American immigration, fertility, and race suicide at the turn of the century.

American Immigration, Fertility, and Race Suicide at the Turn of the Century Immigration has provoked nativist hostility in the United States since the midnineteenth century. At the turn of the century, representatives of long-established American families blamed a multitude of social problems-including crime, poverty, insanity, and political corruption-on newcomers to their shores. Critics of open-door immigration policies feared not only the immigrants themselves but also their descendants. These children of immigrants were viewed by Francis A. Walker, superintendent of the censuses of 1870 and I880, as "our home-grown foreigners." Explained