What's Old is New

As the aggressive spread of COVID-19 prompts detailed planning across our campus and across the country writ large, I have been struck by much of the emerging rhetoric connected to border control and the foreign origins of this threat (while not inaccurate) and its disturbing parallel with the xenophobic and nativist bombast that was commonplace in the United States in the early years of the 20th century. The American response to the evolving threat posed by COVID-19 (largely focused on travel restrictions aimed at foreign nations) and the resort to the old trope of associating disease and “foreignness” (the title “Wuhan” Coronavirus is widely used, for instance) should not surprise anyone. Indeed, recent national debates over the desirability of immigration (especially when it originates in non-European nations) are charged with claims that, “the race which has made our country great will pass away” and that our nation is faced with an, “invading hostile army” of “criminal immigrants” that are “mentally or physically defective” and all but ensured that such a response would emerge.

While the circumstances surrounding this recent association of foreigners and danger are new, the rhetoric itself (sadly) is deeply ingrained in the nation’s history. From Ben Franklin’s characterization of Pennsylvania Germans as “stupid” and “swarthy” to Prescott Hall’s (a founder of the Anti-Immigration League) early 20th century lamentations that, “You cannot make bad stock into good by changing its meridian, any more than you can turn a cart horse into a hunter by putting it into a fine stable, or make a mongrel into a fine dog by teaching it tricks,” to the aforementioned comments of our current president, the stereotype of an immigrant horde imperiling the United States has been a constant and is one that jeopardizes the very values that this nation was founded upon.

If my experience on this campus has taught me anything, it is that a diverse and inclusive community is a far stronger one than one that is homogeneous and exclusive. I am encouraged by the university’s thoughtful planning and embrace of this ideal and encourage all of us not to forget the lessons of history and/or to allow ourselves to be swayed by the nativist thinking that has so long defined our nation’s history and that is now re-emerging during this time of stress.