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HSTAA 110 AD
16 December 2015
Question #1
The Impact of Popular Discrimination and International Relations on Immigration and Related
Policies Through the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States
The U.S. may have a relatively short history, but as the nation has aged its made an
impressive amount of progress. Thats not to say that the U.S. has only improved over time, in
fact it, has done a great deal of regression in its history especially in regards to immigration
policy. Despite this regression, U.S. has managed to make immigration policies more fair and
just for all its citizens. Immigration policy, Naturalization laws, and the treatment of immigrants
by the FED grew to be increasingly anti-immigrant in correspondence with the growing racism
in the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, however as the U.S. its increased international
relations, it became necessary to stop treating portions of its populace like second class citizens.
Up until the first legislation restricting immigration, being the Chinese Exclusion Act,
immigration to the U.S. was essentially an open door. In this period of westward expansion and
development of the west, there was little reason to enforce any sort of immigration restrictions.
There was both more than enough space available for these immigrants to settle and a high
demand for their cheap labor in the expansion of industry and infrastructure, like with the
construction of railroads or agriculture. Even though there were plenty of opportunities for the
Americans moving west and their immigrant counterparts to coexist, that ended up not being the
case because of the rampant racial discrimination against any non-white immigrants at that time.
Rather consistently in the American west immigrants of color were discriminated against,
whether it be through a foreign miners tax which only targeted foreigners who werent white or

barring immigrants of color from being able to access the better mining opportunities, which
were then reserved for whites, whether they were immigrants or not. This targeted racism, which
came to be known as nativism, was prevalent throughout the west and was much of the primary
force which opposed the immigration of foreign peoples into the west up until the passage of the
Chinese Exclusion Act. This bill was the first major step in the direction of the closed door
immigration policy immigration policy that the US began to adopt to in order to appease its
racially intolerant white voting base in the west. The intent of this legislation was two-fold in
how it intended to benefit the white populace on the coast; it allowed them to both deter
immigration so that they wouldnt have to deal with immigrants and so that immigrants wouldnt
be competing against native whites for their jobs. Even when provided these substantial
protections, white labor groups and political parties, such as Denis Kearneythe leader of the
Californian Workingmens party, would still try to throw the Chinese immigrants out of town in
order to protect the rights of white workers and decrease the competition brought by the Asian
immigration. (Ueda 28) In truth, this argument about job scarcity was at best a scapegoat. The
actual job competition brought about by Chinese immigration was really minuscule when
compared to their competition with immigrants from Europe at that time. Chinese immigrants
comprised only two percent of the immigration from 1850 to 1920, it was simply used as a
justification for the racially insensitive residents of the west to exclude immigrants from their
communities. (Ueda 27) Evidently the racially charged white population of the west coast would
not be satisfied with simply stopping Chinese immigration, and thus the ongoing racial tensions
in the west led to further legislation which further limited the rights of immigrants and any
possibilities of further immigration.

The U.S. continued down this path of racial injustice and discrimination in the realm of
immigration policy until its peak with the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924 which
maintained a heightened level of discrimination in conjunction with other legislation throughout
this period. Just as the Chinese exclusion act had come about as a response to a large influx of
Chinese immigrants entering the U.S. the Gentlemens Agreement of 1907 came after a sharp
uptick in the immigration of the Japanese into the U.S. (Ueda 26) While this agreement between
Japan and the U.S. wasnt put on paper, it still served the goals of the racist white population of
the west coast because it only barred single men from Japan and Korea from immigrating thus
protecting the ability to Americans to get jobs while also excluding these unwanted groups.
Furthermore as progressive reformers attempted to clean up the present voting system, largely by
requiring literacy tests and knowledge of the constitution to vote, and they succeeded at the
expense of many immigrant voters who now had a much higher threshold of Americanization to
reach before they have one of the more fundamental rights, being voting, conferred upon them.
(Ueda 30) Similarly the Immigration Act of 1917, in conjunction with the Quota Act of 1921 and
the Immigration Act of 1924 severely limited immigration to the point that all immigration from
Asian countries to the U.S. was stopped except in special circumstances. (Ueda 30) These three
acts were more all-encompassing than the previous legislation had been, in large part because of
the anti-immigrant sentiment generated by our involvement in World War I, and due to the more
conservative and exclusionist government that came into power after the war. By effectively
banning all traditional migration they cut down on the number of people from these countries
entering the country and stopped the inflow of labor workers needed to build up infrastructure
and power the industrial machines and agricultural demands of the West thus weakening
development of the west compared to what it could have been. Presumably, this labor shortage

was furthered by the deportation of nearly half of the Mexican population in the west, some
25,000 people from 1933-1937. (Moreno 121) Thus, it is evident that, where there is such a
highly organized set-up as to effect deportations of so many thousands, this set-up must be
surrounded with a complete system of intimidation and discrimination of that section of that
population victimized by the deportation drive.(Moreno 121) This clearly shows that the
Latino leaders of this period were well aware of the fact that they were sandwiched between a
populace that didnt want them and a government that wanted to appease that populace which led
to these deportations. Despite the rampant racism present in the U.S. at this time, the World War
II and Cold War eras did lead to some beneficial changes in U.S. immigration policies.
As the U.S. entered the international spotlight in World War II immigration policy began
to change as a result of pressures applied by both their new foreign allies and necessary actions
implemented in response to actions committed by its new enemies. With the U.S. entrance into
World War II, the U.S. saw some of its first real involvement in international politics which
resulted in a host of new allies being gained, including China. Of course given out new
relationship with China it would have been rather inappropriate to maintain a ban on immigration
of explicitly those from China, thus the U.S. lifted its ban on Chinese immigration as a token
gesture of good will. However in order to ensure that the racially charged west didnt react
poorly to this development, the U.S instantiated rather severe quotas on Chinese immigration,
only allowing 105 new immigrants in a given year. None the less these actions helped to set a
precedent for further loosening of immigration restrictions and undid some of the racial injustice
that had been perpetrated since the Chinese Immigration Act of 1882 had been passed. (PPT 1210) On the other hand, the U.S. also gained some enemies after the Pearl Harbor attack, namely
Japan. This led to a period of the Japanese immigrants being treated as less than second-class

citizens and being incarcerated at internment camps for much of the war. This incarceration
caused great problems for the Japanese immigrants because they had to effectively give up
everything that theyd built up over the past decades of residing in the U.S., and they had a low
likelihood of keep[ing] their business [/livelihood] intact for the duration [of the incarceration].
(Sone 165) This led to some further regression in equality for Japanese immigrants and further
racial tension, but as with all the other immigrant groups, equal treatment increased over time.
As the U.S. began its reign as a superpower in the cold war era it needed to present itself
as the morally sound champion of freedom, which required improvement of the treatment of
immigrants and minorities in the U.S. The U.S. cold war strategy of containment largely hinged
on its ability to both recruit and retain countries with capitalism rather than allowing them to fall
to communism, which many of the courted countries had issue with. It was not that they took
issue with capitalism, but rather that they were well aware of the issues that the U.S. had with its
treatment of immigrants. Due to these qualms the U.S. needed to change its policies to be more
egalitarian which led to a few different policies. First was the bracero program which started
during World War II and continued well into the cold war was a show of good faith in that the
Mexicans which had been deported en masse prior to the war were now allowed to come into the
country to work on temporary guest work permits. In addition, the War Brides Act allowed
soldiers to more easily have their brides naturalized in the U.S. and bypass immigration quotas,
and also in 1952 all race-based restrictions to citizenship were abolished with the McCarranWalter Act. (PPT 12-10) What all these acts had in common is that they promoted U.S. interests
like improving troop morale by allowing their wives to move to the states, or access to cheap
farm labor in the Southwest, while also broadcasting to foreign powers that the U.S. had become
less racially biased, and was thus a better choice as an ally. Even during this period, it wasnt all

improvements. Operation Wetback deported 1,000,000 Mexican immigrants from the

Southwest showed a degree of remaining racial tension, but it was largely outweighed by the
positive programs like the Refugee Act of 1980 which allowed for immigration to the U.S. under
the guise of humanitarian distress, and thus helped many of those who were fleeing from the
oppression of their communist home governments. (PPT 12-10) In short, the U.S. changed its
immigration policies for the better during the Cold War period so as to curry favor with nations
that were on the fence in choosing between capitalism and communism.
After the cold war had ended, some of the same racial tensions began to arise again in the
U.S. namely during the 1990s. After the mass migrations in the 80s, there was a considerable
backlash against the immigrant population especially in California where legislation like
Initiative 187 of 1994 which denied illegal immigrants access to welfare, or the repeal of
affirmative action made it much harder on the immigrant population. (Ueda 142 & PPT 12-10)
These actions were largely a defensive reaction to an irrational fear of immigrants similar to the
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, in that there was really no threat presented, except in the mind of
the racially charged white majority.
In closing Immigration policy in the U.S. has seen its ups and downs but for the most
part, these trends can be shown to originate from the racial tensions in Western states or the
needs of U.S. foreign policy. It is rather curious how history has repeated itself to some extent
from 1882 to 1994 in that the immediate reaction to a large influx of people entering your state,
who need some form of assistance if they are going to succeed, is to persecute them in some
form rather than just provide them the assistance they need. I guess its true that those who fail to
learn from history are doomed to repeat it.