We Don’t like Them: Why Do We Have to Teach Them? Immigration and education a Historic Review.

We Don’t like Them: We Don’t like Them: Why Do We Have to Why Do We Have to

Teach Them?Teach Them?Immigration and education a

Historic Review

Benjamin Franklin on German Immigration to

Pennsylvania• In 1753 Franklin described the German

colonists as “the most ignorant Stupid Sort of their own nation.”

• Franklin felt that since they did not speak English and they fought to keep their language, that it was “almost impossible to remove any prejudices they once entertained”

Benjamin Franklin on German Immigration . . .

• “Few of their children in the County learn English;”

• “They import many books from Germany;”

• “And of the six printing houses in the Province [Pennsylvania], two are entirely German, two half German and half English, and but two are entirely English.”

Benjamin Franklin on German Immigration . . .

• Franklin continued: “The Signs in our Streets have inscriptions in both languages, and in some places only German.”

• Ben Franklin also complained about the ever increasing amount of “legal Writings in their own language, which (though I think it ought not to be) are allowed good in our Courts, where the German Business so increases that there is continual need of Interpreters.”

Benjamin Franklin on German Immigration . . .

• Franklin continued his protest of the German language being accepted so readily, that he believed:

• “In a few years they [interpreters] will be also necessary in the Assembly, to tell one half of our Legislators what the other half say.”

Benjamin Franklin on German Immigration . . .

• In bringing it to a close Ben Franklin believed that “unless the stream of their importation could be turned from this to other colonies”

• “They will soon out number us, that all the advantages we have will not in My Opinion be able to preserve our language, and even our Government will become precarious.”

Benjamin Franklin on the issue of Race

• Franklin’s apprehensions with the German settlers were not based solely on their invasive culture. His concerns had a deeper underpinning.

• Two year’s earlier in 1751 Franklin had written an essay on “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind.”

Benjamin Franklin on the issue of Race

• Many have considered this essay to be the most important written by an American during the eighteenth century.

• In this essay, with sophisticated use of “social science” data, Franklin presented his argument for America to be maintained entirely as an Anglo-Saxon society.

Benjamin Franklin on the issue of Race

• He argued “That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably [sic] very small”

• “All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so.”

Benjamin Franklin on the issue of Race

• “And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion;”

• “As are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth.”

Benjamin Franklin on the issue of Race

• Franklin continued with his vision of preventing the darkening of the North American Colonies.

• “Why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys [sic], of increasing the lovely White and Red?”

• “But perhaps I am partial to the complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.”

Summary of Franklin’s Statements

• The above is one of the earliest recollections of anti immigration sentiments directed at a specific group of settlers in the North American English Colonies.

• Franklin’s vision for America had given nativist and racist anti immigration sentiments a lucid and sensible voice of acceptance.

Help WantedNo Irish Need Apply

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A song book of No Irish Need Apply

Newspaper Advertisement with NINA No Irish Need Apply

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Nativist Sentiments Blaming the Irish and the Germans for Stealing

the Ballots

The most recently discovered Wild BeastIrish-American Dynamite Skunk

Bred in the United States• 1

Harper’s Weekly Journal of CivilizationScientific Proof of Irish being related to

Blacks

Harper’s Weekly Journal of Civilization“Equal Burdens”

Creation of the Public School System

• The public school system was created as a response to a huge influx of poor non-Protestant immigrants.

• Between 1821 and 1850 about 2.5 million Europeans emigrated to the United States.

• Over one million were Irish Catholics

Backlash to Catholic immigration

• Nativist reactions included:

• Burning of Catholic buildings

• Viewing Catholics as loyal to the Pope

• Seeing Catholic youths, who were trained by the nuns and priests, as furnishing “the majority of our criminals”

Backlash to Catholic immigration

• The increased in the Catholic population naturally created more Catholic schools

• Many Protestants felt that they had to take action to advert the rise of Catholic schools

• Horace Mann came to the aid of his countrymen.

Backlash to Catholic immigration

• Mann believed that control of the spread of Catholicism could be cleverly instituted through a Public School System

• Mann wanted to teach the sons and daughters of the Catholic Irish immigrant Protestant Ethics

Backlash to Catholic immigration

• Under the direction of Mann Massachusetts created the first Public School System by the taxing the wealth of property owners to offer free education to the poor Irish children

• Mann saw public education as a means of social discipline

Backlash to Catholic immigration

• The wealthy resisted until Mann asked “Do you want the Irish Children to grow and behave the same as their parents”

• Mann’s idea was that schools could turn potential rowdies and revolutionaries into law-abiding citizens

Backlash to Catholic immigration

• Besides the “three Rs” of reading, writing and arithmetic, Massachusetts’ Public School System taught students the merits of Protestant ethics

• Industry

• Punctuality

• Sobriety

• Frugality

After the Civil War Irish were finally accepted by our nation as White

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After we use them we discard them

• After contributing to the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad Chinese were seen as a threat to our way of life.

Anti Chinese Bill“The White Labor

destroyer”• 1

Chinese Must Go: A Farce in Four Acts.

San Francisco• 1

The Anti Chinese Wall

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Welcome to all! U.S. Ark of Refuge

Free land, education, speech, ballot, lunch• 1

Welcome to the Pearly GatesUnless you are a poor Russian Jew• 1

The dregs of European sewersItaly, Russia, and Germany

The Lesser Whites• 1

By 1903Immigration was a National Menace

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The Unrestricted Dumping-Ground

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Swindlers at Castle Garden

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Role of Castle Garden

• Throughout the period of mass immigration, New York City was the principal point of immigrant disembarkation. For 35 years this was Castle Garden on the Island of Manhattan.

• Swindlers at Castle Garden was one of the principal arguments for the development of Ellis Island in 1892.

Control of our Immigrants

• The number of unwanted immigrants from non English speaking areas—Lesser Whites—led to the passing of the 1917 Literacy Act in an attempt to curb their flow.

• In 1918 the Brownsville Station was created in Texas with the Mounted Guards to stem the flow of illegal Chinese Immigrants.

• Later on the Mounted Guards were incorporated to the INS with the creation of the Border Patrol in 1924 to slow the flow of Mexican Nationals to an already depressed agricultural area.

Adult Education

• At the same time that our Nation was attempting to curb the flow of these unwanted immigrants, Adult Education appeared to assured the acculturation of the newly arriving migrants.

• Historically Education has played a primary role during peak periods of immigration to our nation, and hopefully will never retreat from this hallowed responsibility.

Last Words

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