Trump's racist tweets have long rhetorical roots: NPR

When President Trump tweeted his racist remarks on Sunday, asking why some Democratic women parliamentarians do not "go back to help repair the totally devastated and crime-plagued places they came from," he did not go out of his way. not content to target the four young women of color – three of whom were born in the United States

He did so using a taunt deeply rooted in American history: Why do not you come back from where you come from?

The question does not always appear in these precise words, nor does it always arise in the same situations. And that does not always target the same groups of people – far from it, actually. But most often, it conveys the same feeling: you and others like you are not welcome here.

"There have been different expressions that have been used," says Michael Cornfield, rhetoric scholar at George Washington University, "but the idea that we have no room for people, or that these people do not look like us, it's a long and ugly stump in American history. "

Jennifer Wingard, a professor at the University of Houston who has looked at rhetoric and immigrant communities, traced this sentiment at least until 1798, when the United States adopted a series of laws – known as Alien and Sedition Acts – aimed at establishing citizenship. more difficult for immigrants and easier deportation for US authorities.

"The legislation is actually designed to help eliminate immigrants who say things against the US government," she said, explaining that these laws were adopted in a tumultuous political climate.

"We were starting to see different political parties and politicians arguing over different ways of governing the government, and it has happened that politically, they could try to maintain and maintain the status quo by putting it on the backs of immigrants."

According to her, these laws established a pattern that resurfaced with new waves of immigration and new perceived threats – from the great famine in Ireland to the Spanish-American War, the Great Depression and the 9/11 attacks.

"Every wave of immigration coming into our country sees the next wave as a threat.It's the wave that will now suppress jobs, which will now remove things," Wingard said. "The most recent flow is always the one that seems the most threatening."

Alan Kraut, a scholar at the American University who writes a history of anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States, says he saw this kind of thing playing to himself when he was a child in the Bronx.

"When children were arguing in the street and children belonged to different ethnic groups, one child often said to the other," You and your parents are going home, "Kraut remembers.

"You know, it could mean Brooklyn, but it could also mean going back home, you know, Russian Jews who came to the United States, Southern Italians who came to the United States, newly arrived Puerto Ricans." he continues. . "So, when it came out of the mouth of this president from Queens, it looked almost like a child saying that in my memory on the streets of New York."

The process is often renewed, says Wingard, and the feeling remains the same, even if the names of the target groups change.

"There is a sophisticated theoretical term – it's called palimpsest," says Jennifer Wingard, a rhetoric specialist at the University of Houston. A palimpsest, she explains, is a text that has been erased and crushed – but still continues to bear many of the marks and meanings largely hidden under the new writing.

"They carry the feelings that we have seen over the centuries, but they are then reused for the moment – and a phrase like this [racist taunt] "You know, come back from where you come from," it's like you're coming back to your own country, "it's like you're forbidden to go home." is the same as "no immigrants allowed. Yet it includes all this historical stenography. "

Cornfield says that it's partly the variability of the statement that makes it so powerful.

"This contributes to the fear that America is too full or that the mixture of ethnicities and races makes matters worse," he says. "It's a powerful phrase and some of its power lies in its ambiguity."

Its simplicity too.

"When you use a phrase like this, you simply ask people to forget context and political choices," he adds, "and to get angry at people who do not look or look alike. not to you. "