Theme of the year: XENOPHOBIA
Xenophobia (n.): an unreasonable fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange. -Dictionary.com
The reason why I chose this powerful theme is because recently, especially here in the United States, a lot of segregation and hatred relating to xenophobia is occurring on a daily basis. Now that the presidential elections are taking place, politicians are also using xenophobic remarks to gain the votes of those who are uneducated enough to want people of other ethnicities and races to leave the country solely because of the fact that they are foreigners. This is a major issue that needs to be dealt with, as this kind of mentality can spark major world wars, hatred, and apartheids. We have seen this occur in history, as Hitler encouraged his people to believe that the Arian race is the only superior race; everyone else did not belong. As we all know, this story did not end well for anyone.
As stated in this article, xenophobia has a major impact on peoples' attitudes and it fuels violence, segregation, racism, and other negative actions toward foreigners within our communities. Xenophobia also affects our education systems, as it could lead to the teachings of inaccurate data if we become too biased.
What ignorant individuals need to realize is that most of these foreigners, whom they are being very disrespectful towards, have gone through extreme lengths to have the life they are living, while at the same time, greatly benefitting our economy. MOST OF OUR ECONOMY RELIES ON THE WORKS OF FOREIGNERS. Without dealing with foreigners, we would not be the great country we are today.
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Xenophobia during the Colonial Times
Where you were from was a HUGE deal during the colonial times. The treatment people were given was based on where they came from. The European colonials, for example, saw themselves as the purest, most important, and most qualified people, and treated both the Native Americans and the Africans with disrespect. This does partially have to do with racism as the Africans and Native Americans were not white, but it mostly had to do with xenophobia as they were looked down upon based on their origins. Africans were abused and enslaved, and Native Americans were indoctrinated in order to adopt the lifestyles of the Europeans.
Based on this article, the Native Americans inhabited this land over 13,000 years before the arrival of the Europeans, yet they were the ones receiving xenophobic attitudes and remarks from the Europeans. Also, the English did not accredit the Catholic Spanish settlers that arrived to the Americas centuries before they did simply because of the "Black Legend", which had to do with the English despising Spanish ideology and their American empires. This can also be categorized as xenophobic, especially since they created negative propaganda about them and their "barbarous" actions.
Xenophobia is Ignorance
Blog Roll
Xenophobia leading up to the American Revolution
Xenophobia was definitely a recurring issue throughout American history, as you can probably tell from my previous blog posts. It was arguably one of the main reasons that led up to the American revolution. The American colonies despised the British so much and, and everything that had to do with them, that they wanted to gain sovereignty from them as soon as possible and did not want to conform to their rules or government. They even resented the first-generation Americans as they were directly British. As seen in this webpage, under "English and Scottish Americans", Britain was viewed as a "villainous empire" that caused nothing but harm toward the development of the colonies.
As the British government continued to tax the American colonies without giving them a chance to represent themselves, the Americans' hate toward the British grew even more, and this led to the American Revolution.