Students > Immigration > Quotes: Two Perspectives
Introduction
Although the United States is largely a nation of immigrants and their descendants, American sentiment toward immigrants has always been mixed. Read the two quotes in the slideshow below. Can you guess who said these quotes and when?
QUOTE ONE
“Those who come hither are generally of the most ignorant stupid sort of their own nation.”
References
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Letter from Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, 9 May 1753. Available online at https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-04-02-0173 [7 June 2020].
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Letter from George Washington to Reverend Francis Adrian Vanderkemp, 28 May 1788. Available online at http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/letter-to-reverend-francis-adrian-vanderkemp [7 June 2020].
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Cristina Costantini, “Fear of Immigrants Is as Old as America Itself,” ABC News, 14 May 2013, http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/fear-immigrants-america/story?id=19177944 [7 June 2020].