Imagining America in the Twenty-first Century: Samuel Huntington's Neo-Nativism as a Reaction to Latino Immigration and Elite Multiculturalism.

This paper examines contemporary rhetoric on immigration, especially that of Samuel Huntington. Huntington argues that current trends in immigration and liberal elite discourse pose dangers to the United States. What he is most concerned about is a perceived threat to the meaning of America as a nation, and what constitutes being an American. This fear is significant to address in the midst of our current "immigration crisis"—as it is frequently described in public discourse—given that the bulk of conversation avoids the cultural implications of immigration and assimilation, despite the clear importance these issues hold for many Americans. What can be seen by putting Huntington into the context of a specific historical debate is that, in fact, his claims are very much like those made by nativists early in the twentieth-century when concerns about Southern and Eastern European immigrants were arriving in large numbers. It is imperative that this context be illuminated so that we can better understand what animates much of the anti-immigrant rhetoric we hear today, rather than assuming that economics and politics are all that is at stake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]