argumentative essay on xenophobia

Politics of Belonging: Anti-Black Racism, Xenophobia, and Disinformation

• Karla McKanders

Racialized and xenophobic disinformation reinforces an anti-Black and anti-immigrant vision of America where powerful actors intentionally promulgate false information that becomes the norm defining who belongs in this country. Historically, these norms have been codified into U.S. citizenship and naturalization laws privileging assimilation and defining who has the right to reside in America. During political campaigns, the pervasive use of disinformation is so normalized that people dismiss anti-immigrant rhetoric as political theatre instead of language that is part and parcel of a racially stratified society. The use of disinformation to influence mainstream societal norms is not new.  For example, in the 1870s and 1880s, rising anti-Chinese sentiment led to laws excluding Chinese nationals from naturalizing to become citizens and laws preventing them from immigrating to the United States.

At the intersection of anti-Black racism and immigration status, disinformation is a tactic that reinforces tiered personhood. Onyx Impact , a research think tank studying how Black communities engage with information, states, “Widespread racist propaganda has historically been used to: depict Black people as less than [human], deepen false narratives about the Black community, and foster hate, extremism, and bigotry.” Systemic racism is rooted in U.S. immigration and naturalization laws . In 2016, former President Donald Trump’s campaign strategy included racist rhetoric such as “referring to Mexican immigrants as ‘criminals’ and ‘rapists.’” During his presidency, he crudely referred to Haiti and El Salvador as “shithole” countries from which the United States should limit migration, issued  three versions of the “Muslim ban ,” and put in place a policy of separating Central American parents and children.

This Essay examines anti-Black and anti-immigrant disinformation through the lens of critical race theory and the social construction of race.  By analyzing U.S. naturalization laws and related court cases limiting naturalization to white persons, this Essay argues that disinformation has historically functioned as a form of knowledge production that becomes normalized within U.S. citizenship and naturalization laws. The law plays a powerful role in shaping society because the law reflects and reinforces the values , beliefs and power dynamics of the people who create and enforce the law. Critical race theorists argue that the law is not objective in that it adopts social norms about what is normal and acceptable in society. Social norms are turned into laws that define the parameters of membership and belonging and the privileges afforded to those who belong. Racialized and xenophobic disinformation, when adopted as legislation and upheld by courts, becomes law that is perceived as neutral and constructs the parameters of what it means to belong in America. Left unchecked, disinformation will continue to reinforce and legitimize white supremacy, which is counter to the ethos in the United States that we are a nation of immigrants .

Disinformation and Hate Crimes

Disinformation is false content that is intentionally disseminated with intent to harm, whereas misinformation is false content that is unintentionally or unknowingly disseminated. For example, continuing to intentionally disseminate information that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are eating pets, after the Chief of Police debunked these allegations as false, is a form of disinformation. In contrast, unknowingly reposting incorrect statistics on a social media feed about the number of immigrants coming into the United States at the Southern border is a form of misinformation.

Disinformation dehumanizes. Historically , dehumanization has been a precursor to violence against people who become perceived as the other . Present day disinformation rhetoric is strikingly similar to that of the 1880s against Chinese immigrants:

• U.S. Presidential Debate One , June 27, 2024: Referencing immigrants, former President Donald Trump suggested,“[t]hey’re taking Black jobs now and it could be 18, it could be 19 and even 20 million people.”
• In Frederick Keller’s cartoon the March 1878 San Francisco Illustrated Wasp : “In one cartoon for example, called Uncle Sam’s Farm in Danger , he shows a large swarm of insects with human faces besieging a farm. In the middle of it, Uncle Sam is swatting them with a sign. The artist provides some context for his ‘invasion.’ The caption under the title reads ‘Seventy millions of people are starving in the northern provinces of China. All who can do so are making preparations to come to the United States. Look out for the grasshoppers, Uncle Sam.”
• U.S. Presidential Debate Two , September 10, 2024: “ They’re eating the dogs , the people that came in, they’re eating the cats. . . . They’re eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”
• New York Times Article , August 1, 1883 : “Do the Chinese eat rats? This has always been a mooted question. Geographies contain the assertion they do, and an old wood-cut of a Chinaman peddling rodents, strung by the tails to a rack which he carried over his shoulders, is a standard illustration of the common school atlases of 10 years ago. . . . The statement made by Dr. Charles Kaemmerer is that a Chinamen living at No. 5 Mott Street have killed and cooked rats and cats in the yard, and have disposed of the offal by throwing it into the yard of No. 199 Worth-street. . . . Wong Chin Foo, the editor of the Chinese-American , yesterday offered a reward of $500 for anyone who could prove that a Chinaman ate rates of cats.”

During the 1870s and 1880s, anti-Chinese animus resulted in lynchings, boycotts and mass deportations of Chinese nationals . “The [previously] tolerant attitude changed in 1869 when the  Los Angeles News  and  The Los Angeles Star  began running editorials condemning Chinese immigration and attacking the Chinese as inferior and immoral.” In 1871, at least seventeen Chinese nationals were lynched, and one shot, in Los Angeles, California, which became known as the Los Angeles Chinatown Massacre. More recently, during the COVID-19 pandemic, some leaders engaged in anti-Chinese rhetoric, labeling COVID-19 as the “ Chinese virus .” Researchers have “directly correlated” the increase in rhetoric to violent and racist incidents against Asian Americans. Present day disinformation about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio resulted in 30 bomb threats  against municipal buildings, elementary schools and hospitals.

Throughout American history, disinformation has been deployed by the law in two ways. First, through legislation that adopts and perpetuates racial stereotypes, and second by judicial opinions that reinforce those stereotypes.

Disinformation Embedded in U.S. Citizenship and Naturalization Laws 1

The Naturalization Act of 1790 , for instance, limited the ability to become a U.S. citizen to free white persons, which was granted in practice only to white male property owners. During the mid-1800s, journalists infantilized Black people, portraying them as docile and unintelligent. In 1857, in Dred Scott v. Sanford , the Supreme Court relied upon the Naturalization Act of 1790 in ruling that Dred Scott, a formerly enslaved person living in the North, was not a U.S. citizen. Chief Justice Taney, authoring the opinion for the Court, found that the United States Constitution conferred upon Congress the right to establish a uniform rule of naturalization . Pursuant to this power, Congress passed the Naturalization Act of 1790. In examining the Act, the Court stated “the language of the law above quoted, shows that citizenship at that time was perfectly understood to be confined to the white race; and that they alone constituted the sovereignty in the Government.”

Chief Justice Taney relied upon the 1790 statute to provide the rationale for why Black people were not citizens. In the opinion, he employed racist rhetoric emphasizing that Black people were of “an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race either in social or political relations” and “treated as an ordinary article of merchandise.” The Court articulated that the construction of Black people as noncitizens was based upon common knowledge:

This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals as well as in politics which no one thought of disputing or supposed to be open to dispute, and men in every grade and position in society daily and habitually acted upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in matters of public concern, without doubting for a moment the correctness of this opinion.

In this case, Chief Justice Taney infamously stated that formerly enslaved Black persons were not U.S. citizens and that the Black man “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” Historians cite Chief Justice Taney’s rhetoric as an exemplar of language “dismiss[ing]  the humanness of those of African descent” and “permitt[ing] the image of African Americans to be reduced to caricatures in popular culture.”

During this period, Frederick Douglass, in an 1854 speech , keenly defined the racialized rhetoric that promulgated racialized stereotypes of Black people. He stated , “the European face is drawn in harmony with the highest ideas of beauty, dignity and intellect. Features regular and brow after the Websterian mold. The negro, on the other hand, appears with features distorted, lips exaggerated, forehead depressed — and the whole expression of the countenance made to harmonize with the popular idea of negro imbecility and degradation.” 

In 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment granted birthright citizenship to formerly enslaved Black people. Shortly after the ratification of the Fourteenth amendment, Congress amended the Naturalization Act of 1790 to include “aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent.” With the 1870 amendment, Black people could naturalize. This amendment followed centuries of their categorization as property rather than as persons with rights. As such, this amendment represented an incremental step towards correcting the racial exclusion embedded in the original Naturalization Act of 1790.

But even as the 1870 law made some progress, it was itself embedded with stereotypes.  During the 1870 congressional debates about the amendments to the naturalization statute, Congress considered whether people of Asian descent should be excluded from being able to naturalize. The naturalization statute provided “[t]hat any alien, being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen.” Congress debated eliminating the word white before “free white person.” In considering the amendment, Senator Morton stated :

This amendment involves the whole Chinese problem. . . . The country has just awakened to the question and to the enormous magnitude of the question, involving a possible immigration of many millions, involving another civilization, involving labor problems that no intellect can solve without study and without time. Are you now prepared to settle the Chinese problem, thus in advance inviting that immigration?

The only conclusion that can be drawn from these debates is that the senators left in  the word white “for the sole purpose of excluding the Chinese from the right of naturalization.” The consideration of this amendment occurred at the height of the anti-Chinese immigration animus and just before the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, when disinformation about people of Chinese descent was rampant. Historian Joseph R. Hayden states,

Writers started expressing more disgust and less wonder at Chinese culture, and they began peddling sensationalist stories guaranteed to shock: One Albany, New York, editor reported with horror that the Chinese murdered young girls in order to ‘drink certain fluids from their murdered bodies’ for medicinal purposes. It was believed that ‘grains of rice steeped in a freshly cut gall bladder’ was a powerful antidote for many diseases.

The animus was rooted in hostility against Chinese laborers who became successful entrepreneurs after migrating to the U.S. to work in gold mines, agriculture, factory work, and constructing railways in the West. In the West, whites occupied the majority of skilled labor positions, with great upward mobility out of unskilled jobs. Other workers — Indians, Black people and people of Mexican and Asian descent — did not have the same upward mobility. The Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest states, “[w]hen white workingmen formed into unions in the American West, they often were organizing not only against capital but also against the non-white worker who, in a variety of ways, was perceived as a threat to whites’ economic security.” At this time, disinformation created the animus against Chinese workers and undoubtably impacted Congress intentional exclusion of Asians from inclusion in the 1870 amendments to the naturalization statute. Citizenship remained limited to those who were white or “aliens of African nativity” and “persons of African descent.”

The evolution of U.S. naturalization law — from the 1790 statute where only free white males could naturalize, through the Dred Scott decision, to Congress’s exclusion people of Asian descent in the 1870 naturalization amendments — reveals a pattern in which disinformation influenced legislative action. The above examples of disinformation are rooted in racial prejudices and stereotypes, that become accepted as common knowledge and eventually calcified in statutes. Once the statutes are enacted, courts’ statutory interpretations rely on discerning Congressional intent, which itself has been born out of disinformation. As a result, as demonstrated in the naturalization cases below, disinformation continues to exert its influence and is reflected in judicial interpretations determining who is entitled to become a U.S. citizen.

The Prerequisite Cases: Judicial Reinforcement of the 1790 Naturalization Law

After the amendment of the naturalization statute, during the 1900s, the Supreme Court and federal courts considered multiple naturalization cases where noncitizens argued they were white and therefore not foreclosed from naturalizing to become U.S. citizens. Scholar Ian Haney Lopez calls the cases the prerequisite cases . In deciding these naturalization cases, like the Court’s rationale in Dred Scott , the Court relied upon the opinion and common knowledge of the white ruling class in 1790. In the Supreme Court case Ozawa v. United States , the Court posited that “the federal and state courts, in an almost unbroken line, have held that the words ‘white person’ were meant to indicate only a person of what is popularly known as the Caucasian race,” (emphasis added). There were approximately fifty-two cases between 1878 and 1952 in which non-citizens applied for naturalization, arguing that they should be declared white by law. 2

In 1878, in In re Ah Yup , the California Circuit Court considered for the first time a Chinese national’s application for naturalization. In this case, the court considered whether “a person of the Mongolian race [was] a ‘white person’ within the meaning of the statute” and whether the naturalization provisions “exclude all but white persons and persons of African nativity or African descent.” Notably, this case relied upon the statute’s legislative history, asking whether removing white from the naturalization statute would result in the exacerbation of what was framed as “the Chinese problem” during the congressional debate. The court found that Congress was opposed the removal of the word white:

It was opposed on the sole ground that the effect would be to authorize the admission of Chinese to citizenship. Every senator, who spoke upon the subject, assumed that they were then excluded by the term ‘white person,’ and that the amendment would admit them, and the amendment was advocated on the one hand, and opposed on the other, upon that single idea.

In re Ah Yup is an example of how a court deferred to congressional statements in the legislative history defining whiteness and holding that a Chinese national could not naturalize.

In Ex parte Shahid , the court engaged in similar reasoning in determining whether a Syrian national could naturalize. The applicant argued that he should be considered white because he was Christian. The court gave white the meaning:

as would naturally have been given to it when used in the first naturalization act of 1790 . Under such interpretation it would mean by the term ‘free white persons’ all persons belonging to the European races, then commonly counted as white , and their descendants. It would not mean a ‘Caucasian’ race; a term generally employed only after the date of the statute and in a most loose and indefinite way. (Emphasis added).

In short, the court construed white from what was “practically []known to common usage in 1790.” The court conceded that their definition “may not, ethnologically or physiologically speaking, be a very clear and logical construction” and that “[t]he law as enacted by Congress gives no place for the consideration of intellectual or moral qualifications or past achievements in a nation or people.” This not only exemplifies the application of the common knowledge standard in defining whiteness, it also highlights that as late as 1913, courts continued to rely upon Congressional intent from 1790.

In the 1922 case Ozawa v. United States , the Supreme Court considered whether a Japanese national was eligible for citizenship under the U.S. naturalization laws. Ozawa’s argument was based in part on his skin color — that his skin was just as pale as white Americans. Even though the Court conceded that Ozawa had lived in the U.S. for twenty years, was a student in the University of California, educated his children in American schools, attended church and spoke English, his naturalization application was denied. Rejecting the Ozawa’s arguments, the Court found that “[t]he intention was to confer the privilege of citizenship upon that class of persons whom the [ founding ] fathers knew as white, and to deny it to all who could not be so classified.” (Emphasis added).

The common knowledge approach in naturalization cases demonstrates how race is an ideology — not a fixed biological characteristic. The naturalization cases exemplify how the concept of whiteness held in 1790 continues to be broadly accepted and emotionally defended to legitimize anti-Black and xenophobic laws that exclude certain races and nationalities from becoming citizens.

Racial restrictions on citizenship were not eliminated entirely until the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952. Consideration of the Supreme Court and Congress’s first iterations of race-based exclusions limiting the recognition and rights of noncitizens is key to understanding how disinformation can impact who is perceived as a having the right to reside in the U.S. today. The first immigration and naturalization laws demarcate a Black-white binary highlighting how race was socially constructed. “Whiteness was transformed into a material concept imbued with rights and privileges, such as the franchise, for those who conformed to its definition.” The effects and purposes of the disinformation that led to these early iterations of the naturalization laws continue to this day.

The persistent effects and purposes of disinformation can be seen powerfully in the recent stories about Haitians in Ohio eating pets. That disinformation serves two purposes: (1) to engage stock narratives informed by anti-Black racism and xenophobia to dehumanize Haitians as unworthy members of the polity; and (2) to sow divisions within the Black community by painting immigrants as taking resources from Black American people — ultimately undermining Black political power. “ Ethnic wedge issues are rhetorical tools intended to splinter the support of a key opponent by employing narratives of ethnically motivated discrimination, victimization, or exclusion, and promising remedial action.” The ways in which Haitian immigrants are framed can ultimately lead to the same outcomes as the impact of the anti-Chinese animus on Congress’s decision to prohibit Chinese nationals from naturalizing in 1870 and ban Chinese nationals from entering the United States under the Chinese Exclusion Act .

The intersection of race, immigration, and disinformation reveals the deeply embedded ways in which American society constructs and maintains hierarchies of belonging. Disinformation, particularly when linked to anti-Black and anti-immigrant rhetoric, plays a powerful role in reinforcing structural racism within both public discourse and the legal system. Historical and contemporary narratives, often based on disinformation, shape perceptions of who is deemed worthy of citizenship as well as the right to reside in the United States. Disinformation also solidifies racial boundaries that exclude and marginalize along racial lines.

By codifying these biased narratives into law, the United States has historically legitimized racialized categories of belonging, which are now perceived as fixed and natural despite their constructed origins. The legal system, far from being neutral, has perpetuated these inequalities, as seen in Dred Scott and the prerequisite naturalization cases. The persistence of these racial constructs in legal, political, and social frameworks demonstrates how disinformation becomes not just a tool of political rhetoric but a foundation for the continued marginalization of Black and immigrant communities. Addressing the enduring impact of disinformation on the racial stratification of American society requires us to continuously examine the information on which the narratives are produced, circulated, and adopted into law. Without confronting disinformation, efforts to create a more inclusive and equitable society will continue to evade us. The challenge lies in dismantling the falsehoods that continue to fuel structural racism and redefining what it means to belong in a truly multiracial, representative democracy.

* Director of the Thurgood Marshall Institute with NAACP Legal Defense Fund. The views expressed in this Essay are solely my own and do not represent the opinions or positions of Legal Defense Fund.

^ In the U.S., citizenship laws establish the criteria for acquiring citizenship by jus soli (by birth) or jus sanguinis (descent). Contrastingly, naturalization laws establish the procedural framework and statutory requirements through which non-citizens may attain citizenship after submitting a formal application and receiving approval.

^ E.g. , In re Ah Yup, 1 F. Cas. 223 (C.C.D. Cal. 1878) (excluding Mongolian persons); In re Camille, 6 F. 256 (C.C.D. Or. 1880) (excluding a half Indian, half white person);  In re Gee, 71 F. 274 (N.D. Cal. 1895) (excluding a Chinese person); In re Rodriguez, 81 F. 337 (W.D. Tex. 1897) (admitting a Mexican person); In re Kumagai, 163 F. 922 (W.D. Wash. 1908) (excluding a Japanese person); In re Knight, 171 F. 299 (E.D.N.Y. 1909) (excluding a half Mongolian, half white person); In re Najour, 174 F. 735 (C.C.N.D. Ga. 1909) (admitting a Syrian person); In re Halladjian, 174 F. 834 (C.C.D. Mass. 1909) (admitting an Armenian person); In re Mudarri, 176 F. 465 (C.C.D. Mass. 1910) (admitting a Syrian person); Bessho v. United States, 178 F. 245 (4th Cir. 1910) (excluding a Japanese person); In re Ellis, 179 F. 1002 (D. Or. 1910) (admitting a Maronite person); In re Balsara, 171 F. 294 (C.C.S.D.N.Y. 1909) (admitting a Parsee person); Ex parte Shahid, 205 F. 812 (E.D.S.C. 1913) (excluding a Syrian person).

• Critical Race Theory
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Article contents

Xenophobia and anti-immigrant politics.

• Lars Rensmann Lars Rensmann Centre of International Relations Research, University of Groningen
• , and  Jennifer Miller Jennifer Miller Department of Political Science, University of Michigan
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.368
• Published in print: 01 March 2010
• Published online: 11 January 2018

The emergence of widespread xenophobia and anti-immigrant politics has raised the following questions: What are the explanatory factors and cultural conditions for the relative salience of xenophobic attitudes in the current era—and why is there a varying demand in different countries? Which independent variables on the supply side explain the emergence and the diverging success or failure of “anti-immigrant parties” as well as variations of mainstream anti-immigrant discourses and campaigns in electoral politics? What causal mechanisms can be found between contextual, structural, or agency-related factors and anti-immigrant party politics, and what do we know about their emergence and their dynamics in political processes? These questions are addressed by demand-side, supply-side, as well as mixed models. Demand-side approaches focus on the conditions that generate certain anti-immigrant attitudes and policy preferences in the electorate, on both the individual and the societal level, as key explanatory variables for anti-immigrant policies. Supply-side approaches turn to the role of political agency: They explain the salience and variation of anti-immigrant politics mainly by the performance of parties which mobilize, organize, and (as “agenda setters”) generate them. Mixed models include both sets of explanatory variables and a “third” set of institutional and discursive factors, such as electoral rules, party competition, and ideological spaces in electoral marketplaces.

• anti-immigrant politics
• anti-immigration
• immigration policy
• mixed models

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Xenophobia in the United States: Structural Drivers

• First Online: 09 December 2022

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• Natsu Taylor Saito 2  

Part of the book series: Springer Handbooks of Political Science and International Relations ((SHPPSIR))

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Xenophobia is deeply entwined with racism, but it has maintained a life of its own as well. This chapter considers the structural drivers of xenophobia in the United States to assess the relationship between racism and xenophobia in settler states. Beginning with the relationship between states and nations, the chapter suggests that it is too easy to blame xenophobia on “nationalism” and that, instead, we should look to states and the role played by colonialism in their formation and maintenance. It posits that in the United States, one of the most significant functions of xenophobia is to legitimize the very existence of the settler colonial state. Beyond that, it suggests that xenophobia empowers the state by (1) galvanizing a “national” response that can counteract the internal divisions promoted by racialization, (2) sanctioning the use of raw power against racialized Others in ways not otherwise considered acceptable, (3) facilitating the construction of enemies more sophisticated than racism usually permits, and (4) diverting attention from the real costs and consequences of empire. In these ways, xenophobia furthers the interests of those who strive for an assimilationist, “postracial” future as well as those who envision the state as an explicitly racial project.

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Many thanks to Tendayi Achiume for encouraging me to examine xenophobia, to Adebowale Akande and Bruce E. Johansen for editorial assistance, to Charles Cullen and Christian Shaheen for research assistance, and to Georgia State University’s College of Law for research support. Portions of this chapter are included in “Why Xenophobia?,” originally published in the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal , Volume 30 (2021); an earlier version appears in Emerging Trends in Global Organizational Science Phenomena: Critical Roles of Politics, Leadership, Stress, and Context (Ferris, Perrewé and Akande, eds., 2021).

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Saito, N.T. (2022). Xenophobia in the United States: Structural Drivers. In: Akande, A. (eds) Handbook of Racism, Xenophobia, and Populism. Springer Handbooks of Political Science and International Relations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13559-0_20

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Creating A Brilliant Argumentative Essay On Xenophobia: A Step-By-Step Guide

Writing an argumentative essay isn't that hard. If you are committed to this, and you want to do your job right, this will become relatively easy. As long as you don't rush into things, which is a big no-no in every aspect, and you have the necessary patience do work, you will get this done in no time, faster than you expected, and better as well.

• Research. Always research before you start working. It might be time-consuming depending on the subject, but it's a must. For xenophobia, reading about it from a psychological point of view could be of a lot of help in the end. Or, if you know someone, talk with a patient that suffers from this. The best info you get from the source. Depending on the situation, try to get as much info as possible before starting.
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Xenophobia: The Fear of Strangers

Adah Chung is a fact checker, writer, researcher, and occupational therapist. 

 PBNJ Productions/Blend/Getty

• Fighting Xenophobia

What Is the Opposite of Xenophobic?

Xenophobia, or fear of strangers, is a broad term that may be applied to any fear of someone different from an individual. Hostility towards outsiders is often a reaction to fear. It typically involves the belief that there is a conflict between an individual's ingroup and an outgroup.

Xenophobia often overlaps with forms of prejudice , including racism and homophobia , but there are important distinctions. Where racism, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination are based on specific characteristics, xenophobia is usually rooted in the perception that members of the outgroup are foreign to the ingroup community.

Whether xenophobia qualifies as a legitimate mental disorder is a subject of ongoing debate.

Xenophobia is also associated with large-scale acts of destruction and violence against groups of people.

Signs of Xenophobia

How can you tell if someone is xenophobic? While xenophobia can be expressed in different ways, typical signs include:

• Feeling uncomfortable around people who fall into a different group
• Going to great lengths to avoid particular areas
• Refusing to be friends with people solely due to their skin color, mode of dress, or other external factors
• Difficulty taking a supervisor seriously or connecting with a teammate who does not fall into the same racial, cultural, or religious group

While it may represent a true fear, most xenophobic people do not have a true phobia. Instead, the term is most often used to describe people who discriminate against foreigners and immigrants.

People who express xenophobia typically believe that their culture or nation is superior, want to keep immigrants out of their community, and may even engage in actions that are detrimental to those who are perceived as outsiders.

Is Xenophobia a Mental Disorder?

Xenophobia is not recognized as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). However, some psychologists and psychiatrists have suggested that extreme racism and prejudice should be recognized as a mental health problem.

Some have argued, for example, that extreme forms of prejudice should be considered a subtype of delusional disorder .   It is important to note that those who support this viewpoint also argue that prejudice only becomes pathological when it creates a significant disruption in a person's ability to function in daily life.

Other professionals argue that categorizing xenophobia or racism as a mental illness would be medicalizing a social problem.  

Types of Xenophobia

There are two primary types of xenophobia:

• Cultural xenophobia : This type involves rejecting objects, traditions, or symbols that are associated with another group or nationality. This can include language, clothing, music, and other traditions associated with the culture.
• Immigrant xenophobia : This type involves rejecting people who the xenophobic individual does not believe belongs in the ingroup society. This can involve rejecting people of different religions or nationalities and can lead to persecution, hostility, violence, and even genocide.

The desire to belong to a group is pervasive—and strong identification with a particular group can even be healthy. However, it may also lead to suspicion of those who are perceived to not belong.

It is natural and possibly instinctive to want to protect the interests of the group by eliminating threats to those interests. Unfortunately, this natural protectiveness often causes members of a group to shun or even attack those who are perceived as different, even if they actually pose no legitimate threat at all.

Xenophobia vs. Racism

Xenophobia and racism are similar in that they both involve prejudice and discrimination, but there are important differences to consider. Where xenophobia is the fear of anyone who is considered a foreigner, racism is specifically directed toward people based on their race or ethnicity. People can be both xenophobic and racist.

Examples of Xenophobia

Unfortunately, xenophobia is all too common. It can range from covert acts of discrimination or subtle comments to overt acts of prejudice or even violence . Some examples of xenophobia include:

• Immigration policies : Xenophobia can influence how nations deal with immigration. This may include hostility and outright discrimination against immigrants. Specific groups of people may be the target of bans designed to keep them from moving to certain locations.
• Displacement : In the U.S., the forcible removal of Indigenous people from their land is an example of xenophobia. The use of residential schools in the U.S. and Canada was also rooted in xenophobic attitudes and was designed to force the cultural assimilation of Native American people.
• Violence : For example, attacks on people of Asian descent have increased in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Causes of Xenophobia

There are a number of different factors believed to contribute to xenophobia: 

• Social and economic insecurity : People often look for someone to blame in times of economic hardship or social upheaval. Immigrants and minorities are often scapegoated as the cause of society's ills.
• Lack of contact : People with little or no contact with people from other cultures or backgrounds are more likely to be fearful or mistrustful of them.
• Media portrayals : The way immigrants and minorities are portrayed in the media can also influence people's attitudes towards them. If they are only shown in a negative light, it can reinforce people's prejudices.
• Fear of strangers : In general, people are more likely to be afraid of unfamiliar things. This can apply to both physical appearance and cultural differences.

Impact of Xenophobia

Xenophobia doesn't just affect people at the individual level. It affects entire societies, including cultural attitudes, economics, politics, and history. Examples of xenophobia in the United States include acts of discrimination and violence against Latinx, Mexican, and Middle Eastern immigrants.

Xenophobia has been linked to:

• Hostility towards people of different backgrounds
• Decreased social and economic opportunity for outgroups
• Implicit bias toward members of outgroups
• Isolationism
• Discrimination
• Hate crimes
• Political positions
• War and genocide
• Controversial domestic and foreign policies

Certainly, not everyone who is xenophobic starts wars or commits hate crimes. But even veiled xenophobia can have insidious effects on both individuals and society. These attitudes can make it more difficult for people in certain groups to live within a society and affect all aspects of life including housing access , employment opportunities, and healthcare access.

The twisting of a positive trait (group harmony and protection from threats) into a negative (imagining threats where none exist) has led to any number of hate crimes, persecutions, wars, and general mistrust.

Xenophobia has a great potential to cause damage to others, rather than affecting only those who hold these attitudes.

How to Combat Xenophobia

If you struggle with feelings of xenophobia, there are things that you can do to overcome these attitudes.

• Broaden your experience. Many people who display xenophobia have lived relatively sheltered lives with little exposure to those who are different from them. Traveling to different parts of the world, or even spending time in a nearby city, might go a long way toward helping you face your fears.
• Fight your fear of the unknown. Fear of the unknown is one of the most powerful fears of all. If you have not been exposed to other races, cultures, and religions, gaining more experience may be helpful in conquering your xenophobia.
• Pay attention. Notice when xenophobic thoughts happen. Make a conscious effort to replace these thoughts with more realistic ones.

If your or a loved one's xenophobia is more pervasive, recurring despite exposure to a wide variety of cultures, then professional treatment might be in order. Choose a therapist who is open-minded and interested in working with you for a long period of time.

Xenophobia is often deeply rooted in a combination of upbringing, religious teachings, and previous experiences. Successfully combating xenophobia generally means confronting numerous aspects of the personality and learning new ways of experiencing the world.

While xenophobia describes a fear of strangers, foreigners, or immigrants, xenophilia, or the act of being xenophilic, describes an appreciation and attraction to foreign people or customs.

History of Xenophobia

Xenophobia has played a role in shaping human history for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks and Romans used their beliefs that their cultures were superior to justify the enslavement of others. Many nations throughout the world have a history of xenophobic attitudes toward foreigners and immigrants. 

The term xenophobia originates from the Greek word xenos meaning "stranger" and phobos meaning "fear.

Xenophobia has also led to acts of discrimination, violence, and genocide throughout the world, including:

• The World War II Holocaust 
• The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II
• The Rwandan genocide
• The Holodomor genocide in Ukraine
• The Cambodian genocide

Recent examples in the United States include discrimination toward people of Middle Eastern descent (often referred to as "Islamophobia") and xenophobic attitudes towards Mexican and Latinx immigrants. The COVID-19 pandemic also led to reports of xenophobia directed toward people of East Asian and Southeast Asian descent in countries throughout the world.

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By Lisa Fritscher Lisa Fritscher is a freelance writer and editor with a deep interest in phobias and other mental health topics.