Immigration (thread 12), Episode 4: When Ben Franklin Panicked: The First American Immigration Scare

In this episode we dig into Benjamin Franklin's surprising 1751 panic about German immigrants in Pennsylvania: industrious newcomers who kept their language, voted, and sparked one of America’s earliest immigration scares.

It’s sharp, a little awkward to hear from Franklin, and oddly familiar — a reminder that every generation freaks out about newcomers, only to later call them the real Americans. Stick around for a witty, intimate look at how assimilation anxieties get recycled through history.