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Eckart, Kim, and Misty Shock Rule. “How White Supremacy, Racist Myths Fuel Anti-Asian Violence.” UW News, 19 Mar. 2021, www.washington.edu/news/2021/03/19/how-white-supremacy-racist-myths-fuel-anti-asian-violence.

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Expert quotes | Social science | UW News blog

As an assistant professor of American Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington, Linh Thủy Nguyễn focuses on a number of research areas, including Asian American and Southeast Asian American studies, immigration and refugee issues, and gender and family.

She also values the role of community, whether as a means of providing services or taking collective action, in tackling problems and offering a voice.

The recent, national wave of violence and harassment against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) is only the latest in a much longer history of oppressive, hateful acts, Nguyen said. (Nguyen points out that this term is used here to be inclusive of the experiences of Pacific Islanders while acknowledging the complicated political conditions of some Pacific Islanders whose experiences as indigenous populations are not adequately captured through the lens of race.)

The organization Stop AAPI Hate has tracked nearly 3,000 incidents over the past year, which advocates say is likely an undercount, because many people don't report what happened to them. That's not surprising, Nguyen said: Reporting incidents of discrimination or violence can be traumatic and potentially lead to even more harassment.

"The lack of visibility around the issue also means that those who choose to speak out may face denials and threats for doing so," Nguyen said. "Individualized acts of violence may be disregarded as a one-off rather than part of a larger system of attitudes and beliefs that contributes to violent acts against particular communities."

Nguyen spoke with UW News about the history of racism and violence, and ways forward.
Racism and violence against those in the AAPI community has gotten more attention recently, but it's not new. Can you talk about the history of these attitudes and incidents?
In the last year we have seen a marked uptick in physical and verbal attacks against Asians and Asian Americans. The senseless murders at massage parlors in Atlanta - the killings of eight people, six of whom were Asian women - also shed light on the gendered dimensions of racial violence. What Celine Parreñas Shimizu has called the hypersexuality of race is so normalized in representations of Asian women as hypersexual, sexually available and submissive, which are tied to a longer history of imperialism and Orientalism. Dating back to 1875, the Page Act barred the migration of Chinese women and effectively cast them as prostitutes. In this long tradition of representation, Asian women have been constructed racially through these images of sexuality.

When Asians are blamed for the coronavirus, we can see the Orientalist discourse of "Yellow Peril," which frames Asians as perpetually foreign and threatening to Western civilization. Mass acts of racist violence have tended to abate in times of economic prosperity and surge in times of economic contraction or uncertainty. In Seattle and Tacoma, after completion of the railroad system, the Chinese were driven out of neighborhoods. Once their highly exploited labor was no longer needed, they faced mob violence, upheld by state and federal laws rooted in fear of their foreignness and the false conception that Chinese settlement would overrun local communities and take away American jobs.
The latest wave of anti-Asian violence surged due to anxiety over the coronavirus. Even with the arrival of vaccines, anti-Asian violence has persisted. What can explain that?
The pandemic brought into relief the extreme disparities that exist in this country. The wealthy and middle class have more or less been able to shift to remote work, while the working class has either faced unemployment or had to continue low-wage work with constant anxiety of uncertain protections against the virus. Essential workers like grocery store employees and farmers have not had opportunities to socially distance and work from home. The former president's anti-Asian rhetoric tied to the "Chinese Virus" and "Kung Flu" provided a target for the frustrations of many whose lives were upended and thrown into uncertainty.
What is the "model minority" myth, and how can it better enable us to better understand anti-Asian sentiment?
The "model minority" concept is attributed to sociologist William Petersen's 1966 New York Times story detailing the quiet successes of the Japanese community after the devastation of internment during World War II. The myth upholds Asians as models for other minorities to emulate and suggests that Asians have somehow overcome racism because of their economic successes. When Black communities in the civil rights movement demanded structural changes, such as access to jobs and education, the myth blamed them for not cultivating the individual attitudes and work ethic that would supposedly allow them to overcome racism. We know that individual achievements cannot undo racism and does not protect you from racist violence, as the attacks against AAPI communities have revealed.

It's a fallacy that ignores the reality that, while white supremacy is the foundation, racism is not experienced in the same way by all communities; the racialized character of capitalism means that value is extracted through differentiation and the differential valuation of marginalized communities. The myth is so pervasive and rooted in ideas of merit and hard work that benefit Asian Americans at the exclusion of Black Americans. This relative benefit makes it difficult to see the damage, not only to other racialized communities, but also to our own families and communities. It creates a monolithic Asian community, which fails to capture the economic and generational heterogeneity of Asian groups and leaves out the experiences of many Asian communities who face poverty and underemployment.
What lessons can we take from the past?
Nothing has ever changed because a single person in a position of power decided to do it. I am always heartened at the responsiveness of the AAPI community. At the start of the pandemic, it was community members who organized to support one another through mutual aid, food pantries and campaigns to support the businesses in the Chinatown-International District in Seattle. As social movements of the past and present show us, attitudes and racist policies change when we name them and demand action to change them.

For more information, contact Nguyen at lnguye@uw.edu.

Tag(s): College of Arts & Sciences * Department of American Ethnic Studies * Linh Nguyen

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How white supremacy, racist myths fuel anti-Asian violence

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Linh Thủy Nguyễn, an assistant professor of American ethnic studies at the University of Washington, discusses the recent wave of violence against Asians and Asian Americans, and the history...

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“5 Things to Know about the Muslim Ban.” American Friends Service Committee, 21 May 2021, www.afsc.org/blogs/news-and-commentary/5-things-to-know-about-muslim-ban.

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Update as of Jan. 25, 2021: Soon after taking office, President Joe Biden issued an executive order ending the Muslim ban. The move was one of several positive immigration policy changes made by the adminstration.Learn more: “Biden’s changes to the immigration system explained.”

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Roberts, William. “US House Approves Bill Reversing Trump’s ‘Muslim Ban.’” Donald Trump News | Al Jazeera, 21 Sept. 2020, www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/7/22/us-house-approves-bill-reversing-trumps-muslim-ban.

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The 'NO BAN Act' has broad support among Democratic legislators but is unlikely to advance in the Republican Senate.

Trump's initial ban targeted immigrants from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, triggering criticism that it amounted to unlawful religious discrimination [File:Yuri Gripas/Reuters]

The United States House of Representatives voted 233-183 on Wednesday to pass legislation reversing President Donald Trump's controversial order banning entry to immigrants from mostly Muslim-majority countries.

The bill, called the NO BAN Act, was broadly supported by Democratic legislators but is unlikely to advance in the Senate because of opposition from Republicans and the White House.

"There are today millions of Americans who, because of the Muslim ban, are separated from families and loved ones: parents who can't be reunited, families who can't be reunited, grandparents who are missing out on life events," said Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, a group supporting the bill.

The bill expands anti-discrimination provisions in US immigration law and would limit the ability of US presidents in the future to bar entry based on religion.

Today, the House passed the #NoBanAct because no one should be discriminated against or singled out based on the faith they practice. I will end President Trump's Muslim Ban on day one and sign this bill into law.

- Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 22, 2020

Specifically, the bill would terminate Trump's executive orders imposing a ban on immigration from mostly Muslim-majority countries. The president's initial ban targeted Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, triggering criticism that it amounted to unlawful religious discrimination. Trump then expanded the ban to include Venezuela and North Korea, and later added Nigeria, Sudan, Myanmar and three other countries to the list.

In Wednesday's debate, Democrats plan to share stories from dozens of their American constituents who have seen family members prevented from entering the US for arbitrary reasons under the ban.

The legislation, however, is unlikely to be embraced in the Republican-led Senate, which means prospects for its passage this year are dim. Instead, it appears the issue will be fought out in the US presidential election contest.

On Monday, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who is courting Muslim votes, told a Muslim political organisation that he would reverse the ban if elected president "on day one".

Biden appeared by video at a two-day virtual conference hosted by Emgage Action and attended by 3,000 Muslim-American voters.

"Muslim communities are the first to feel Donald Trump's assault on Black and brown communities in this country, with his vile Muslim ban. That fight was the opening barrage in what has been nearly four years of constant pressure and insults," Biden told the group.

"If I have the honour of being president, I will end the Muslim ban on day one," Biden said.

Wa'el Alzayat, CEO of Emgage Action, a Muslim-American civic engagement and political mobilisation organisation, said, "Biden's vow to end the Muslim ban on the first day of his presidency is poignant."

"It exemplifies his commitment to ending this form of institutionalised Islamophobia that has caused great pain to global Muslim communities," Alzayat told Al Jazeera.

Former Vice President Joe Biden makes remarks at Emgage Action's virtual Million Muslim Votes Summit.#JoeBiden #Joe2020 #BidenForPresident #Biden2020Landslide #TeamJoe #emgageaction #muslimvotes #JoeBidenForPresident2020 #joebiden @TeamJoe

Watch https://t.co/xRXAI8tqo1

- Political Hub (@PoliticalHub24) July 20, 2020

In a political speech at the White House last week, Trump cited his travel ban as he sought to draw distinctions between himself and Biden.

Trump accuses Biden of wanting to "end all travel bans, including from jihadist regions", and he implied Biden would allow "people that are going to come in and blow up our cities, do things".

But that rhetoric belies the facts and data about how the travel ban has been implemented to effectively prohibit immigration from predominantly Muslim countries, Khera said.

"Their argument is what Trump has been saying since the get-go - which is, they try to wrap what is blatant bigotry in a shroud of national security which does not meet what the real threat is and is not the reality of who is being excluded from the country," she said.

The bill would require the US Department of State, in consultation with the Department of Homeland Security, to provide a public report on the numbers of people denied entry from specific countries.

Democrats had planned to bring the NO BAN bill to the House floor for a vote in early March, but pulled the legislation because of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

Republicans had planned to attack the legislation as an irresponsible bid by congressional Democrats to prevent Trump from imposing travel bans to limit the spread of the virus.

The bill was amended to provide a "public safety" exception that allows presidents to restrict travel as necessary "to contain a communicable disease of public health significance".

"We are not too thrilled with that language that was added at the last moment," said Iman Awad, legislative director for Emgage Action.

"We think that it stigmatises the immigrant community and especially during this heightened rhetoric coming from President Trump, we are concerned about tying any of these negative stereotypes to the immigrant community," Awad told Al Jazeera.

The Trump administration, through another executive order issued in April, has effectively shut down immigration to the US at present because of the pandemic.

The legislation to lift the so-called "Muslim ban" was introduced by Democrats in April 2019 and is sponsored in the House by Representative Judy Chu of California and in the US Senate by Chris Coons of Delaware.

The US Supreme Court had ruled in 2017 that the president has the authority to impose the ban under existing US immigration law. During his election campaign in 2015, Trump had called for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States".

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US House approves bill reversing Trump's 'Muslim ban'

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The 'NO BAN Act' has broad support among Democratic legislators but is unlikely to advance in the Republican Senate. The United States House of Representatives voted 233-183 on Wednesday to pass legislation reversing President Donald Trump's controversial order banning entry to immigrants from mostly Muslim-majority countries.

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"The Immigration Act of 1924 set stricter regulations on immigrants hoping to enter the United..." American Decades Primary Sources, edited by Cynthia Rose, vol. 3: 1920-1929, Gale, 2004. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/PC3490287593/UHIC?u=dove10524&sid=UHIC&xid=fe9cf109. Accessed 12 May 2021.

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Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

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"Immigration to the United States, 1851-1990 [3 of 4]." The Asian-American Experience, Primary Source Media, 1999. American Journey. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/EJ2210014241/UHIC?u=dove10524&sid=bookmark-UHIC&xid=07c5c88d. Accessed 10 June 2021"

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"Uncle Sam puts an immigration quota in place in this 1921 cartoon. A 1921 act, made permanent in the..." Major Acts of Congress, edited by Brian K. Landsberg, vol. 2, Macmillan Reference USA, 2004. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/PC3407487120/UHIC?u=dove10524&sid=bookmark-UHIC&xid=ce4cc3f7. Accessed 10 June 2021."

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“The Immigration Act of 1924 | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives.” US House of Representatives, history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/The-Immigration-Act-of-1924. Accessed 11 June 2021."

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On this date, the House passed the 1924 Immigration Act-a measure which was a legislative expression of the xenophobia, particularly towards eastern and southern European immigrants, that swept America in the decade of the 1920s. Authored by Representative Albert Johnson of Washington (Chairman of the House Immigration Committee), the bill passed with broad support from western and southern Representatives, by a vote of 323 to 71. "It has become necessary that the United States cease to become an asylum," Representative Johnson declared during debate on the bill. Among its provisions, the act created a permanent quota system based on "national origin." It limited the number of immigrants that could be admitted to the U.S. to two percent of the total number of individuals from each nationality that resided in the United States in 1890-before waves of Slavic and Italian immigrants arrived in America. Despite vigorous protests from Japanese diplomats, the measure also excluded Japanese immigrants (a ban that would not be lifted until 1952). Finally, it allowed no more than 150,000 total immigrants who fell within the parameters of the quota system to enter the U.S. in any one year. After Senate passage, the Immigration Act was signed into law in late May 1924.

Related Highlight Subjects

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The Immigration Act of 1924 | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives

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On this date, the House passed the 1924 Immigration Act-a measure which was a legislative expression of the xenophobia, particularly towards eastern and southern European immigrants, that swept America in the decade of the 1920s.

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Broubalow, Justin. “The Johnson-Reed Act of May 24, 1924.” We’re History, 7 June 2018, werehistory.org/the-johnson-reed-act-of-may-24-1924."

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On this day in 1924, President Calvin Coolidge signed into law the Johnson-Reed Act, which established a permanent race-based quota system for immigration to America. The law excluded those ineligible for citizenship (that is, Asians and Africans), and moved immigration inspection from American ports to foreign ones. A coalition of restrictionists had lobbied intensely for the Johnson-Reed Act. Their primary objective was to restore the ethnic makeup of the country's white population to that of the early nineteenth-century. They planned to erase the demographic changes of the "new" immigration of the late nineteenth century from southern and eastern Europe.

The Johnson-Reed Act was a project of racial engineering, but it was also an expression of foreign relations. In addition to severely restricting immigration, the Johnson-Reed Act redefined American foreign policy. In the past, immigration had been brokered through international treaties and negotiations. With the Johnson-Reed Act, America alone would control immigration, and it would do so according to a nationalist vision. The worldview laid out in the Johnson-Reed Act is still the foundational principle of immigration law today.

Upon signing the bill into law, President Coolidge issued a statement asserting that the bill "expresses the determination of the Congress to exercise its prerogative in defining by legislation the control of immigration, instead of leaving it to international arrangements." This remark signaled the importance the Johnson-Reed Act would have on American foreign affairs. Before the 1920s, the United States was party to treaties and other agreements that placed American immigration policy within a larger context of cooperative migration control. But with the Johnson-Reed Act, the United States largely disengaged from multilateral efforts, ushering in a new era where American laws and regulations, irrespective of diplomacy, decided who could cross American borders. To be sure, since the late nineteenth century, the federal government claimed the sovereign prerogative to regulate its borders, but with the Johnson-Reed Act, the mechanics of exercising the prerogative changed. An intentionally rigid border regime built on unilateral acts of control thus supplanted a multilateral one built on cooperation and reciprocity.

In the course of developing the new immigration regime that resulted in the Johnson-Reed Act, some policymakers argued that foreign governments could no longer be trusted partners in regulating migration. Policymakers instead wanted a new system where American officials could turn away would-be immigrants on foreign soil before even reaching an American port.

After taking office in 1921, Secretary of Labor James J. Davis, a Welsh immigrant and Republican from Pennsylvania, soon began devising new ways to restrict immigration on a more permanent basis. Almost all of them included cutting out foreign governments from the equation.

In particular, Davis wanted to change the documentary system that regulated the movement of peoples across borders: the passport. Davis's issue with the passport system was that the U.S. had to admit a person carrying a valid passport from another country, leaving no way to prevent at least an initial landing of a passport carrier in the U.S. Davis believed that foreign governments were exploiting this system by issuing passports only to people he regarded as physically, mentally, or morally weak. Making plain his contempt for how foreign governments handled emigration, Davis wrote, "The kings and potentates should build their own penitentiaries to take care of their own birds on the other side and not send them to this country."

In place of the existing process, Davis promoted an entirely new documentary regime that would bypass the perceived weakness of the current passport system. He wanted U.S. consular officers abroad to examine anyone who wanted to emigrate for America, accepting or denying them at the point of embarkation. Instead of the passport and visa guaranteeing a spot on a steamship headed for the United States, the consular officers would issue special immigration certificates that would be the new documentary standard. Foreign governments protested these changes, but the Johnson-Reed Act contained them, severely restricting the ability of other governments to regulate emigration from their own ports.

One of the most contentious episodes caused by the Johnson-Reed Act's new unilateralism was its exclusion of Japanese immigration in violation of two agreements with the Japanese government. Worried about an influx of cheap Japanese labor, the San Francisco Board of Education segregated students of Japanese ancestry in 1906. The board's action insulted the Japanese government, which had gained increased clout since decisively winning the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Unlike Chinese leaders, whom the U.S. government forced to accept the exclusion of Chinese laborers in the 1880s, the Japanese insisted that Japan be treated as a member among equal states. In part because of American expansionist goals in the Pacific, the U.S. and Japanese governments subsequently arranged the Gentlemen's Agreement in 1907, wherein Japan agreed to deny passports to laborers wishing to migrate to the United States, and the United States agreed not to take formal action restricting Japanese migration. The Japanese again committed to this arrangement in a 1911 treaty.

Despite these agreements, the Johnson-Reed Act officially excluded all Japanese immigration along with other Asians. Over the opposition of Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes and even President Coolidge, restrictionists wanted Japanese to be excluded in the Johnson-Reed Act, contending that Japanese were unable and unwilling to assimilate based on their racial characteristics alone. With the enactment of the law, the U.S. openly violated the Gentlemen's Agreement and allowed the 1911 treaty to expire. Humiliated, the Japanese government placed a 100 percent tariff on all American goods and unsuccessfully attempted to rectify the matter in international forums.

Although Congress eventually replaced the most restrictive aspects of the Johnson-Reed Act in 1965, the United States still firmly asserts its right to regulate immigration unilaterally. The Trump administration refused to take part in the U.N.'s talks on migration in 2017, just as American delegations refused to contribute substantively to international conferences on migration in 1924 and 1928. Today's American immigration regime is characterized by the strict legal classification of individuals, the goal of an impermeable border, a vague but unwavering sense of who "belongs," and a vast law enforcement apparatus to achieve these ends. All of these characteristics point to an immigration policy built solely on American laws, a worldview expressed in law for the first time in the Johnson-Reed Act.

When Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley says that American immigration policy "must always be made by Americans and Americans alone," she is simply echoing the words of Secretary of Labor James Davis, a key architect of the Johnson-Reed Act, who insisted that foreign governments must "let us say who are acceptable to us."

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On this day in 1924, President Calvin Coolidge signed into law the Johnson-Reed Act, which established a permanent race-based quota system for immigration to America. The law excluded those ineligible for citizenship (that is, Asians and Africans), and moved immigration inspection from American ports to foreign ones.

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The University of Texas at Austin Department of History. “Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reed Act).” Immigration History, 1 Feb. 2020, immigrationhistory.org/item/1924-immigration-act-johnson-reed-act.

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Summary

The 1921 Emergency Quota Act had been so effective in reducing immigration that Congress hastened to enact the quota system permanently. This Act set its quotas to 2 percent of resident populations counted in the 1890 census, capping overall immigration at 150,000 per year. With a few exemptions, such as specialized employment, education, or tourism, it barred altogether "aliens ineligible for citizenship." Eastern and southern Europeans were most severely affected by reductions in legal immigration. The "national origins" quota system to limit immigration selectively was quantitatively discriminatory and would remain the primary principle determining admissibility to the United States until 1965. In consideration of maintaining good relations with its closest neighbors in the region, immigration within the Western hemisphere remained uncapped.

The "national origins" quotas were enforced by a system of "remote control." Prospective immigrants were required to apply for visas at the U.S. consulate or embassy closest to their homes where they were interviewed and their applications evaluated, accepted or turned down far away from U.S. shores. Immigration numbers fell immediately and dramatically, and particularly from targeted areas of eastern and southern Europe. This system enabled consular authorities during the 1930s to deny visas to Jews attempting to flee the spread of Nazism in Europe, including the family of Anne Frank.

Criticism and calls for reform from many quarters ensued as soon as the openly discriminatory quotas were legislated.

Source

Chap. 190.-An Act to limit the immigration of aliens into the United States and for other purposes.

Application for Immigration Visa.

Sec. 7. (a) Every immigrant applying for an immigration visa shall make application therefor in duplicate in such form as shall be by regulations prescribed. . . The immigrant shall furnish, if available, to the consular officer, with his application, two copies of his "dossier" and prison record and military record, two certified copies of his birth certificate, and two copies of all other available public records concerning him kept by the Government to which he owes allegiance. . . In the application the immigrant shall also state . . . whether or not he is a member of each class of individuals excluded from admission to the United States under the immigration laws . . . .

Issuance of Immigration Visas to Relatives

Sec. 9 . . . . Any citizen of the United States claiming that any immigrant is his relative, and that such immigrant is properly admissible to the United States as a non-quota immigrant . . . may file with the Commissioner General a petition . . . If the Commissioner General finds the facts stated in the petition to be true, and that the immigrant in respect of whom the petition is made is entitled to be admitted to the United States as a non-quota immigrant . . . he shall, with the approval of the Secretary of Labor, inform the Secretary of State of his decision, and the Secretary of State shall then authorize the consular officer with whom the application for the immigration visa has been filed to issue the immigration visa or grant the preference. . . .

Numerical Limitations.

Sec. 11. (a) The annual quota of any nationality shall be 2 per centum of the number of foreign born individuals of such nationality resident in continental United States as determined by the United States census of 1890, but the minimum quota of any nationality shall be 100. (b) The annual quota of any nationality for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1927, and for each fiscal year thereafter, shall be a number which bears the same ratio to 150,000 as the number of inhabitants in continental United States in 1920 having that national origin (ascertained as hereinafter provided in this section) bears to the number of inhabitants in continental United States in 1920, but the minimum quota of any nationality shall be 100.

Deportation.

Sec. 14. Any alien who at any time after entering the United States is found to have been at the time of entry not entitled under this Act to enter the United States, or to have remained therein for a longer time than permitted under this Act . . . shall be taken into custody and deported in the same manner as provided for in sections 19 and 20 of the Immigration Act of 1917: Provided, That the Secretary of Labor may . . . permit permanently to remain in the United States, any alien child who, when under sixteen years of age was heretofore temporarily admitted to the United States and who is now within the United States and either of whose parents is a citizen of the United States.

Burden of Proof.

Sec. 23. Whenever any alien attempts to enter the United States the burden of proof shall be upon such alien to establish that he is not subject to exclusion under any provision of the immigration laws; and in any deportation proceeding against any alien the burden of proof shall be upon such alien to show that he entered the United States lawfully . . . .

Approved, May 26, 1924.

Analysis

"Prominent eugenicist Harry Laughlin... wrote, 'Henceforth, after 1924, the immigrant to the United States was to be looked upon, not as a source of cheap or competitive labor, nor as one seeking asylum from foreign oppression, nor as a migrant hunting a less strenuous life, but as a parent of future-born American citizens. This mean that the hereditary stuff out of which future immigrants were made would have to be compatible racially with American ideals.'

The stakes of immigration restriction, as defined by the eugenically minded, ultimately determined the shape of the new legislation. The formula that was finally written into the Johnson Act-that is, a quota system based on 2 percent of each group's population according to the 1890 census-originally emerged in a Report of the Eugenics Committee of the United States Committee on Selective Immigration. That committee, chaired by none other than Madison Grant and including Congressman Albert Johnson of Washington (the president of the Eugenic Research Association, 1923-1924), argued that a formula based on the 1890 census rather than on a more recent one "would change the character of immigration, and hence of our future population, by bringing about a preponderance of immigration of the stock which originally settled this country." North and West Europeans, read the report, were of "higher intelligence" and hence provided "the best material for American citizenship" (pp. 82-83)

Excerpt from:
Jacobson, M. F. (1998). Whiteness of a different color: European immigrants and the alchemy of race. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reed Act) - Immigration History

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The 1921 Emergency Quota Act had been so effective in reducing immigration that Congress hastened to enact the quota system permanently. This Act set its quotas to 2 percent of resident populations counted in the 1890 census, capping overall immigration at 150,000 per year.

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“The Immigration Act of 1924 | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives.” US House of Representatives, history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/The-Immigration-Act-of-1924. Accessed 11 June 2021.

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Congress, U.S. "Reed-Johnson Immigration Act of 1924." The Immigrant Experience, Primary Source Media, 1999. American Journey. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/EJ2154000058/UHIC?u=dove10524&sid=UHIC&xid=c1f1e0f9. Accessed 12 May 2021.

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Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

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Congress, U.S. "The Immigration Act of 1924." World War I and the Jazz Age, Primary Source Media, 1999. American Journey. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/EJ2164000178/UHIC?u=dove10524&sid=UHIC&xid=a79eb2d8. Accessed 12 May 2021.

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Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

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“Milestones: 1921–1936 - Office of the Historian.” Office Of The Historian, history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/immigration-act. Accessed 27 Apr. 2021.

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Introduction

The Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. It completely excluded immigrants from Asia.

Literacy Tests and "Asiatic Barred Zone"

In 1917, the U.S. Congress enacted the first widely restrictive immigration law. The uncertainty generated over national security during World War I made it possible for Congress to pass this legislation, and it included several important provisions that paved the way for the 1924 Act. The 1917 Act implemented a literacy test that required immigrants over 16 years old to demonstrate basic reading comprehension in any language. It also increased the tax paid by new immigrants upon arrival and allowed immigration officials to exercise more discretion in making decisions over whom to exclude. Finally, the Act excluded from entry anyone born in a geographically defined "Asiatic Barred Zone" except for Japanese and Filipinos. In 1907, the Japanese Government had voluntarily limited Japanese immigration to the United States in the Gentlemen's Agreement. The Philippines was a U.S. colony, so its citizens were U.S. nationals and could travel freely to the United States. China was not included in the Barred Zone, but the Chinese were already denied immigration visas under the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Immigration Quotas

The literacy test alone was not enough to prevent most potential immigrants from entering, so members of Congress sought a new way to restrict immigration in the 1920s. Immigration expert and Republican Senator from Vermont William P. Dillingham introduced a measure to create immigration quotas, which he set at three percent of the total population of the foreign-born of each nationality in the United States as recorded in the 1910 census. This put the total number of visas available each year to new immigrants at 350,000. It did not, however, establish quotas of any kind for residents of the Western Hemisphere. President Wilson opposed the restrictive act, preferring a more liberal immigration policy, so he used the pocket veto to prevent its passage. In early 1921, the newly inaugurated President Warren Harding called Congress back to a special session to pass the law. In 1922, the act was renewed for another two years.

Senator William P. Dillingham

When the congressional debate over immigration began in 1924, the quota system was so well-established that no one questioned whether to maintain it, but rather discussed how to adjust it. Though there were advocates for raising quotas and allowing more people to enter, the champions of restriction triumphed. They created a plan that lowered the existing quota from three to two percent of the foreign-born population. They also pushed back the year on which quota calculations were based from 1910 to 1890.

Another change to the quota altered the basis of the quota calculations. The quota had been based on the number of people born outside of the United States, or the number of immigrants in the United States. The new law traced the origins of the whole of the U.S. population, including natural-born citizens. The new quota calculations included large numbers of people of British descent whose families had long resided in the United States. As a result, the percentage of visas available to individuals from the British Isles and Western Europe increased, but newer immigration from other areas like Southern and Eastern Europe was limited.

The 1924 Immigration Act also included a provision excluding from entry any alien who by virtue of race or nationality was ineligible for citizenship. Existing nationality laws dating from 1790 and 1870 excluded people of Asian lineage from naturalizing. As a result, the 1924 Act meant that even Asians not previously prevented from immigrating - the Japanese in particular - would no longer be admitted to the United States. Many in Japan were very offended by the new law, which was a violation of the Gentlemen's Agreement. The Japanese government protested, but the law remained, resulting in an increase in existing tensions between the two nations. Despite the increased tensions, it appeared that the U.S. Congress had decided that preserving the racial composition of the country was more important than promoting good ties with Japan.

The restrictive principles of the Act could have resulted in strained relations with some European countries as well, but these potential problems did not appear for several reasons. The global depression of the 1930s, World War II, and stricter enforcement of U.S. immigration policy served to curtail European emigration. When these crises had passed, emergency provisions for the resettlement of displaced persons in 1948 and 1950 helped the United States avoid conflict over its new immigration laws.

In all of its parts, the most basic purpose of the 1924 Immigration Act was to preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity. Congress revised the Act in 1952.

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Milestones: 1921-1936 - Office of the Historian

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May 21, 1924: The Johnson-Reed Act

How did people react to the Johnson-Reed Act at the time?

According to A. Naomi Paik, people like Adolf Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan were very supportive of such law. Most of the groups or people who supported this due to its racist reasons for creating this law and in order to separate those whom they"deemed less 'white'".

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May 24, 1924: Johnson-Reed Act

POL-2.0 Explain how popular movements, reform efforts, and activist groups have sought to change American society and institutions

Theme Connection: The 1924 Johnson-Reed Act banned anyone from Asian countries from coming into the US and set quotas on the number of immigrants from different parts of Asia who could come to the U.S. This connects to my topic because even though at some point the Johnson-reed act was no longer in action there was a sudden change in the way that people from Asian countries could immigrate to the U.S. Now there is a new movement called Stop Asian Hate which is looking to improve how many Asians are being treated and the violence due to the Covid pandemic which the people who attack them think is their fault as Asians

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1. How did the relationship between the US and Asian countries change due to the Johnson-Reed Act?

2.How was the Johnson-Reed Act a continuation of past immigration laws against Asians?

3.In what ways did the Johnson-Reed Act go away and how does it still show itself today or a couple of years ago? (such as the Muslim Ban of 2017)