A Brief Primer on Immigration History by Rachels

A Very Brief Primer on Immigration History Part 1
November 12, 2006 on 1:37 pm | Written by rachels in Government, Immigration, Portraying Race, Whiteness, Uncategorized |
One of the hot topics in the recent US election was immigration. Pundits, like Lou Dobbs, are on a mission to “fix our broken borders” by cracking down on illegal immigration. They argue that immigrants are taking jobs from American citizens, refusing to assimilate, changing American cultural values, and engaging in criminal activities. As I listen to these arguments, I am always reminded of my class lecture on European American immigration patters. The rhetoric of contemporary nativist activists like Lou Dobbs and Pat Buchanan is nothing new. In fact, it follows almost exactly the same rhetoric of earlier anti-immigrant backlashes. While Latinos are the primary targets of contemporary nativists, in the early years it was the Irish, the Germans, the Italians, the Jews, and the Chinese, and the “problems” were the same.

Before we can understand the significance of anti-immigration backlashes, it is also important to explore the variation waves of immigration and how they are shaped by policy and economic conditions. The earliest European immigrants were primarily English, and since the English became the dominant group, they were also able to set policies and social norms for other immigrants. ((Of course, I haven’t forgotten about the indigenous people of North America or the involuntary African immigrants, but the focus here will be on voluntary migrants.)) One of the primary social norms that British set was the norm of Anglo-conformity, which was proposed by Milton Gordon ((Gordon, Milton. 1964. Assimilation in American Life. New York: Oxford University Press.)) Under the system of Anglo-conformity immigrants were expected to model the English American customs and language to the point that they became indistinguishable.

During the earliest years, the US had a fairly open immigration policy. European immigrants were welcomed and encouraged to come to the US, and there were few laws or policies that limited immigration. Most immigrants in the earliest years came from England, Germany, and Ireland (along with a small contingent of Scandinavian immigrants). The German and Irish immigrants were very much vilified, as this quote from a recent Washington Post article highlights:

Still, European immigrants found plenty of backlash. Nativist sentiments ran strong, and white Protestant reformers championed English-language instruction and temperance, the latter reflecting the Establishment’s disdain for hard-drinking immigrants. The Germans set up 121 breweries in Brooklyn and Manhattan alone.

From the 1700s to the late 1800s immigration was open for these immigrants. Very few immigrants were turned away and there were few laws limiting immigration. As the Washington Post article states:

Until 1918, the United States did not require passports; the term “illegal immigrant” had no meaning. New arrivals were required only to prove their identity and find a relative or friend who could vouch for them.

Customs agents kept an eye out for lunatics and the infirm (and after 1905, for anarchists). Ninety-eight percent of the immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island were admitted to the United States, and 78 percent spent less than eight hours on the island. (The Mexico-United States border then was unguarded and freely crossed in either direction.) “Shipping companies did the health inspections in Europe because they didn’t want to be stuck taking someone back,” said Nancy Foner, a sociology professor at Hunter College and author of “From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration.” “Eventually they introduced a literacy test,” she added, “but it was in the immigrant’s own language, not English.”

In the later half of the 1800s the first major restrictions against immigrants were imposed. The Chinese were primary the targets of these laws, and the Naturalization Act of 1870 made Chinese ineligible for citizenship. This act also targeted the wives of Chinese laborers, and all people born in African or of African descent were made eligible for citizenship. Then in 1882 Chinese were banned entirely from entering the country. ((This ban on Chinese laborers was not lifted until the 1940s.)) The backlash against Chinese often stemmed from fear that they were taking away jobs.

During the late 1800s and early 1900s immigration from southern and eastern Europe skyrocketed, and there was also a backlash against these immigrants, which lead to much greater restrictions. In 1917, the restrictions against expanded to include an “Asiatic Barred Zone,” which extend over Asian and the Pacific Rim; moreover, immigrants were required to take literacy tests, and “anarchists” and other radical were also barred. This was one of several laws that lead to the National Origins Act of 1924. According to History Matters,

In response to growing public opinion against the flow of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe in the years following World War I, Congress passed first the Quota Act of 1921 then the even more restrictive Immigration Act of 1924 (the Johnson-Reed Act). Initially, the 1924 law imposed a total quota on immigration of 165,000—less than 20 percent of the pre-World War I average. It based ceilings on the number of immigrants from any particular nation on the percentage of each nationality recorded in the 1890 census—a blatant effort to limit immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, which mostly occurred after that date. In the first decade of the 20th century, an average of 200,000 Italians had entered the United States each year. With the 1924 Act, the annual quota for Italians was set at less than 4,000.

This act radically changed immigration by setting quotas that gave preferences to groups that were already represented in the US. While there were other immigration restrictions imposed during this period, this law had the greatest impact. From the 1920s until 1965, the number of immigrants entering the US dropped dramatically and at it’s low point in the 1970s the percentage of the population that was foreign born was only 4.7%.

So the first major wave of immigration, which ended in the late 1800s, included immigrants mostly from western Europe, and these immigrants faced very few restrictions. The restrictions in this era were based on race and mental health, but complex immigration processing or laws did not exist at this time. It was until the second wave of immigration from the late 1800s-1924 that much greater restrictions were put on immigration. These restrictions were explicitly racialized and directed at Chinese and Eastern European immigrants. Over both of these waves of immigration similar concerns were expressed about the fitness of immigrants. Nativist believed that immigrants threatened the American way of life, and the arguments used are remarkably similar to those of the contemporary nativists like Lou Dobbs or Pat Buchanan.

In an earlier post, I discussed immigration history in the 1800s and early 1900s. In this post, I would like to discuss the most recent wave of immigrants, specifically those who came after 1965. As I stated in the previous post, a National Origins quota system was put in place in 1924. These quotas were designed to maintain the current ethnic make up of the US population, keeping the balance in favor of northern Europeans and stemming the tide of immigrants from southern/eastern Europe and other parts of the world. This system was in place until 1965, and during this time period the rate of immigration decreased markedly. By 1960 only 5% of the US population was foreign born, compared to 15% of the population in 1910 and 12% of the total population in 2004 (US Census Bureau).

The Immigration Act of 1965 (Hart Cellar Act) scrapped the national origin quotas, and replaced them with other methods for gaining entry/residence into the US. While less restrictive than the national origins system, it was more restrictive than very early immigration policies (pre 1870s).

What were the provisions of this new immigration policy? One of the key goals of this immigration policy was family reunification of immediate relatives–spouses, parents, and children. Families were given preference and were not subject to the new quotas that were set as were several other groups: “certain ministers of religion; certain former employees of the U.S. government abroad; certain persons who lost citizenship (e.g., by marriage or by service in foreign armed forces); and certain foreign medical graduates.” Immigration quotas were shifted from nations to hemispheres. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, this act

Allocated 170,000 visas to countries in the Eastern Hemisphere and 120,000 to countries in the Western Hemisphere. This increased the annual ceiling on immigrants from 150,000 to 290,000. Each Eastern-Hemisphere country was allowed an allotment of 20,000 visas, while in the Western Hemisphere there was no per-country limit. This was the first time any numerical limitation had been placed on immigration from the Western Hemisphere. Non-quota immigrants and immediate relatives (i.e., spouses, minor children, and parents of U.S. citizens over the age of 21) were not to be counted as part of either the hemispheric or country ceiling.

Additionally, those immigrants with “special skills” that were needed in the US were also given a preference. This would include people such as highly trained scientists, athletes, artists, and people who can fulfill high demand jobs (i.e. nursing). Finally, refugees were also granted slots (especially those from communist countries and the Middle East.).

There have been important subsequent immigration policies, including amnesty for undocumented immigrants; however, many of these policies are slight adjustments on the Hart Cellar Act. The Center for Immigration Studies highlights several of post 1965 reforms in this list:

1976 Amendments to Immigration and Nationality Act — Extended a version of the seven-category preference system previously applied to Eastern Hemisphere countries to all Western Hemisphere countries. Also imposed an annual ceiling of 20,000 immigrants from any one country in the Western Hemisphere.

1978 Amendments to Immigration and Nationality Act — The two hemispheric ceilings were combined into a worldwide quota of 290,000. The U.S. now had a policy that, on paper, applied uniformly to the people of all countries.

1980 Refugee Act — Established a separate admissions policy for refugees, eliminating the previous geographical and ideological criteria, and defining “refugee” according to United Nations norms. It abolished the seventh preference category for refugees (see Details). It set a separate target for refugees at 50,000 and reduced the annual worldwide ceiling for immigrants to 270,000.

1981 Report of the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy — The 16-member commission was created by Congress to evaluate immigration and refugee laws, policies, and procedures. The Commission’s recommendations were summed up as follows by its chairman, the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh: “We recommend closing the back door to undocumented, illegal migration, opening the front door a little more to accommodate legal migration in the interests of this country, defining our immigration goals clearly and providing a structure to implement them effectively, and setting forth procedures which will lead to fair and efficient adjudication and administration of U.S. immigration laws.”

1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) — Tried to control and deter illegal immigration by providing amnesty and temporary status to all illegal aliens who had lived in the United States continuously since before January 1, 1982; extended a separate, more lenient amnesty to farmworkers; imposed sanctions on employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens; increased inspection and enforcement at U.S. borders.

1990 Immigration Act (IMMACT) — Modified and expanded the 1965 act; it significantly increased the total level of immigration to 700,000, increasing available visas 40 percent. The act retained family reunification as the major entry path, while more than doubling employment-related immigration. The law also provided for the admission of immigrants from “underrepresented” countries to increase the diversity of the immigrant flow.

In spite of these alterations, basic immigration policies still follow the 1965 Immigration Act’s basic guidelines. This policy change dramatically changed the US population. The rate of immigration dramatically increased, and many groups that had previously faced high level of discrimination, especially Asians, were now entering the US in much larger numbers. Many of the post 1965 Asian immigrants were recruited to the US specifically for their skills in fields such as medicine, a stark departure from the early Chinese immigrants who were working class/low wage laborers. Overall, the new immigrants come mostly from Latin American and Asia. Contemporary immigrants tend to be more highly educated than immigrants of previous generations because of the 1965 immigration preferences; however, there is still a noticeable immigrant working class (especially for Latin American immigrants). In fact, it is probably fair to say that immigrants are disproportionately part of the working poor (especially those who are undocumented or refugees) and the upper middle class.

What does the future of immigration policy hold? I don’t feel qualified to predict the future, but if we want to talk about meaningful immigration policies and reforms, we need to understand what the current policies are. The 1965 law set the basis for current policy, and thus, it is imperative to reference it in the immigration debates.

A Very Brief Primer on Immigration History Part 1
November 12, 2006 on 1:37 pm | Written by rachels in Government, Immigration, Portraying Race, Whiteness, Uncategorized | 2 Comments
One of the hot topics in the recent US election was immigration. Pundits, like Lou Dobbs, are on a mission to “fix our broken borders” by cracking down on illegal immigration. They argue that immigrants are taking jobs from American citizens, refusing to assimilate, changing American cultural values, and engaging in criminal activities. As I listen to these arguments, I am always reminded of my class lecture on European American immigration patters. The rhetoric of contemporary nativist activists like Lou Dobbs and Pat Buchanan is nothing new. In fact, it follows almost exactly the same rhetoric of earlier anti-immigrant backlashes. While Latinos are the primary targets of contemporary nativists, in the early years it was the Irish, the Germans, the Italians, the Jews, and the Chinese, and the “problems” were the same.

Before we can understand the significance of anti-immigration backlashes, it is also important to explore the variation waves of immigration and how they are shaped by policy and economic conditions. The earliest European immigrants were primarily English, and since the English became the dominant group, they were also able to set policies and social norms for other immigrants. ((Of course, I haven’t forgotten about the indigenous people of North America or the involuntary African immigrants, but the focus here will be on voluntary migrants.)) One of the primary social norms that British set was the norm of Anglo-conformity, which was proposed by Milton Gordon ((Gordon, Milton. 1964. Assimilation in American Life. New York: Oxford University Press.)) Under the system of Anglo-conformity immigrants were expected to model the English American customs and language to the point that they became indistinguishable.

During the earliest years, the US had a fairly open immigration policy. European immigrants were welcomed and encouraged to come to the US, and there were few laws or policies that limited immigration. Most immigrants in the earliest years came from England, Germany, and Ireland (along with a small contingent of Scandinavian immigrants). The German and Irish immigrants were very much vilified, as this quote from a recent Washington Post article highlights:

Still, European immigrants found plenty of backlash. Nativist sentiments ran strong, and white Protestant reformers championed English-language instruction and temperance, the latter reflecting the Establishment’s disdain for hard-drinking immigrants. The Germans set up 121 breweries in Brooklyn and Manhattan alone.

From the 1700s to the late 1800s immigration was open for these immigrants. Very few immigrants were turned away and there were few laws limiting immigration. As the Washington Post article states:

Until 1918, the United States did not require passports; the term “illegal immigrant” had no meaning. New arrivals were required only to prove their identity and find a relative or friend who could vouch for them.

Customs agents kept an eye out for lunatics and the infirm (and after 1905, for anarchists). Ninety-eight percent of the immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island were admitted to the United States, and 78 percent spent less than eight hours on the island. (The Mexico-United States border then was unguarded and freely crossed in either direction.) “Shipping companies did the health inspections in Europe because they didn’t want to be stuck taking someone back,” said Nancy Foner, a sociology professor at Hunter College and author of “From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration.” “Eventually they introduced a literacy test,” she added, “but it was in the immigrant’s own language, not English.”

In the later half of the 1800s the first major restrictions against immigrants were imposed. The Chinese were primary the targets of these laws, and the Naturalization Act of 1870 made Chinese ineligible for citizenship. This act also targeted the wives of Chinese laborers, and all people born in African or of African descent were made eligible for citizenship. Then in 1882 Chinese were banned entirely from entering the country. ((This ban on Chinese laborers was not lifted until the 1940s.)) The backlash against Chinese often stemmed from fear that they were taking away jobs.

During the late 1800s and early 1900s immigration from southern and eastern Europe skyrocketed, and there was also a backlash against these immigrants, which lead to much greater restrictions. In 1917, the restrictions against expanded to include an “Asiatic Barred Zone,” which extend over Asian and the Pacific Rim; moreover, immigrants were required to take literacy tests, and “anarchists” and other radical were also barred. This was one of several laws that lead to the National Origins Act of 1924. According to History Matters,

In response to growing public opinion against the flow of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe in the years following World War I, Congress passed first the Quota Act of 1921 then the even more restrictive Immigration Act of 1924 (the Johnson-Reed Act). Initially, the 1924 law imposed a total quota on immigration of 165,000—less than 20 percent of the pre-World War I average. It based ceilings on the number of immigrants from any particular nation on the percentage of each nationality recorded in the 1890 census—a blatant effort to limit immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, which mostly occurred after that date. In the first decade of the 20th century, an average of 200,000 Italians had entered the United States each year. With the 1924 Act, the annual quota for Italians was set at less than 4,000.

This act radically changed immigration by setting quotas that gave preferences to groups that were already represented in the US. While there were other immigration restrictions imposed during this period, this law had the greatest impact. From the 1920s until 1965, the number of immigrants entering the US dropped dramatically and at it’s low point in the 1970s the percentage of the population that was foreign born was only 4.7%.

So the first major wave of immigration, which ended in the late 1800s, included immigrants mostly from western Europe, and these immigrants faced very few restrictions. The restrictions in this era were based on race and mental health, but complex immigration processing or laws did not exist at this time. It was until the second wave of immigration from the late 1800s-1924 that much greater restrictions were put on immigration. These restrictions were explicitly racialized and directed at Chinese and Eastern European immigrants. Over both of these waves of immigration similar concerns were expressed about the fitness of immigrants. Nativist believed that immigrants threatened the American way of life, and the arguments used are remarkably similar to those of the contemporary nativists like Lou Dobbs or Pat Buchanan.

Next in this series I’ll discuss the Immigration Act of 1965 and it’s effects on our current population.

Thought for the day
June 27, 2006 on 5:14 pm | Written by IrrationalPoint in Immigration | 19 Comments
I’m going to briefly interrupt Vegan’s Unlearning Racism series (sorry, Vegan) with some points relevant to the immigration debate. One of the issues that a lot of conservatives are concerned about is American culture, and whether it will change with immigrants. So here’s some questions to think about.

What does “integration” mean?

What does it require on the part of immigrants to a new country, and those already residing in that country?

Is it a good thing or a bad thing, and why?

Is it important, and if so, why?

I’d be interested to hear other people’s thoughts on this before I provide more of my own.
–IP

schools and fields
March 31, 2006 on 12:44 pm | Written by vegankid in Government, Immigration, blogs and websites | 3 Comments
IrrationalPoint over at The Soapbox has recently written a couple of posts about the racism of some US domestic policies. The first of which is title Land of Opportuninty and talks about the Bush administration’s immigration policy.

“If you’re doing a job an American won’t do”? Well that’s the give-away line, isn’t it? That’s the way the US makes it’s money kids: segregate the workforce, make the immigrants work the shitty jobs for shitty pay with no security that makes the US economy float, and then hound them down for being in the country illegally. Exploit the countries they come from so that, after you’ve deported them, they’re as desperate as you can make ‘em to come back to the US and do it all over again.