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Language Log » Anti-immigrant slurs: an American history

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The idea of immigrants as "garbage" is in the news because of Donald Trump's assertion in a speech and an interview last week that "we're like a garbage can for the rest of the world", followed by Tony Hinchcliffe's offensive jokes at Trump's MSG rally about Puerto Ricans (who are American citizens, of course, but are often lumped in with Spanish speakers from Central and South America). And then there was Joe Biden's comment, and Trump's trash truck stunt in Wisconsin. Let's go back 102 years, to a quotation from William Joseph Simmons, the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, in an address delivered on April 30, 1922, and published in the Klan's journal The Searchlight: Right here within our own borders, the great and mighty city of Boston, which tries to lay claim that it is the cradle of America (tries is all it can do), and holds itself up as the paragon of American principles, has, if my information is correct, seventeen schools in which the English language is never spoken, and

Language Log >> Anti-immigrant slurs: an American history Language Log Home About Comments policy Anti-immigrant slurs: an American history October 31, 2024 @ 4:42 pm &#183; Filed by Mark Liberman under Language and politics << Credulity in the service of clickbait | Two for the toilet >> --> << previous post | next post >> Or a sketch of the history, anyhow, since there's far too much of it to cover in a mere blog post. The idea of immigrants as "garbage" is in the news because of Donald Trump's assertion in a speech and an interview last week that "we're like a garbage can for the rest of th

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