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Until the closing years of the 19th century America preserved most of its official racist animus for blacks and Indians, but in 1882 it added a new category when Chinese were expressly denied entry to the United States, and those already in the country were forbidden the rights and protections of citizenship.
In 1907 the exclusion was extended to the Japanese.
Beginning in the 1890ies, as the flood of immigrants from the poorer parts of Europe turned into a deluge, racism became more sweeping, more rabid and less focused.
Anti-immigrant fraternities were founded and books like Madison Grant´s Passing of the Great Race ( which argued " scientifcally" that unrestricted immigration was leading to the dilution and degenaration of the national character) became bestsellers.
Early nicknames that were only mildly abusive (likecalling the Germans cabbage heads or Krauts( from their liking of sauerkraut) grew uglier and more barbed ( chink, kike, dago, polack, spic,hebe)
Never before nor since have intolerance and prejudice been more visible, fashionable or universal among all levels of American society.
In 1907 the Congress established a panel called the Dillingham Commision, that concluded that immigration before 1880 had been no bad thing-the immigrants primarily from nothern Europe were industrious, largely protestant and had assimilated well-while immigration after 1880 had been marked by the entrance into America of uneducated non-protestant masses from southern and eastern Europe.
But in fact all evidence points in the opposite direction.
It was because America had a base of low wage, adaptable,unskilled labour that it was able to become an industrial powerhouse.
For over half a century American business had freely exploited its foreign born workers, and now it was blaming them for being poor and alienated.
Also great intolerance and prejudice was shown towards the eastern European Jews, that found themselves accused of working too hard, but even the prejudice the Jews experienced paled when compared to the black Americans.
African-Americans: Unwilling Immigrants
Slavery was common during the American Revolution. Thomas Jefferson had slaves on his plantation. In 1808, the importation of slaves from Africa was outlawed, but trading in slaves within America remained brisk. The South\'s agricultural economy was based on slavery and in 1860 there were 3.5 million slaves in America, and their numbers continued to grow.
The end of the Civil War gave African-Americans the first chance to freely move around America
But still unable to find the social acceptance and financial opportunities that other immigrant groups found in America, African-Americans remained second-class citizens for many years. Unable to vote and often untaught in reading and writing, they were at the bottom of America\'s social system.
The civil-rights and black-power movements of the 1950s and 1960s gave African-Americans new rights and a sense of identity. Some took African names of their ancestral lands from which their relatives had been taken as slaves. Some chose to return to Africa.
The racial riots of the 1960s -- and, more recently, of 1992 -- show that many African-Americans still do not feel they belong, or are wanted, in America. Nevertheless, more African-Americans are running for public office and winning government positions. Listed as America\'s fourth largest ethnic group in the 1980 census, African-Americans plan to make a difference.
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