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IMMIGRATING TO AMERICA IN THE LATE NINETEENTH AND

EARLY TWENIETH CENTURIES

Lindsey Stobaugh
Department of History
HIS 305
June 20, 2016
Immigration has been a discussion in American politics ever since the countrys inception

in 1776. In the early years of American society, immigrants were welcomed and were allowed to

establish themselves within that society.1 Over time, however, a restrictionist ideology began to

emerge among Americans and they began to place barriers on immigrants wishing to enter the

country. There were many different economic, social, and political reasons as to why the United

States began to become so restrictive toward immigrants. People immigrated, or attempted to

immigrate, to America from all over the world from Asian, European, and Latin American

countries. These immigrants experiences in attempting to enter the Unites States and upon

arrival varied greatly, and perhaps the groups that were most readily accepted by the American

people were those from Northern and Western Europe. In contrast, the groups that were the least

accepted by Americans were those from Asian countries, especially China. Other groups, like

Mexicans, were accepted as a labor force from large corporations but were rejected from entering

any other portion of American society. While America was claiming to be the greatest country in

the world, they were restricting access of people who wished to experience that greatness.

Restriction in America was not a phenomenon that came about over night. Many attributes

contributed to this rising ideology in American society, and these attributes continued to change

and evolve over time. The American people gravitated toward a more restrictionist mentality

regarding immigration as they entered the twentieth century, and their justifications came from

social, political, and economic influences. The group of people to face the earliest of these

restrictionist attitudes were those of Asian descent, specifically Chinese. Mae Ngai argues that

the main reason Americans wanted to restrict Chinese immigration was due to anxieties about

these immigrants getting in the way of Americans who were attempting to establish themselves

1 Reed Ueda The Legacy of Restriction, Postwar Immigrant America: A Social History (1994): 18.

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in the Western frontier.2 While this is an accurate argument, another possible reason might be that

these white American men were afraid of Chinese immigrants surpassing them within the

industrial expansion that was taking place at the time. Reed Ueda makes a similar argument to

Ngai, but he also argues that exclusion was a xenophobic reaction of the American people who

did not believe Chinese immigrants could assimilate to the American way of life.3 While Ngai

looks at immigration from a nationalist point of view, Ueda pulls in many different reasons for

restriction in his argument, such as the nativist ideologies of Americans at the time. However,

both perspectives are necessary to a full understanding of why Americans decided to exclude an

entire race from entering their country.

As a result of these restrictionist ideologies, the Chinese Exclusion Act was implemented

by congress in 1882, and it attempted to exclude all Chinese laborers from entering the United

States. After this act, the Gentlemens Agreement was passed in 1907, which limited Japanese

and Korean immigration as well. Asian exclusion went further in 1917 with the Immigration Act

in which congress created an Asiatic Barred Zone, which encompassed much of the South East,

including Afghanistan, India, Arabia, and sections of East Asia.4 Subsequently, another

Immigration Act was passed in 1924, which declared that no person of Asian decent could gain

American citizenship.5 This meant that those Asian immigrants who had managed to enter the

United States would never receive citizenship, and would never be able to participate fully in

American society. One important difference in Ngais and Uedas arguments as to why
2 Mae. N. Ngai Nationalism and Immigration in the 1920s, Major Problems in American Hisory 1920-1945:
Documents and Essays (2011), 161.

3 Reed Ueda The Legacy of Restriction, 19.

4 Reed Ueda The Legacy of Restriction, 19-20.

5 Mae. N. Ngai Nationalism and Immigration in the 1920s, 163.

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Americans began to become so restrictive toward immigrants, especially Asians, is the inclusion

of the effects that World War I had on the mentality of the American people. Ngai argues that the

surge in nationalism in the United States during and after World War I, succeeded by the Red

Scare in 1919-1920, had a large impact on the way Americans viewed the outside world.6 In

contrast, Ueda presents restrictionist ideology as one that was based predominantly on racial

superiority of white Americans. He often calls restrictionists, xenophobic and racist, and

while these were no doubt significant contributors for shaping their ideology, one cannot dismiss

the impact that the international events of the early twentieth century had on Americans beliefs.7

While people of Asian decent may have been the first to be restricted from immigrating

to the United States, they were most definitely not the only group. In 1907 the U.S. Immigration

Commission was created, which declared that New Immigrants from Southern and Eastern

European decent were highly unassimilable, and Americans saw them as the source of

degeneration within American society.8 Due to this claim by the Commission, it was established

in the Immigration Act of 1917 that immigrants to the United States would be required to pass a

literacy test. This was enacted in hopes to prevent the entry of people of Southern and Eastern

European decent.9 Subsequently, in 1924 with the passage of the Johnson-Reed Act, only

155,000 immigrants were allowed to enter the country and the quotas were dispersed in a way

as to mirror the national origins of the existing American population.10 This statement is

6 Mae. N. Ngai Nationalism and Immigration in the 1920s, 161-162.

7 Reed Ueda The Legacy of Restriction, 23.

8 Reed Ueda The Legacy of Restriction, 20.

9 Reed Ueda The Legacy of Restriction, 20.

10 Mae. N. Ngai Nationalism and Immigration in the 1920s, 163.

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reflective of the ideology of the American people, as they only wanted individuals that would

maintain a homogeneous population within their country. Mae Ngai argues that these barriers

were an attempt at large-scale social engineering, aimed at controlling the ethnoracial

composition of the country through quotas, exclusions, and deportations.11 Immigration

restriction reached its peak at the same time eugenics became a large-scale ideology and practice

among Americans. Many Americans wanted to oust those individuals who they deemed to have

undesirable traits and who they believed were the source of degeneration from the country, and

this included many immigrant groups.

Perhaps the organization that was the most fervent in supporting Southern and Eastern

European immigration restriction was the Ku Klux Klan. According to Nancy MacLean, while

the Klan supported restriction of immigration on a racial basis, their support had in large part to

do with immigrants influences in business and economics. The Ku Klux Klan, made up mostly

of white middle-class individuals, feared that Jews and Catholics from Southern and Eastern

European countries like Italy and Greece were going to overtake American markets. The Klan

believed this would result in socialism or communism, and threaten the autonomy of the

American people.12 It is evident that the foreign affairs of the United States had a direct impact

on the Ku Klux Klan and their ideology. They had seen Russia go through a Communist

revolution, and they believed that if Jewish and Catholic immigrants continued to enter America

and take over the business sector, the same thing might happen to their own country. MacLean

includes a quote from the Klans Imperial Wizard Simmons stating that the success of early

American democracy was attributable to the homogenous interests of the small property-holders
11 Mae. N. Ngai Nationalism and Immigration in the 1920s, 164.

12 Nancy MacLean The Class Anxieties of the Ku Klux Klan, Major Problems in American History 1920-1945:
Documents and Essays (2011), 166.

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and skilled workers who made up the citizenry.13 One can see in this statement a clear

connection to the overpowering nativist tone of American society during this time in history. The

belief that America should be controlled by American citizens, and that no immigrant should

hold an influential position in American society. A connection can be seen between the Klans

reasons for excluding Eastern and Southern European immigrants, and of early American

settlers reasons for excluding Asians. Americans wanted to ensure that they stay on top, in both

racial and economic terms.

In contrast to the experiences of Asians and Southern and Eastern Europeans attempting

to enter the United States, immigrants from Northern and Western Europe had a much better

chance of entering successfully. According to Mae Ngai, the quotas of the Johnson-Reed Act in

1924 established far greater quotas for immigrants coming from Northern and Western European

countries like Great Britain, Ireland, and Germany.14 This can be seen in both the Quota Acts as

200,000 out of a total of 355,000 visas were given to Northern and Western Europeans under the

First Quota Act, and 141,000 out of 165,000 under the Second Quota Act.15 According to Reed

Ueda, the reason for this was to maintain the historic ethnic character of the nation.16 This is

another example of the eugenics and nativist ideologies that swept the American nation during

the 1920s. Americans believed individuals from Northern and Western European were more

similar to them in terms of race, ideology, and experience. Unlike other Europeans, they had not

been influenced greatly by Communism, and their skin tones were closer to those of white

13 Nancy MacLean The Class Anxieties of the Ku Klux Klan, 168.

14 Mae. N. Ngai Nationalism and Immigration in the 1920s, 163.

15 Reed Ueda The Legacy of Restriction, 22.

16 Reed Ueda The Legacy of Restriction, 23.

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Americans. Thus, Americans believed they were assimilable to the American culture, unlike

their counterparts in Southern and Eastern Europe and Asia.

Immigrants were not only coming to the United States from the Eastern Hemisphere, but

they were attempting to enter from the Western Hemisphere as well, especially from Mexico.

Mexicans had a different experience than immigrants from Europe and Asia at first, however a

restrictionist attitude began to evolve around them as well later in the twentieth century. In fact,

the Johnson-Reed Act, which established quotas for European and Asian immigrants in 1924,

declared there would be no quotas for Western Hemisphere immigrants.17 David Montejano

argues the main reason for this was that Mexicans provided cheap labor for agricultural

growers.18 This did not mean that Mexican immigrants were accepted into American society,

though. Smaller farmers and those who worked in Urban areas saw Mexicans, like Southern and

Eastern Europeans and Asians, to be un-American and promoted restrictions upon their entering

the United States.

While Mexican immigrants may have not faced restrictions, the Immigration Act of 1924

required a passport, visa, head tax, and inspection at an official port of entry for Mexicans.

Many Mexicans could not afford the cost of these requirements, however, and they entered the

country illegally and deportations began to increase.19 In addition to this, Mexicans were also

barred from obtaining work beyond that of agriculture, as, according to David Montejano,

Agribusinessmen, after all, only wanted laborers, not neighbors or fellow citizens.20 Those who
17 Mae. N. Ngai Nationalism and Immigration in the 1920s, 163.

18 David Montejano The Mexican Problem, Major Problems in American History 1920-1945:
Documents and Essays (2011), 173.

19 Mae. N. Ngai Nationalism and Immigration in the 1920s, 164.

20 David Montejano The Mexican Problem, 179.

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feared Mexican immigrants were not afraid of them spreading communist ideals like European

and Asian immigrants, but were more hesitant of another inferior race entering the United States.

David Montejano states Eugenicists pointed out with alarm that Mexicans were not only

intellectually inferiorthey were also quite fecund.21 It is evident that the discussions about

Mexican Immigration restriction came about and were influenced by eugenics and nativist ideals.

These people did not want Mexicans, just like they did not want Europeans and Asians,

influencing American society in any way.

It is evident that immigration has been one of the most debated topics in American

history. While the United States claimed to be welcoming of outsiders when it was established,

the country quickly evolved to a very different stance on immigration. A country that was

founded on the idea of the melting pot ended up abandoning that idea due to the fear of outsiders,

combined with the spread of nativist and eugenics ideals. Reed Ueda argues, immigration

restriction was neither inevitable nor irresistible.22 However, America was created on the basic

belief of White European supremacy, and that, combined with the melting pot ideology, was a

recipe for the evolution of immigration restriction. Aside from this, Reed Uedas article, The

Legacy of Restriction looks at many different immigrant groups and discusses the specific acts

that restricted them from arriving in the United States. While he provides many helpful facts

about restriction, he also challenges these restrictive acts and looks at the various loopholes that

immigrants were able to squeeze through to enter the country. Each of the articles discussed

looks at immigration and the reasons for restriction from a different perspective, and each of

21 David Montejano The Mexican Problem, 174.

22 Reed Ueda The Legacy of Restriction, 23.

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those perspectives are necessary to gaining a complete understanding of why and how these

immigrants were restricted from entering the United States.

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Bibliography

MacLean, Nancy. The Class Anxieties of the Ku Klux Klan. Major Problems in American
History 1920-1945: Documents and Essays (2011):166-173.

Montejano, David. The Mexican Problem. Major Problems in American History 1920-1945:
Documents and Essays (2011): 173-182.

Ngai, Mae M. Nationalism and Immigration in the 1920s. Major Problems in American
History 1920-1945: Documents and Essays (2011): 161-165.

Ueda, Reed. The Legacy of Restriction. Postwar Immigrant America: A Social History (1994):
18-38.

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