sentences:  Several groups are revisited at multiple points through their history.One common theme throughout the entire book is the 'us against them' attitude that the ruling structure has towards the minorities, from the fear of the "giddy multitude" in colonial times, to the Chinese Exclusion Act being created to 'protect' white labor, to the modern day accusations that "Hispanics [...] tak[e] jobs away from 'Americans'"
  
  A related theme of the book is the pattern of capitalist owners pitting different immigrant groups against one another, as a strike-breaking tactic.For example, the book relates that the Order of the Knights of St. Crispin was unsuccessful in persuading Chinese workers to join the 1878 Chicago shoemakers' strike, when the latter were recruited as strikebreakers by shoe factory owners.