This document discusses the history of US immigration policy over three periods from 1901 to the present: 1) The "classic era" from 1901-1930 saw increasingly restrictive laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act and National Origins Act. 2) The "long hiatus" from 1931-1970 included Operation Wetback and the Hart-Celler Act which abolished national origins quotas. 3) The "new regime" from 1970 onward repealed racial restrictions and the quota system through acts like the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. It also discusses the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII and changing views on assimilation versus cultural pluralism.

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2. 3 periods in
20th century US immigration
“classic era” (1901-1930)
“long hiatus” (1931-1970)
“new regime” (1970-
present)
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3. Classic Era to Long Hiatus
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
1907-8 Gentlemen’s Agreement
1917 Immigration Act
1924 National Origins Act
1954-5 “Operation Wetback”
1965 Hart-Celler Act
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4. New Regime
1943 Chinese Exclusion repealed
1952 Lifted racial restrictions to
immigration and
naturalization
1965 Quota system lifted
1980 Refugee Act
1986 IRCA
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5. Question
How did America or ethnicity look
in each of these periods?
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6. “assimilation”
the process by which a subordinate individual or
group takes on the characteristics of the
dominant group and is eventually accepted as
part of that group. Assimilation is a majority
ideology in which A+B+C=A, where A
represents the majority group. Assimilation
dictates conformity to the dominant group, and
tends to devalue alien culture.
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7. “cultural pluralism”
 A+B+C=A+B+C
 Where differences and boundaries between cultures
are maintained
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8. Laws affecting immigrants
 Immigration laws
 Naturalization laws
 Alien land laws
 Anti-miscegenation laws
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9. Naturalization laws/cases
 1790 Naturalization Act
 1868 14th Amendment ratified
 1870 15th Amendment ratified
 1922 The Cable Act (42 Stat. 1021) specified
“that any woman citizen who marries an alien
ineligible to citizenship shall cease to be a
citizen of the U.S.”
 1922 Takao Ozawa vs. U.S. (260 U.S. 178)
 1923 Bhagat Singh Thind vs. U.S. (261 U.S.
204)
 1952 McCarran-Walter Act9

10. 1913, 1920 California Alien
Land Laws
Aliens ineligible to
citizenship could not
own or lease land
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11. Oyama vs California
 Fred Oyama, a US citizen,
was 6yo when father
purchased land in his
name, 1934
 CA took land in 1944,
claiming violation of CA
alien land laws
 1948 US Supreme Court
decision returns land
 Certain provisions of alien
land laws violate 14th
amendment
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12. Interracial marriage laws
 1850 CA anti-
miscegenation law
 1933 Roldan v. Los
Angeles County
 1948 CA overturns
anti-miscegenation
laws
 1967 Loving v. VA
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Visayan Welfare League. Guadalupe, CA. 1938.

14. New Regime
1943 Chinese Exclusion repealed
1952 Lifted racial restrictions to
immigration and
naturalization
1965 Quota system lifted
1980 Refugee Act
1986 IRCA
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15. How to immigrate today:
aka, get a “green card”
 Family sponsored
 Employment-based
 Immediate relatives
 Diversity
 Refugee/asylee
 See Handout, “How to immigrate”
 Table 6
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17. Race
 …formed through “historically situated projects in
which human bodies and social structures are
represented and organized” (pp. 55-56).
 “A racial project is simultaneously an
interpretation, representation, or explanation of
racial dynamics, and an effort to reorganize and
redistribute resources along particular racial
lines” (p. 56)
 Omi & Winant, “Racial Formation”
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California agriculture
 Before 1860, semi-isolated, pastoral region--
ranching (cattle hide, tallow)
 After 1860, extensive grain cultivation
 Fruit and truck farming: corporate, capital-
intensive form of agriculture (vs. small family
farms) made possible by irrigation revolution
 Role of “land monopolization” and “availability of
large units of cheap labor”

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Nipomo, CA. 1939. By Dorothea Lange.

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Persons obtaining
“legal permanent resident status”
(US Census)
1820s 1830s 1840s 1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
China 3 8 32 35,933 54,028 133,139 65,797 15,268 19,884 20,916 30,648 5,874 16,072
Japan 138 193 1,583 13,998 139,712 77,125 42,057 2,683 1,557
India 9 38 33 42 50 166 247 102 3.026 3,478 2,076 554 1,692
Philipp
ines
391 4,099

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Race and labor management
1930, CA Dept of Industrial Relations noted growers
preferred to employ: “a mixture of laborers of various
races, speaking diverse languages, and not
accustomed to mingling with each other. The
practice [was] intended to avoid labor trouble which
might result from having a homogeneous group of
laborers of the same race or nationality. Laborers
speaking different languages [were] not as likely to
arrive at a mutual understanding which would lead to
strikes.”

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Japanese immigration
 1885-1924
 200,000 to Hawaii
 180,000 to US mainland
 “Push/Pull” factors:
 Exclusion of Chinese laborers
 US labor needs (e.g., sugar-beet, link to E. coast markets)
 Opening up of Japan 1853
 Industrialization and militarization of Japan: farmers taxed,
experience deflation, lose land
 Japanese govt allows HI planters to recruit labor (1885-94)

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Characteristics
 A select group: had higher literacy rate, more
money than European counterparts.
 1884 Japanese Consul Takahashi Shinkichi: “It is
indeed the ignominious conduct and behavior of
indigent Chinese of inferior character … that
brought upon the Chinese as a whole the
contempt of the Westerners and resulted in the
enactment of legislation to exclude them from the
country.”

27. Characteristics, cont’d
 Japan promoted more women emigrants:
 In 1920, 46% in HI and 34.5% on mainland were
women.
 Ideal migrant/seasonal farm laborers
 Movement into land ownership
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Saruwatari with pea duster tractor

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FDR’s speech to Congress
“Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941--a date which will live in
world history--the United States of America was
suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air
forces of the Empire of Japan.”

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FDR’s speech to Congress
“Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941--a date which will live in
infamy--the United States of America was suddenly
and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of
the Empire of Japan.”

35. WWII and Japanese American internment:
Knowledge and control through visibility
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36. 36
Life magazine
December 1941

37. “THE QUESTION OF JAPANESE-
AMERICANS”
by W. H. Anderson
Perhaps the most difficult and
delicate question that confronts
our powers that be is the
handling--the safe and proper
treatment--of our American-born
Japanese, our Japanese-
American citizens by the accident
of birth. But who are Japanese
nevertheless. A viper is
nonetheless a viper wherever the
egg is hatched. (LA Times, Feb.
2, 1942)
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Executive Order 9066
Feb 19, 1942, FDR signs EO 9066
Suspends civil rights of US citizens
by authorizing the “evacuation” of
nearly 120,000 persons of
Japanese ancestry
60% of internees are US born
citizens (“Nisei” v. “Issei”)

42. WRA 1943 film,
“Japanese
Relocation”
http://www.archive.org/details/
Japanese1943
• Seeming transparency of
federal government
• Seeming normalcy of mass
incarceration of a single
ethnic group
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43. Title:
Henry Mitarai, age 36, successful
large-scale farm operator with his
family on their ranch about six
weeks before evacuation. This
family, along with other families of
Japanese ancestry, will spend the
duration at War Relocation
Authority centers.
Photographer: Lange, Dorothea --
Mountain View, California. 3/30/42
Contributing Institution:
The Bancroft Library. University of
California, Berkeley.
http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft
1z09n73j/?brand=calisphere
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48. 48Lange

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55. Title: Japanese American woman and
child, internees
Creator/Contributor: Ishigo, Estelle,
Artist
Date: between 1942 and 1945
Contributing Institution:
Dept of Special Collections/UCLA
Library, A1713 Charles E. Young
Research Library, 405 Hilgard Ave, Box
951575, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575;
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56. Title: Send Off Husband at Jerome
Camp
Creator/Contributor: Sugimoto,
Henry
Date: 1943
Format:
painting oil on canvas Denson, Ark.
Inscription:
Signed in medium, bottom left corner:
H. Sugimoto, 1943. Written on back:
Documentary/"Send Off Husband" at
Jerome Camp/by Henry
Sugimoto/1942
Collection:
Henry Sugimoto Collection A Life
Transformed 1941-1945
Contributing Institution:
Japanese American National Museum
(Los Angeles, Calif.)
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60. Sources for photographs, images
 http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/jarda/
 http://www.pacificcitizen.org/site/NEWS/tabid/54/selectedmoduleid/37
3/ArticleID/175/Default.aspx?title=Seeing_Japanese_American_Histo
ry_Through_Toyo%27s_Lens
 http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/anseladams/index.html
 http://www.oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=tf596nb4h0;query=;style=oac4
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