Nativism (politics)

Nativism (politics)

Nativism is the political position of demanding a favored status for certain established inhabitants of a nation as compared to claims of newcomers or immigrants. Nativism typically means opposition to immigration and support of efforts to lower the political or legal status of specific ethnic or cultural groups because the groups are considered hostile or alien to the natural culture, and assumptions that they cannot be assimilated.

According to Fetzer, (2000) opposition to immigration is common in many countries because of issues of national, cultural, and religious identity. The phenomenon has been studied especially in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States, as well as Europe in recent years. Thus nativism has become a general term for 'opposition to immigration' based on fears that the immigrants will distort or spoil existing cultural values. In situations where the nativistic movement exists inside of dominant culture it tends to be associated with xenophobic and assimilationist projects. At the other end of the spectrum, in situations where immigrants greatly outnumber the original inhabitants or where contact forces economic and cultural change, nativistic movements can allow cultural survival. Among North American Indians important nativist movements include Neolin (the "Delaware Prophet", 1762), Tenskwatawa (the Shawnee prophet, 1808), and Wovoka (the Ghost Dance movement, 1889). They displayed anti-white racism, teaching that whites were morally inferior to the Indians and their ways must be rejected. Thus Tenskwatawa taught that the Americans were "children of the Evil Spirit."

In scholarly studies "nativism" is a standard technical term. However, in public political discourse "nativist" is a term of opprobrium usually used by the opposition, and rarely by nativists themselves (they call themselves "patriots."). Anti-immigration is a more neutral term that may be used to characterize opponents of immigration.