Faith Works 7-28-23
Jeff Gill
New arrivals, old hostilities, same problems
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Who belongs in the United States of America? That's a question that continues to come up, from the colonies before 1776 to the present day, and one that rattles church life as well as civic discourse.
Who belongs in the United States of America? That's a question that continues to come up, from the colonies before 1776 to the present day, and one that rattles church life as well as civic discourse.
According to Pew Research, immigrants in 2020 accounted for 13.7% of the U.S. population, nearly triple the share (4.8%) it was in 1970; that figure actually decreased to 13.6% in 2021. It's short of the record high of 14.8% in 1890.
In fact, between 1900 and 1915, over 15 million immigrants arrived in the United States. That was about equal to the number of immigrants who had arrived in the previous 40 years combined. This meant that by the time of World War I, 75% of New York City's population was either immigrant or first generation (sons and daughters of immigrants).
Today, 77% of immigrants are here legally, with 45% naturalized citizens, in other words citizens like you and me, except they've answered a long list of questions many of us born here couldn't come up with. And yes, 23% are undocumented, here illegally. It is very hard to come up with a good comparison figure because of differences in the naturalization process between 1915 and today, but there were plenty here evading the rules back then, as there are today.
It was in the wake of this unprecedented surge in immigration, and a second peak just short of 14.8% in 1910, that the second era of the Ku Klux Klan took off. I mentioned Timothy Egan's new book "A Fever in the Heartland" last week as an excellent source for this troubling period in our nation's and local history.
The Klan of the 1920s hated just about anyone who wasn't Protestant, Anglo-Saxon (Aryan wasn't in vogue just yet), and middle class. In some areas, the Klan lived up to the image you likely have, certainly in the South terrorizing and killing African Americans, brandishing fiery crosses, but also in places like Tulsa, Oklahoma or North Platte, Nebraska, where they did the same, ordering a growing black community to leave town, as property was burnt, leaders beaten, and many killed.
Yet their numbers for recruitment were biggest in the Midwest, Ohio & Indiana at the forefront, and their hatred was aimed primarily at: the Irish, Italian, southern and central Europeans, and Catholics in general. The Klan arguments, boiled down to their essence, was that there were too many of them, they needed to stop coming, many should be sent back, and only those allowed to stay who would go to "our" churches, attend public schools, and live and act like "normal" Americans.
The Klonklave at Buckeye Lake one hundred years ago this month, some 75,000 Klan members from all over Ohio, had as a major theme the goal of both building up the public school system, and shutting down by law all parochial schools. That "Fighting Irish" mascot for Notre Dame, adopted by many other Catholic schools you may know of? It comes from the students in South Bend, Indiana literally having to fight off a Klan mob which came to burn the campus down (spoiler alert: they did).
In 1923, some folks looked around, saw too many people who looked different than what they were used to, and said "enough." They wanted no more immigrants, and those who were here to change and be more like them.
And both churches & elected officials chose to adopt that position as their own. Come November, 1923 it would prove to be a majority of Licking Countians, at least those voting in the general election.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; how to bring newcomers into existing communities is a question he's wrestled with. Tell him how you see that done at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Ohio State Klonklave at Buckeye Lake, July 12, 1923
Ohio Memory Klan photo archive, mostly 1923
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