Gokul43201 said:
Are you saying also that this is a fair justification ... that it's reasonable to call the US xenophobic because it has a higher income disparity than say, countries in the EU (irrespective of its actual policies regarding immigration)?
It would seem logical that if the driver is more intense, so will be the observed behaviour.
However xenophobia has other drivers, such as social homogeneity. Some countries, like Korea for example, would rank highly here - on a general attitude of social closed-ness.
This is a good study of the drivers of xenophobia...
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1089&context=edpsychpapers
Not unlike other prejudices, xenophobia is a multidimensional and
multicausal phenomenon. Xenophobia is intricately tied to notions of
nationalism and ethnocentrism, both of which are characterized by belief
in the superiority of one’s nation-state over others (Licata & Klein,
2002; Schirmer, 1998). Esses, Dovidio, Semenya, and Jackson (2005)
teased out some important distinctions regarding constitutive elements
of xenophobia. They found that individual and group national identity
focus that is nativistic (i.e., believing that national identity is based on
birth) rather than civic and cultural (i.e., believing that national identity
is based on voluntary commitment to institutions) results in stronger
negative views of foreigners. Their experimental studies also revealed
that nationalism (belief in the superiority of one’s nation over others)
rather than patriotism (affective attachment to one’s nation) is related to
increased negative views of immigrants. Last, Esses, Dovidio, Jackson,
and Armstrong (2001) have shown that high social dominance orientation,
which is related to individual belief in inherent cultural hierarchies
and inequalities within a society, is predictive of anti-immigrant sentiments.
Thus, this scholarship suggests that ethnocentrism, nationalism,
nativism, and belief in a hierarchical world order have been strongly associated
with xenophobia.
So you have three factors dissected there.
As a society, the US might be expected to score low on the belief that birthplace counts (unlike Korea).
When it comes to feelings of superiority...well I think that would might rate on the high side. It is certainly a view I get from PF contributors. However I would have said the US has had also to be an intensely patriotic country - being a nation of immigrants, rallying around the flag and taken oaths of allegiance are a powerful bonding mechanism.
Perhaps this conflict is part of what we are hearing here. US is a superior social institution and so it is, by definition going to be less xenophobic (our comments are just realistic) and less unequal (our inequality levels are evidence of our economic dynamism). All we require of newcommers is that they be the best (as they are joining a superior institution) and they demonstrate the requisite bonding patriotism (criticism of US as the best is poorly tolerated).
So I would say that the feelings of superiority and demand for uncritical patriotism are both unusually strong features of the US - certainly compared to the many other countries I've lived in or visited. If I put up the national flag outside my house, or knew the words to the national anthem, I would be considered positively weird in my country. The only flags I have ever seen hung outside a house here have been foreign ones.
As to the third factor, belief in static social hierarchies, here the US would be presumed to score low. Its ethos is anyone can be president. And the US does score low in surveys. But again, the reality may have become more hierarchical in fact. The US is extremely stratified now in economic terms (Gini coefficients) so there is indeed now something for those at the top, or even in the middle, to protect against incomers.
So overall, you would expect the US to be at low risk for xenophobia as a national trait. If it is expressed, it would be due to more particular tensions - such as economic inequalities. And with inequality having become extreme by international standards, then xenophobia might well be expressed strongly along that particular faultline. Which would explain some of the outrageous (to someone living somewhere else) comments heard here.
Anyway, more of what that paper argues...
Indeed, the popular
myth of the United States as a “melting pot” of assimilated immigrants
is neither supported by historical data nor by evaluation of the treatment
of immigrants in the United States, especially for the immigrants
of color (Schirmer, 1998). Although restrictive and punitive immigration
measures have specifically targeted migrants because of their race and
social class, a broader cultural milieu of anti-immigrant sentiment has
prevailed regardless of immigrants’ demographic characteristics (Perea,
1997). These prejudices are perhaps best comprehended under the heading
of xenophobia
The United States has been known throughout its history as a nation
of immigrants (Smith & Edmonston, 1997). At the same time, the
United States has a long history of xenophobia and intolerance of immigrants
(Fuchs, 1995; Takaki, 1989). White western Europeans, who colonized
the Americas, as well as individuals from many other nations,
moved to the United States relatively freely and in great numbers until
the restrictions of the early 1900s (Daniels, 2002). In 1921, the U.S.
Congress passed the Quota Act, which established a new system of national
origin restrictions, favoring northern European immigrants over
those from other regions of the world. In 1924, the Johnson-Reed Act
further reduced the quota and created the U.S. Border Patrol. Subsequent
immigration policies continued to be guided by race and social
class-based policies (e.g., Chinese Exclusionary Act, the Alien Land Act,
the McCarran-Walter Act) that denied entry or the right to citizenship
to non-White immigrants (Daniels, 2004). Non-White immigrants were
first able to become naturalized citizens only in 1952, whereas this privilege
had been granted to the majority of White immigrants since 1790
(Daniels, 2002). Immigration laws in the 1940s and 1950s were marked
by strong prejudices against individuals of German descent as well as
all those who might be “communists” (Gabaccia, 2002). With the Civil
Rights movement of the 1960s, the ethnically and racially restrictive immigration
quotas were challenged (Daniels, 2002; Gabaccia, 2002).
Then noting that immigrant labour has been both tolerated economically while being simultaneously labelled illegal...
Undocumented migration to the United States has been especially targeted
in recent policies and cultural debates (Gabaccia, 2002). Prior to the
1960s, migrant agricultural workers, especially from Mexico, could gain
lawful temporary employment in the United States under the bracero program.
The 1965 Immigration Act resulted in a denial of all legal rights to
migrant workers, and their status in the United States became that of undocumented
or illegal immigrants. However, the demand for migrant labor
in the United States increased rather than diminished, and in spite
of policies that made life more difficult for them, the numbers of undocumented
workers has continually increased (Daniels, 2004; Perea, 1997).
If this is the true history, it weakens complaints about "all these illegals crossing the border and stealing our jobs, our hospital beds". A fair social contract can't have it both ways. There is no other word for this kind of situation other than exploitation.
If the US government has been turning a blind eye while illegals have found jobs, then the government ought to pay for healthcare etc. There is a clear moral responsibility there. If it is instead mostly US employers who can be blamed for giving illegals jobs, then the cost should fall on them.
And the people unhappy about illegals - either simply from "pure" irrational xenophobic predudice, or hopefully instead, defensible social contract principles - ought to turn their anger towards those actually responsible for the situation.
Om-nom-nom, eat that foot!
