The Problem With Calling Ourselves a “Nation of Immigrants”

The United States is a nation of immigrants, right? In the wake of xenophobic laws like Arizona's SB 1070, a number of voices — including President Barack Obama — have evoked this phrase, as John F. Kennedy did years ago. After all, it's ironic that we should see such fiercely anti-immigrant sentiment, given how so much of the U.S. population is composed of immigrants, or descends from immigrants.

But even the idea of the U.S. as a "nation of immigrants" is a complicated one. Some of us who are included in this phrase aren't exactly descended from voluntary migrants, but rather those who were forcibly brought from other lands and enslaved. And the picture gets still more fractured when you consider the fact that many so-called "immigrants" are descended from ancestors who inhabited these regions long before they ever became part of the U.S.

It's true that if the anti-immigrant sentiment of today had succeeded back in the 1490s, a large portion of the U.S. population wouldn't be here to begin with. But let's not forget that when we talk about our identity as a "nation of immigrants," we're eliding the histories of indigenous peoples who were here to begin with.

You don't hear anti-immigrant advocates talk about how some of their ancestors forced themselves onto this land. So when you hear SB 1070 proponents spouting anti-immigrant rhetoric about protecting “our” borders, you have to wonder at the absence of irony behind such statements. There's no chance that Mexican immigrants (who are targeted by such rhetoric) could leave the same vicious imprint on the land that European immigrants did over 500 years ago.

The argument I'm making against calling certain people immigrants or descendants of immigrants could be dismissed as semantics. But the history of the people who inhabited this land before the European invasion shouldn't be dismissed.

According to the 2000 U.S. Census, 4.3 million people self-identify as American Indian and Alaska Native. It's also important to note that Native Hawai’ians and indigenous peoples of other U.S. colonies were counted separately, which suggests that there's an even greater number of native people out there that we've failed to recognize. Regardless of their proportion to the U.S. population — and no matter how abhorrent laws like SB1070 may be — we shouldn't forget about such groups when we make arguments to counter xenophobia.

To build a more inclusive and humane society, we have to build in solidarity with — and be informed by — the wisdom and resources of those whose roots run deeper than the stars and stripes. Yes, the phrase a "nation of immigrants” is intended as a rallying cry for more inclusive politics. And yet we can't repeat it in a vacuum. A country that values its immigrants must also value its indigenous roots.

Photo Credit: Pacific Northwest USCG