By: Korey Moore, Current Co-Editor in Chief
Xenophobia by Americans is by no means new. It is arguably a deeply rooted tradition, one that has manifested itself in a vast variety of ways over the noble course of the history of this great nation. From the resentment of foreign influence in the early days of the American Republic to the fierce resentment of immigration during the Gilded Age, one that gave rise to violence and the formation of hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, all the way to the modern era of Islamophobic xenophobia in addition to a global refugee crisis spurred by international war and poverty, the American nation has been disturbed by xenophobia on a vast variety of occasions throughout its history. Amid the arrival of a disquieting number of immigrants at the Southern U.S. border today, and the infamous response by the U.S. border patrol, historians may add an additional item to the aforementioned list.
Source: Forbes
Various images regarding the situation, labeled a crisis by numerous media outlets, have been published on social media (one of which is above). Inhumane numbers of migrants have been forced to sleep under a bridge along the Texan border, numbers approximated to be 10,000, as they await clearance for entry from the local immigration offices. The migrant camp, which had been established by the bridge, has been flooded by journalists, reporters, photographers, and the like, all seeking to acquire a greater understanding of the situation. The most infamous of the media produced during this period, however, are a series of widely-circulated photographs depicting officers of the U.S. border patrol on horseback, appearing to be in violent pursuit of individual migrants, lashing them. And while this circumstance appears to be bad enough on its own, it prompts for many memories of 19th-century slavery; these images resemble the approach taken by “slave catchers,” men dispatched by slave owners to retrieve runaway slaves, to fulfill their duties. It is regarded by many as a profound instance of racism in the United States, which has been the target of fierce socio-political battles over the course of the whole of American history.