Race and Immigration Restriction

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Race and Immigration Restriction
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Immigration Waves in US History

• antebellum, 1840-1860largely northern European,
  especially England, Ireland and Germanyapprox.
  4.5 million
• late 19th-early 20th century, 1900-1920largely
  Southern and Eastern European, including Polish
  and Russian Jews, Italian, Greekapprox. 14.5
  million
• also Asian immigrants in the late 19th-early
  20th century, in much fewer numbers (for example,
  Chinese immigrants built US railroads)

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Immigration Waves photograph of immigrants
returning to Europe, 1907
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Immigration Waves Construction of Racial
Difference
What is this mans ethnic background?
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Immigration Waves Construction of Racial
Difference
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Naturalization Law and Race in US History

• 1790 - Congress limits naturalization to white
  persons
• 1870 - Congress adds African Americans
  (naturalization limited to free white persons
  and persons of African descent)
• 1952 - racial prerequisite for naturalization
  eliminated

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Naturalization Law and Race Cartoon on the
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
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Naturalization Law and Race U.S. v Bhagat Singh
Thind, 1923
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Immigration Restriction Ku Klux Klan Marching
in DC
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Immigration Restriction Cartoon on the Literacy
Test
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Immigration Restriction Cartoon on the Quota
Act of 1921
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Immigration Act of 1924 (The Johnson-Reed Act)

• Based ceilings on the number of immigrants from
  any particular nation on 2 percent of each
  nationality recorded in the 1890 census
• Was directed against immigrants from Southern
  and Eastern Europe who arrived in large numbers
  after 1890
• Barred all immigrants ineligible for citizenship
  on racial grounds, including all south and east
  Asians (including Indians, Japanese, and Chinese)

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Immigration Act of 1924 Annual Immigration
Quotas

• Germany - 51,227
• Great Britain - 34,007
• Ireland - 28,567
• Italy - 3,845
• Hungary - 473
• Greece - 100
• Egypt - 100

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Immigration Act of 1924 Map of Europe, Literary
Digest, 1924
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Immigration Act of 1924 Mae Ngais article

• What is the main argument of the article?
• Does the author present sufficient evidence to
  support her argument?
• What authors insights did you find the most
  original and useful?
• In what ways do you think the author might have
  done things differently?
• Ngai says that the law constructed race. What
  does she mean?
• What role statistics and the Census played in
  the development of this legislation?