Unnamed European Immigrants

During his lengthy monologue about race in Chapter 7, Gavin Stevens refers with clear contempt to what he calls "the coastal spew of Europe" that lives in the urban, industrial North, an undefined group that he juxtaposes to "the New Englander" who lives "back inland" away from the cities on the coast (150). The distinction is a hierarchical and even moral one: the traditional (i.e. "Anglo-Saxon," a term Gavin uses earlier in the passage, 152) New Englander has been essentially overrun by this "unrootable" group from Europe, which explains why, in Gavin's mind, the "homogeneous" white South alone can defend the best values of American culture (150).