Anti-Immigrant Sentiment

Prejudice against immigrants has been a recurring theme in American history. The prejudice against Germans, Italians, and Irish immigrants revealed in these sources may be difficult to understand today. The Irish and Italians seemed recognizably "different" to some white, Protestant Americans who feared that the country would change as numbers of these Catholic groups entered the country. Prejudice against Germans intensified during the Great War (World War I) in part because of United States government propaganda such as the poster here. The poem "Unguarded Gates" speaks to a more general fear of cultural change. 

Contrast these sources to the positive view of immigrants in the discussion topic "Ethnic American Identities."

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