By Anais El Akkad

Understanding attitudes towards immigrants and immigration (ATII) and its implications is a challenging task for many reasons, notably because of its highly nuanced and multi-faceted nature. While the primary interest of this report is ATII within the United States, investigating cultural differences and their impacts on ATII in various nations can provide greater insight on Americans’ perceptions of immigration within the overarching cultural context. Despite the current wave of anti-immigration and nationalist sentiments cropping up all over the world, ATII have become increasingly favorable both domestically and internationally over time. The extent to which ATII have improved is, however, somewhat affected by the receiving society’s history and culture.

To better understand attitudes towards immigrants and immigration, also referred to by its abbreviation, ATII, one must first consider the underlying causes of antagonism and hatred towards immigrants, i.e xenophobia. It is believed that the fear of the unknown is a primal sociobiological instinct (Post par. 3). The differentiation between ‘friend’ versus ‘foe’ is, in large part, determined by social conditioning; once an in-group and out-group are identified, individuals fear and often dehumanize the out-group, resulting in stronger bonds with members of the in-group (par. 7). This phenomenon is evident in many anti-immigrationist movements throughout history, and further evidence illustrating such xenophobic sentiments are presented in the following section of this report. 

Xenophobia alone, however, does not sufficiently explain the highly nuanced and variable trends in ATII throughout human history. A particularly interesting cultural nuance to examine more closely was the idea of so-called ‘settler’ societies, whose history or national ethos was directly tied to immigration, such as the United States, versus historically nontraditional immigrant destinations, or non-’settler’ societies, including many countries in Western Europe and East Asia, which tend to be historically insular, as well as often ethnically homogeneous. According to a survey conducted in advanced economies around the world, ATII in ‘settler’ societies, in this case the U.S, Canada, and Australia, were significantly more favorable in non-settler societies, with large majorities (>85%) of the population agreeing that society is better off with people of many different backgrounds (Silver et al., par. 27). This stands in stark contrast to ATII in non-settler societies; in Japan and Greece, for instance, majorities of the population claimed “having a diverse society makes their country a worse place to live” (par. 28). 

Despite these differences, however, the fact remains that “wide majorities in most… advanced economies… say having people of many different backgrounds improves their society” (par. 1). Moreover, even in countries with more negative ATII, such as Japan and Greece, responses to this particular survey, conducted in 2021, were found to be significantly less negative towards diversity than those to the same question posed in 2017. This is especially true in the U.S.; while ATII have become “increasingly polarized along party lines” (Andrews par. 5), the overall trend of ATII has remained mostly favorable since World War II. 

Overall, despite cyclical backlash, ATII are increasingly favorable both domestically and internationally. While xenophobic movements tend to see occasional resurgences, particularly during periods of increased immigration and heightened political tensions, the pendulum always swings back: immigrants are eventually accepted and assimilate into their host nations, sometimes even going on to perpetuate anti-immigration sentiments as a form of national identification; because they’re a part of the in-group, now, not the out-group; because they’re a part of us, not them. 

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