Jim and Norma Matteson take part in an interactive activity during the program entitled “Immigration Prejudice: How Much Is It Recycled?” Friday at the Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center at Northern Michigan University. (Journal photo by Christie Bleck)

MARQUETTE — There are many parallels to be drawn between the immigrants of the early 19th-20th centuries and those of today.

Participants in the Northern Center for Lifelong Learning’s Friday program entitled “Immigration Prejudice: How Much Is It Recycled?” were asked to come up with reasons why people left their countries to enter the United States from 1820-1920.

They mentioned things like “hungry,” “displaced” and “brave.”

Fast forward to 2018.

Words like “freedom,” “safety” and “fear” came up.

“Are these immigrants today different from the past?” asked discussion leader Gabe Logan, director of the Center for U.P. Studies and Northern Michigan University history professor. The program took place at NMU’s Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center in Gries Hall.

Logan talked about “push/pull factors” that figure into immigration — basically catastrophes versus economic opportunity.

“Push factors are those factors that push people out of a country,” Logan said, with two examples being the Irish Potato Famine of the mid-19th century and the current conflict in Syria.

“Pull factors, by contrast, pull people into the country,” Logan said.

He mentioned the nursing shortage, particularly in the inner cities, which has attracted immigrants from the Philippines.

“These hospitals can’t find enough registered nurses, but the Filipino nurses have put together a market of using their skills to come to the United States,” Logan said.

Statesman Benjamin Franklin, long revered in many circles, even had what many people nowadays would consider unsavory thoughts about immigrants.

Franklin railed against the influx of German immigrants, who he called Palatine Boors, to Pennsylvania in the mid-1700s.

Logan passed out several handouts detailing Franklin’s thoughts on the matter, one of which included a 1753 letter to a friend in which Franklin said Germans were “rich but were not wise.”

“What would cause him to be fearful of this ‘Palatine’ immigration wave?” Logan asked.

One of those fears, brought forth in the participants’ discussion, was his fear of more people speaking German instead of English.

Were Franklin’s fears justified?

From his point of view, they were, Logan said.

“The Germans that came in this wave, they were a little unique in that they would come as a group,” he said.

The participants broke into small groups to examine and discuss political cartoons from many years ago.

These images depicted immigrants in a bad light.

“Have these fears come to pass, or what’s the contemporary value judgment on these fears?” Logan asked. “How is it similar to today’s immigration fears?”

One cartoon showed an Eastern European immigrant, labeled with words like “anarchy” and “poverty,” who is trying to pass through a gate where the U.S. Capitol is seen in the background.

Uncle Sam is seeing plugging his nose.

Another cartoon showed the shadow of a crucifix from a Catholic school cast on the inside of a nearby school, presumably a non-Catholic one.

Yet another cartoon showed Uncle Sam being “devoured” by two immigrants from different regions, with the resulting human being an amalgamation of those different peoples — and not in a complimentary way.

“Does society still consider this a problem?” Logan asked. “Is this an issue? Did these come true? Are we in this multi-ethnic world? Perhaps we are. Your offspring and my students — it’s not a big deal.”

Although ideas might be changing, he used the phrase “same problem, different people.”

One woman noted the fruit and vegetable industry, for example, could be negatively impacted were there no immigrants to fill jobs.

“We will have no industry if we send all of these people back,” said Ginger Petry, who pointed out the price of food would have to rise if higher wages had to be paid.

The same holds true for food service.

“The restaurant industry nationwide cannot exist without immigrant workers,” Petry said. “People do not want to wash dishes. People do not want these back-breaking jobs.”

Even the ancestors of many Upper Peninsula residents might have had to face discrimination first-hand, with Finnish-Americans subject to anti-Chinese immigration.

For instance, 19th century scientists likened the Finns’ “exotic” language to that of the Mongolians, noting it was proof they were unrelated to Europeans.

Then there was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which excluded Chinese laborers from the United States and kept them from obtaining U.S. citizenship, according to the Library of Congress.

Later, there was an effort to make Finns seen as Asians, Logan said.

“So, the question becomes, were Finns Mongolians, and if they were, then they could fall under the Chinese Exclusion Act,” Logan said.

However, in 1908 a judge in Duluth, Minnesota, ruled in favor of the Finns, saying they had “white skins” and couldn’t be denied citizenship, Logan said.

How should immigration be handled today? That was the question posed to the participants at the end of the program.

The answers were varied, and in a way posed more questions. Should there be quota allocation by countries? Should there be the same vetting processes regarding immigrants from Norway versus those from a supposedly terrorist country? Should there be a firm definition of a desirable immigrant?

“Clearly, in Melania Trump’s parents’ case, the rules are quite flexible,” Logan said in reference to the First Lady and her country of origin, Slovenia.

“Agencies are not consistently processing things because there’s so much subjectivity to the interview process,” said Sandi Poindexter, who noted her son-in-law from Botswana experienced difficulty in being processed.

“You’ve certainly given me a lot to think about and a lot of ideas,” Logan said.