and perhaps more racist than any his predecessors all the way back to Andrew Johnson (from Tennessee).

When I watched “The Birth of a Nation” on my computer this fall, I was surprised to see that after the intermission, the second part begins with three screens showing statements by Wilson.

The movie is different from the novel in several ways—but it equally glorifies the Klan. And based on the inspiration gained from seeing D.W. Griffith’s blockbuster movie, Simmons recruited 34 men to become his first Knights of the KKK.

A fiery cross

On November 25, which was Thanksgiving Day in 1915, Simmons and 19 of his Knights marched up Stone Mountain (near Atlanta) and lit a cross on fire. That marked the rebirth of the Klan, which grew rapidly and peaked with over four million members in 1924.

The reborn Klan was dedicated to keeping the country white and Protestant and to saving America from domestic and foreign threats—and one can’t help but wondering if the same kind of thinking is not behind you-know-who’s slogan “Make America Great Again.”

In his book The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan in America (1987), Wyn Craig Wade links the Klan to the religious fundamentalism of the 1920s—and to the Christian Right of the 1980s. Now in 2016 we see many evangelical Christians, perhaps inadvertently, linked to rejuvenation of the KKK—or at least of its main emphases.

And now . . .

It is no secret that the KKK and other white nationalist groups are ardent supporters of the President-elect’s and of his selection of Steve Bannon as his chief strategist.

Recently, Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Senator Harry Reid, said: “It is easy to see why the KKK views Trump as their champion when Trump appoints one of the foremost peddlers of White Supremacist themes and rhetoric as his top aide.”

Admittedly, things may not turn out as bad as many fear—but they may also turn out a lot worse that many others think. It is troubling that 145 years after the first KKK was suppressed by the President, current Klan members are now cheering the President-elect.

 Two more resource books worth noting:

Baker, Kelly J. Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK’s Appeal to Protestant America, 1915-1930 (2011)

Rawlings, William. The Second Coming of the Invisible Empire: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s (2016)