Immigration To The United States Essay Example

and a brief analysis of the causes and consequences of nativism and racism; secondly, this paper will explore the psychosis following 9/11 and the disastrous consequences it brought on immigrants. Finally, some conclusions will be provided.

The two planes that crashed onto the Twin Towers on the morning of September 11th, 2001, henceforth known as the iconic 9/11, not only changed the physiognomy of New York and one of the most famous post-card skylines, but also contaminated Americans’ attitude towards immigrants and the legislations on immigration thereafter. The spread hysteria and paranoia following 9/11 became a trampoline to a sea of injustices, cruelties and murder which, though at surface-level meant a crusade against terrorism, also determined to reinforce existing and restrictive immigration policies, especially towards Mexican immigrants. Immigration into the U. S. is an issue that makes for strange bedfellows.

Supporters of current immigration levels include corporate interests that profit from cheap foreign labor, ethnic lobbies seeking to increase their political base, and religious activists, humanitarians, and civil libertarians who focus on human rights and other ethical concerns. Opponents include nativists who view non-European immigrants as a threat to American culture, environmentalists who dread immigration-fueled population growth, and labor advocates who fear that immigration is taking jobs from U. S. citizens and depressing U. S. ages.On the right of the political spectrum, free marketers square off against cultural conservatives. On the left, civil rights and ethnic advocacy groups oppose environmentalists and job protectionists.

” Stoll, David2 An overview of the history of immigration in the United States The history of immigration to the United States can be said to have gone through four main phases before September 11th,

2001: 1798-1875 (the “laissez-faire” period), 1875-1920 ( the “selective restriction” period), 1921-1964 (the “national origin quota” period) and 1965-1980s (the “family reunification, skill preference” period).During the first period, because the United States had just declared its Independence from the British Empire, the country welcomed all immigrants who wanted to populate and work the land. Thus, in almost a century, the United States received about 10 million immigrants coming mainly from German, Norway, Sweden, France, Ireland- after the Great Famine- and China.

From 1875 to 1920, there was a great immigration wave from Southern and Eastern Europe-more than a half million people annually- as Northern manufacturers in the USA relied on manual labor from Europe mainly.The “national origin quota” period marked the beginning of a tendency in immigration policies in the United States: restrictions and deportations. The first decades of the 20th century became preoccupied over the growing number of immigrants coming to America.

At first, hostilities were directed against the Japanese, particularly in California, where many feared that the labor market was being flooded.This fear was clearly expressed by the Governor of California in 1920: “These Japanese, by very reason of their use of economic standards impossible to our white ideals-that is to say, the employment of their wives and their very children in the arduous toil of the soul-are providing crushing competitors to our white rural population. ”

During the Roosevelt and Wilson administrations crisis had reached the point of declaring war on Japan. Later, during World War I, critics of immigration turned their attention to newcomers from southern and eastern Europe.Their concern was premised on the differences in language, customs and religion that these immigrants brought

with them to America, especially as they differed from those of the earlier immigrants from Northern Europe and the British Isles.

Efforts were made to slow the flood by imposing a literacy test on those wishing to enter the United States. President Wilson twice vetoed these measures, but the Congress overrode his veto in 1917. The Congress, based on the suspicions over the Red Scare spilled in 1919-20, also acted to deny entry to suspected anarchists and their proclaimed goal of world revolution.At this time, thousands were arrested for real or imagined revolutionary activity.

Immigration reform, also known as the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921, was prompted by the news that in the preceding twelve months more than 800,000 foreigners had entered the United States. The Congress responded by establishing the first quota system that provided for the following: Immigration from a specific nation was limited to three percent of that nation’s population living in the United States, as reported in the 1910 Federal Census.

An overall maximum annual quota of 358,000 was imposed. Yet there was an increasing feeling in Americans that the 1921 Act was insufficient to stop the flow of the unwanted kind of immigrants, those coming from Southern and Eastern Europe, as well as from Asia and Latin America- especially Mexico. The emergence of the Ku Klux Klan, an extremist racist group only comparable to Hitler, was proof that the United States was far from welcoming foreigners with open arms, and that racist feelings dwelled in many Americans. It was only a matter of pulling the right string inside Americans.As expressed by Senator Parrish in 19214: “ [w]e should stop immigration entirely until such

a time as we can amend our immigration laws and so write them that hereafter no one shall be admitted except he be in full sympathy with our Constitution and laws, willing to declare himself obedient to our flag, and willing to release himself from any obligations he may owe to the flag of the country from which he came. ” Not only was it time to accept immigrants willing to become American but also the time to act, because, as Mr.

Parrish said, “within a few short years the damage will have been done. The endless tide of immigration will have filled our country with a foreign and unsympathetic element. ”5 In keeping with this spirit, the Ku Klux Klan aimed at inspiring in their fellow Americans an irrational hate towards anyone who was not part of “the old pioneer stock [that is] a blend of various peoples of the so called Nordic race, the race which, with all its faults, has given the world almost the whole of modern civilization. 6 The KKK believed that foreigners not belonging to the Nordic race would upset the racial balance of America and degrade it. Therefore, in order to prevent such degradation, immigration laws were hardened, and the Johnson-Reed Act ( also known as the Permanent National Origins Quota Act, as opposed to the 1921 Act, which was temporary) was passed in 1924.

This Act imposed a quota system for the next forty years, and consisted in allowing countries to send immigrants to the United States n proportion to the percentage of their population in 1924. This Act favored immigrants from northwestern Europe and almost completely barred the

entrance of Asian immigrants. It also reduced the 1921 annual quota from 358,000 to 164,000 and the immigration limit from 3 percent to 2 percent of each foreign-born group living in the United States. Finally, the Act provided for a future reduction of the quota to 154,000.

With the Wall Street Crash in 1929, there came a scarcity of jobs and very low wages for those still available. Racist feelings and ideas were then fueled up in American-born workers seeking to feed their families by the notion that immigrants living in the United States were taking away their jobs by accepting to work for low wages- a similar notion to that of the Governor of California in 1920. The main target at the time were the Mexican immigrants, who had settled mainly in California, Texas and Arizona. Mexican immigrants had been welcome prior to the Great Depression period as they were considered “cheap, plentiful and docile”7 land laborers.

From 1900 to 1909, 23,991 Mexicans entered the United States; this figure amounted to 173, 663 from 1910 to 1919 and it finally reached its highest proportion from 1920 to 1929, when 487, 775 Mexicans crossed the border into America. It was significant that before the Great Depression, Mexicans in the United States not only did not represent a threat but were also in high demand for land labor for reasons a distinguished professional man from Corpus Christi explained: “If the Mexicans came and demanded social equality the case would be entirely different.But the Mexicans have sense, and innate courtesy, and they don’t demand social equality like the Negro. There never will be any race question with the Mexicans.

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As Carey Mc Williams commented: “as a result of the passage of the Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1924, Mexicans were being used on a large scale in the Southwest to replace the supply of cheap labor that had been formerly recruited in Southeastern Europe. ”9 However, race issues did come up to the surface during the Great Depression.

With the pretext of the lack of work, the United States executed “a shameful episode in the nation’s history”10: more than 400,000 people-Mexican immigrants and citizens of the United States by birth- were repatriated to Mexico, and with this “the Texas’ Mexican born population was reduced by a third. ” For McWilliams, the wholesale deportation came as a solution to the fact that “thanks to the rapacity of [the Mexicans’] overlords, he [the Mexican] had not been able to accumulate any savings.He was in default in his rent. He was a burden to the taxpayer. ”

Even the Mexican consulate agreed to the deportation policy, as it was made clear in a letter from the Mexican consulate in August 1932 distributed to the San Diego’s Mexican population: “This Consulate encourages you to take advantage of this special opportunity being offered to you for returning to Mexico at no cost whatever and so that you might dedicate all your energies to your personal improvement, that of your family and that of your country.

The Bureau of Immigration, however, made it clear that the opportunity was not offered but imposed, since of the immigrants liable for deportation, 82,400 were involuntarily deported. The repatriation was made in monthly shipments to Mexico, with a human cargo that ranged from 1,200 to 6,000 people

each. Up to November 1932, 11,000 people were sent back. In the following twelve months the figure added up to more than 200,000, of which 50,000 to 75,000 were from California and over 35,000 from Los Angeles.It really turned out to be a good deal for the government in terms of expenditure: it cost Los Angeles county $77,249. 29 to repatriate one shipment of 6,024 people.