“Dreaming (Un)American Dreams”: Anarchists and the Struggle to Define Americanism

• Published in: Journal for the study of radicalism 2019-01, Vol.13 (1), p.1-18
• Main Author: Béja, Alice
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 20th century; Academic freedom; Activism; Alliances; Anarchism; Audiences; Citizenship; Coalitions; Convictions; Democracy; Discourse; Dissent; Dreams; Ethnic identity; Ethnicity; Foreign born citizens; Frame analysis; Freedom of speech; Global local relationship; Government agencies; Human agency; Humanities and Social Sciences; Immigration policy; Independence; Internationalism; Legislation; Mobilization; Mothers; National identity; Nationalism; Oppression; Participation; Police; Political activism; Political science; Propaganda; Radicalism; Resistance; Rhetoric; Supreme courts; Terrorists; Turn of the century; World War I
• ISSN: 1930-1189; 1930-1197
• DOI: 10.14321/jstudradi.13.1.0001

Why would an anarchist defend Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence? Why would an anarchist appeal a conviction to the Supreme Court of the United States? Or lecture in English to an audience of liberal East Coast intellectuals? Such actions might seem at odds with a set of political beliefs resting on internationalism, the refusal of organized government, and an audience which is mainly composed of foreign born workers. Yet these are precisely the tactics some anarchists, first among them Emma Goldman, resorted to in their reaction to the laws and police repression targeting them at the turn of the twentieth century. For while authorities sought to brand anarchists as "un-American" expounders of a foreign creed, Goldman and others attempted to counter patriotic discourse by re-appropriating parts of U.S.–American national mythology in order to forge new alliances, expand the range of the anarchist message, and construct tools of resistance to state repression. Recent scholarship has stressed the need to reevaluate national frameworks in the study of anarchism, to explore the various scales of analysis (local, national, global) in their interactions rather than in isolation from each other. I address here two aspects of this reintroduction of the national scale: in the wake of studies on the repression of anarchism, I analyze how the state as a purveyor both of laws and of normative discourse framed anarchist activities and ideas as "foreign" to U.S. national identity at the turn of the century. While the concrete results of legislation like the 1903 Immigration Act were disappointing to authorities responsible for implementing them, the framing of anarchism as a foreign creed spurred a wave of mobilization in anarchist ranks; Goldman, through her participation in the Free Speech League, sought to Americanize anarchism and to widen the coalition of its defenders under the banner of free speech. In doing so, she and other anarchist activists (Claus Timmermann, Alexander Berkman) used references to U.S.–American history and traditions of dissent, fostering what Davide Turcato has called "an inclusive idea of nation." The nation, as opposed to the state, could therefore appear as a framework within which to reinscribe the anarchist ideal without betraying internationalism. Goldman used the idea of America as a political and rhetorical strategy to counter state repression and broaden the reach of her message at a time when politicians were seeki