Nationalism and Immigration to the United States

Diaspora 6:2 1997 Nationalism and Immigration to the United States Ali Behdad1 University of California, Los Angeles Instead of noninterference and specialization, there must be interference , crossing of borders and obstacles, a determined attempt to generalize exactly at those points where generalizations seem impossible to make. —Said (157) American political scientists, sociologists, and immigrant rights advocates have often viewed the current anti-immigrant frenzy in the United States as a response to the country’s economic condition. Echoing the economism of the restrictionists, they have argued that the present hostility toward “aliens” is an ephemeral and cyclical reaction to the nation’s swelled unemployment rolls and economic slump. These observers cite the juxtaposition of periods of receptivity with periods of exclusion as empirical evidence—e.g., the “open door” era of 1776–1881 before the era of regulation of 1882–1924 or the post–World War II admission of political refugees prior to the 1954 “Operation Wetback,” which sanctioned the mass deportation of Mexican farm workers. These and other historical cases are used to demonstrate the split pattern of welcoming immigrants when they are needed and turning against them when times are hard. The conventional liberal wisdom about the public reaction to immigration is, “When things are going well and there’s a shortage of labor , people either look the other way or are actively supportive of bringing cheaper labor into the United States. But when jobs are tight, and the cost of supporting people goes up, then we suddenly redo the calculus.”2 While such an economic view of anti-immigration consensus loosely corresponds to popular assumptions, it fails to address the role of immigration as both a necessary mechanism of social control in the formation of the state apparatus and an essential cultural contribution to the formation of national identity. In this article, I will argue that there has emerged around immigration in America a cultural discourse through which the nation imagines itself and a field of sociopolitical practices wherein and whereby the state exercises its disciplinary power. Located at the interstices of xxxxxxxxxxxx 155 Diaspora 6:2 1997 national consciousness and state apparatus, immigration makes the ambivalent concept of the “nation-state” imaginable in America: while the figure of the “alien” provides the differential signifier through which the nation defines itself as an autonomous community , the juridical and administrative regulations of immigration construe the collective sovereignty of the modern state. These polar forces of identification and regulation solidify an ambivalent form of national consciousness that bridges the split between the nation and the state with its cyclical history of tolerance and exclusion. I use the word “ambivalent,” as opposed to “contradictory,” to suggest a form of opposition that is not unified and does not maintain an undifferentiated state. Whereas “contradiction” implies an imaginary unity and the idea that opposite forms of consciousness arise out of each other to form a more inclusive totality, the notion of “ambivalence” suggests an irreconcilable and unending debate between competing notions of identity. To unpack the ambivalent structure of American nationalism, it is necessary to consider both the social history of “nativism” and the legal history of immigration law in the United States. Forgetful Founders and the Imagining of a Nation In the seventh of his papers, entitled “Examination of Jefferson’s Message to Congress of December 7th, 1801,” Alexander Hamilton, a West Indian by birth, wrote, The message of the President contains the following sentiments: “A denial of citizenship under a residence of fourteen years, is a denial to a great proportion of those who ask it,3 and controls a policy pursued from their first settlement, by many of these States, and still believed of consequence to their prosperity. And shall we refuse to the unhappy fugitives from distress, that hospitality which the savages of the wilderness extended to our fathers arriving in this land? Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe? Might not the general character and capabilities of a citizen, be safely communicated to every one manifesting a bona-fide purpose of embarking his life and fortune permanently with us?” (Grant and Davidson 45–7) Hamilton then comments, The pathetic and plaintive exclamations by which...