Hi everyone. I hope you're all doing well today.
I'll be discussing a reading, which is Chapter One from the book "Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens
and the Making of Modern America" by Mae Ngai, which was originally published in 2004. The
chapter that we'll be discussing today is titled "The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 and the
Reconstruction of Race and Immigration Law," and it provides a thorough historical account of
immigration law in the United States, revealing the process of criminalizing immigration, a
practice that is still very much active today. To begin, Ngai describes a crucial time in
America, the early 1900s, when scientific racism had made room for other racial ideologies,
and the United States was experiencing a high rate of nativism and racial anxieties. But before we
get any further, I'm going to fully introduce our author for this week and unpack the key
concepts and takeaways from this chapter. Mae Ngai is a professor of Asian
American Studies, a professor of history, and co-director of the Center for the Study
of Race and Ethnicity at Columbia University. She is a legal and political historian and the
author of three books. As I mentioned in my previous lectures, many ethnic studies scholars
who we will be reading from this semester come from different academic fields. So you'll probably
remember Omi and Winant, who are sociologists, and Ian Haney Lopez, who's a lawyer and legal
scholar. And this week, our author is a historian. Importantly, these scholars demonstrate how ethnic
studies is fundamentally interdisciplinary. An academic field of study can be interdisciplinary
when it incorporates ideas, methods, and perspectives from multiple disciplines to explore
a particular topic or problem. For the field of ethnic studies, these topics include race, racism,
citizenship, immigration, and related subjects. Interdisciplinary research involves collaboration
across different academic fields, often bringing together researchers with diverse backgrounds
and expertise to address complex questions. So, for our reading this week, the
question Mae Ngai addresses is: how did the Immigration Act of 1924 shape our
understanding of race for decades to come, and what role did this early Immigration
Act play in determining who was eligible for citizenship and who would never be eligible
for citizenship? To address these questions, let's start with unpacking some central
ideas and key terms from the reading. Let's first start with this outdated and
frankly racist term, "racial stock." This term is important to understand how it relates to
the Immigration Act of 1924 and U.S. citizenship. So, the term "racial stock" is an outdated
and racist term, as I said, which is used to describe a group of people who share physical
or genetic characteristics such as skin color, racial features, or ancestry. It is based on the
belief that there are distinct and biologically determined categories of people that can be
grouped by race, which we know to be false. The concept of racial stock has been used in
U.S. history to justify social hierarchies and discrimination based on perceived racial
differences. It has been used to classify people into supposed superior and inferior races,
with the former being deemed more intelligent, civilized, or advanced than the latter. However,
as Ngai demonstrates, the idea of racial stock is not supported by modern scientific understanding
of human genetics or biology. The biological differences between human populations are
minute, and most genetic variations occur within populations of humans rather than between
them. In addition, we know that race is a socially constructed concept that has changed over
time and varies across cultures and societies. This next term is "assimilation," and you might
have heard this term before in different contexts. It's a bit more common. Assimilation refers
to the process by which individuals or groups adopt or conform to the customs, culture, and
values of a larger society, often at the expense of their own cultural identity. Assimilation can
occur as a result of migration, colonization, or other forms of contact between different cultures.
Assimilation can take different forms depending on the social and cultural context. In some cases,
it may involve individuals actively choosing to adopt the practices and values of the dominant
culture, often in order to gain social, economic, or political advantages. In other cases, though,
assimilation may be forced or coerced as a result of policies or practices that require or encourage
individuals to give up their cultural identity. Assimilation can have both positive and
negative effects on individuals and societies. On the one hand, it can lead to greater social
cohesion as people from different backgrounds learn to live together and share common values
and experiences. It can also provide opportunities for individuals to improve their economic and
social status by adopting the practices and values of the dominant culture. But, on the
other hand, assimilation can also lead to the erasure of cultural traditions and practices,
and even languages, which can have negative effects on individuals and communities. It can
also create social and economic inequalities as individuals who are unable or unwilling to
sacrifice their cultural traditions, language, or customs may face discrimination or exclusion.
Assimilation was once a very important piece of the story of immigration, but scholars today
argue that a more inclusive and respectful approach to cultural diversity is better than
assimilation. This approach recognizes and values the diversity of human cultures and
experiences and promotes dialogue and mutual understanding between different groups. It
also seeks to address the structural and systemic barriers that can prevent individuals and
communities from fully participating in society. Now, this next key concept has "nation, race,
culture." The reason why I have those three grouped together is because Ngai argues that in
the 18th and early 19th century, race and nation were loosely conflated in intellectual discourse
as well as in the public imagination. So, on page 23, for example, Mae Ngai states, "Race indicated
physical markers of difference, especially color, but also often simultaneously referred to
culture, commonalities of language, customs, and experience. Race, people, and nation often
referred to the same idea." This conflation of terms demonstrates that at the time, race was not
a solid concept that meant one thing; it actually referred to different things, including one's skin
color, one's nationality, and even one's culture. Over time, though, essentialism came into the
picture and worked to solidify these categories. The last key concept I have here is "nativism."
Nativism is a political ideology that promotes the interests of native-born or long-term residents
of a country or region over those of immigrants or newcomers. It is based on the belief that
the native population of a country or region is superior to newcomers and that immigrants
threaten the social, cultural, and economic stability of the host society. Nativism has been
present in many countries throughout history, but it's also a uniquely American concept, as it
relates very much to high levels of nationalism. It can take different forms depending on the
political and cultural context. In some cases, it can lead to the development of exclusionary
policies, such as immigration restrictions or citizenship requirements that discriminate against
immigrants or certain ethnic or even religious groups. Nativism can also manifest as a rejection
of cultural diversity, with the promotion of a national or regional identity that is based on a
particular set of cultural or historical values. Nativism can be driven by a variety of factors,
including economic insecurity, cultural anxiety, and fears of losing political power or influence.
It can be a response to rapid demographic changes, such as large-scale immigration, that challenge
the dominant cultural norms and traditions of a society. While some people may view nativism
as a way to protect their cultural and national identity, this idea is often criticized for
promoting discrimination and prejudice against marginalized groups. This ideology was used in
the 19th and early 20th century as a justification for the exclusion, discrimination, and
mistreatment of immigrants and people of color. In the 1920s, the U.S. government
commissioned pseudoscientific studies where so-called scholars came to conclusions
deeply embedded with racism and prejudice. These studies were especially
unscientific as they sought, by any means necessary, to produce the
results they desired. This, of course, goes against the goal of objectivity or neutrality
when conducting legitimate scientific studies. The outcome of these so-called studies concluded
that northern European immigrants, including people from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, were of
"superior racial stock" to all other immigrants. So, at this time, nativism became racial nativism with the help of
scientific racist behavior and practices, such as eugenics and other pseudoscientific
theories that maintained a racial hierarchy. To understand the National Origins quotas of 1924, which is a key piece of the Immigration
Act of 1924, we need to understand the context and history of racial nativism and
scientific racism that sadly continued to influence 20th-century perspectives on race.
This influence can even still be seen today. At this time in the early 1900s, scientific
racism began to fizzle, and eugenicists who believed in essentialism started using the term
"racial difference" as the rationale for their exclusionary policies. Basically, rather than
arguing that there were superior and inferior races, these scholars started arguing for white
supremacy based on the idea that racial difference demonstrated the dominance of the white race. They
believed that the white American race needed to be protected as a particular racial stock over
and above all others, including newcomers or immigrants. The idea that immigrants were coming
from all over the world into the United States and becoming a melting pot was not seen as a good
thing at the time, although in our national imagination, we do think of the United States
as a beautiful melting pot. Again, at the time, that was not desirable because they wanted
to maintain the purity of their racial stock and ensure that it was not tainted by immigrants.
You can see here that these pseudoscientific theories were very much influenced by nativism
and racial anxieties stemming from that. Now, I'll be discussing essentialism in the
next slide. But before we go ahead and get into those topics, I wanted to show you a brief
video that explains other aspects of nativism, including how immigrants were discriminated
against on the basis of religion during this time. "No immigrant groups arriving in the late 19th
century became a new target for native-born Americans who did not welcome foreigners for
reasons ranging from religious intolerance to a fear of losing their own
jobs. Some Americans harbored strong hatred toward the newcomers,
reviving a trend called nativism. Nativism is a constant phenomenon in American
history, going back to the Colonial period. It surges in the old immigration period before
the Civil War with Irish and German and other immigrant groups, and it surges in the late 19th
century when these new immigrants begin to arrive. In years past, much of the anti-immigrant
sentiment centered on economics. Some native-born Americans grew angry when immigrants agreed to
work for lower wages, seeing this as a threat to their own livelihood. Other native-borns saw
immigrants as low-class illiterates who brought poverty and crime to America's cities. Some
of these beliefs were based on widespread prejudices against immigrant religious practices.
Not only do you have more Catholics arriving, but you also have Jewish immigrants arriving, so the
religious makeup of America is clearly changing. As they had in decades past, anti-immigrant
groups gained power in the late 19th century with new names and newfound strength. These
organizations would eventually gain political traction after the turn of the century. There
were Know-Nothings in the 1850s, in the 1890s, an organization called the Immigration
Restriction League was founded explicitly to pass federal laws to restrict immigration.
There's also the American Protective Association, which is based in the Midwest, principally to
oppose Catholic immigration to the United States. There's clearly an organized anti-immigrant
movement, and this movement, it'll take a while but will ultimately be successful. By
the 1920s, the federal government will set up a restrictive quota system that will dramatically
decrease the amount of immigrants arriving. Alright, I think that the video did a good
job of showcasing that racial difference was also being marked by religious beliefs. Now,
let's go ahead and take a look at scientific racism and the pseudoscientific
theories that I've been discussing. Scientific racism is a pseudoscientific theory
that suggests that certain races are inherently superior or inferior to others based on supposed
biological or genetic differences. We obviously know that this is a load of baloney, as we've been
exploring these topics in previous lectures and readings. The origins of scientific racism can
be traced back to the 18th and 19th centuries when racial classifications and hierarchies were
developed to justify colonialism and slavery. Especially as they were categorizing
different racial groups as literal subspecies of humans. In other words,
scholars and scientists at one time believed that people of different
races were actually different species. I've been using the word pseudoscience a bit, so
I want to explain what that means. Pseudoscience refers to beliefs or practices that are presented
as scientific but lack empirical evidence or are based on faulty or unscientific reasoning.
Pseudoscientific claims often appear to be scientific, but they lack the rigorous testing and
validation that true scientific theories undergo. Pseudoscience can take many forms, from
astrology and creationism to alternative medicine and paranormal phenomena. It
often relies on anecdotal evidence, testimonials, or appeals to authority rather
than objective data and systematic investigation. One of the key characteristics of pseudoscience
is that its proponents tend to dismiss or ignore contradictory evidence and cling to their beliefs
despite the lack of scientific support. This can make it difficult to distinguish pseudoscientific
theories or claims from real science, especially for people who lack scientific
training or good critical thinking skills. Overall, pseudoscience can be seen as a form
of deception that exploits people's desire for easy answers or their mistrust of
established science. It can be harmful if it leads people to make important decisions
based on unreliable information, or especially if it undermines public trust in science and
evidence-based policymaking. That being said, it can also be harmless, and many of the things
that we all consider a part of pop culture would technically be considered pseudoscience. Of
course, in this case, the practices and beliefs of these pseudoscientific theories about the
differences of humankind were incredibly harmful. One of the most harmful of these
pseudoscientific theories was eugenics. Eugenics is a movement that emerged in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which sought to "improve" the genetic quality
of human populations through selective breeding and the promotion of certain traits. Eugenics
believed that certain groups were biologically inferior and that their reproduction
should be restricted or discouraged, while other groups were supposedly biologically
superior and should be encouraged to reproduce. Theories of scientific racism and eugenics were
used to justify a range of horrific discriminatory practices, including forced sterilization,
marriage restrictions, and exclusionary immigration policies. For example, in the United
States, the eugenics movement led to the passage of laws that mandated the sterilization of
people deemed unfit to reproduce, such as people with disabilities, mental illnesses,
or even criminal records. In Nazi Germany, the belief in Aryan superiority and the need to
eliminate "inferior" groups led to the Holocaust. Today, scientific racism and eugenics are widely
discredited and recognized as pseudoscientific and discriminatory. However, the legacies of these
movements continue to impact contemporary debates around race, genetics, and human diversity. The
use of racial and ethnic categories in scientific research, for example, continues to be a
controversial topic, with some arguing that these categories continue to perpetuate harmful and
inaccurate beliefs about human differences. At the same time, many scientists and activists emphasize
the importance of recognizing and celebrating human diversity while rejecting essentialist and
discriminatory beliefs about race and genetics. This leads me to my next point:
essentialism. Essentialism is a philosophical concept that refers to the
belief that things, including people, have a fixed and inherent set of characteristics
that define their nature or essence. In the context of race, essentialism refers
to the idea that certain physical or genetic traits are inherent to certain racial groups and
that these traits determine the intellectual, moral, and cultural qualities of
individuals within those groups. Historically, essentialist beliefs about race
have been used to justify discriminatory policies and practices, such as slavery, segregation, and
racial profiling. Essentialism has been used to argue that people of certain racial groups are
inherently inferior or superior and that these differences cannot be overcome through education,
socialization, or any other form of intervention. Contemporary understandings of race continue to be
influenced by essentialist thinking, although many scholars and activists reject this approach. They
argue that race is a socially constructed concept that is shaped by historical, political, and
economic factors rather than fixed biological or genetic traits. They emphasize the importance of
recognizing the diversity and complexity of human experiences and reject simplistic categorizations
and classifications of individuals based on race. An example of both eugenics and essentialism can
be found by turning to the Holocaust. As you know, the Holocaust was a genocide committed by the
Nazi regime in Germany during World War II, in which an estimated 6 million Jews were
murdered, along with other targeted groups, including Romani people, people with disabilities,
LGBTQ+ people, and political dissidents. The Nazi regime used a variety of ideological
justifications for their actions, including essentialist beliefs about race and genetics.
The Nazi regime subscribed to an extreme form of essentialism that believed that different
racial and ethnic groups were biologically determined to possess certain innate qualities
and characteristics. The Nazi regime believed in the concept of Aryan white supremacy, which held
that people of Nordic or Germanic ancestry were superior to all other racial and ethnic groups.
They used pseudoscientific theories to justify their belief in the existence of a pure race
that was threatened by supposed racial pollution. And the Nazi regime also believed in the
concept of racial purity or stock, which held that intermarriage and any other form of contact
between different racial and ethnic groups was dangerous to their biological health of the Aryan
race. They believed that Jews, in particular, were inherently an inferior race that threatened
the purity of their supposed Aryan race. These horrific essentialist beliefs
provided a justification for the Nazi regime's policies of persecution and genocide.
The regime implemented a variety of laws and policies designed to isolate and marginalize
Jewish people and other targeted groups, including laws that prohibited intermarriage
and sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews, laws that restricted employment
and educational opportunities, laws about sterilization, and even laws that
required them to wear identifying symbols. Ultimately, the essentialist beliefs of the Nazi
regime led to the development of a system of extermination camps, where millions of Jews
and other targeted groups were systematically murdered in gas chambers, through forced labor,
or through other means of violence and torture. The Holocaust remains one of the most tragic and
horrific examples of the dangers of essentialist thinking and the belief in the inherent
superiority of one racial or ethnic group over others. As you can imagine, it's absolutely
horrible to even teach this and speak it out loud. I have a video here that I won't play now, but
I will link it to this video. The handle of this person is @stepbackhistory, and he has a great
video on scientific racism. I'll go ahead and link that if you're interested in taking a look. It's
a bit long, about 15 minutes, so it's too long for me to play now, but I'll link it
below and also include it on Canvas. Now, let's take a look at
the National Origins quotas, now that we have a good understanding of the
key concepts and key terms from this reading. The Johnson-Reed Act, also known as the
Immigration Act of 1924, and the National Origins quotas were two pieces of legislation related to
immigration in the United States. The Johnson-Reed Act was passed in 1924 and was designed
to limit the number of immigrants coming to the United States. The law established
a quota system that limited the number of immigrants who could enter the country each year.
The quotas were based on the number of immigrants who could enter the country each year,
especially based on the number of people from each country who were living in
the United States in 1890, specifically. The law excluded people from countries
that were considered undesirable, such as those with high rates
of infectious diseases, as well as political views that the United
States deemed radical at the time. The National Origins quotas were a part of this
act and were designed to further limit immigration from certain countries. The quotas were based on
national origin, which I'll explain in a moment. The goal of the quotas was to maintain
the existing ethnic balance in the country by restricting immigration from
countries seen as less desirable, such as those from Southern and Eastern Europe. While the National Origins quota system, although
steeped in the language of national origin, was also racially motivated and had racial
implications. While it didn't explicitly reference race, the system defined nationality or national
origins according to the country of birth, which excluded non-white people residing in the
United States in 1920, even if they were born in the United States. It also excluded all immigrants
from the Western Hemisphere and their descendants, referring to them as aliens
ineligible for citizenship. It also excluded all descendants of enslaved
peoples and all descendants of American Indians, even if they were born in the United States. In
this way, all non-white peoples, whether they had been in America as natives, were forced there
involuntarily through the system of slavery, or had immigrated from anywhere other than certain
parts of Europe, were all considered never to be able to gain U.S. citizenship. The National
Origins quota system believed that America was and should remain a white nation descended from
Europe. It used a pseudoscientific classification system that distinguished persons of the "colored
races" from white persons from white countries (note the quotes around all of that). This new
classification system was used to translate into actual categories of identity for the purposes
of regulating immigration and immigrants, creating categories of difference that
reclassified Americans as racialized subjects. Whereas before, race referred to several things,
including culture, skin color, and nationality, race now refers to a very specific thing based
on who was in the United States in 1920. It doesn't matter whether you were born in the U.S.
at this time or not; it matters what race you are. That's why, even though the National
Origins quotas don't refer to race, we've now become racialized subjects
with the passing of this legislation. To further demonstrate who was and wasn't
allowed to be eligible for citizenship, let's take a look at this next chart. Maine explains that Congress implemented the first
numerical restrictions to immigration in 1921, but it wasn't until a decade later that these
permanent immigration quotas were created. During this time, the government was concerned
with putting into law who should and should not be granted U.S. citizenship, as well as
who could never be eligible for citizenship. Importantly, who the ideal U.S. citizen looked
like and what characteristics he should possess. At that time, women were
considered second-class citizens. Through the invention of National Origins quotas
that relied on spotty data and pseudoscientific theories, the newly formed quota board took
up the task of assigning a number of allowable immigrants from each part of the world.
Even though there were gaps in their data, the quota board decided who was of "native
stock" versus who was of "immigrant stock." These classifications were constructed
according to certain social values and political judgments. For example, "native stock"
did not refer to persons born in the United States but to persons who descended from the white
population of the United States at the time of the nation's founding. The quota board defined
the "immigrant stock" populations as all persons who entered the United States after 1790 and all
of their descendants. This law defined nationality according to the country of birth. Although
the law did not explicitly reference race, race entered into the equation in many important
ways. For example, the country of birth was not how American nationality was defined. The law
excluded non-white people residing in the United States in 1920, even if they were born in the
U.S. It also excluded all immigrants from the Western Hemisphere and their descendants. As I
mentioned before, all descendants of enslaved peoples and the descendants of American Indians,
even if they were born in the United States, were now ineligible for citizenship. Those
who were eligible for citizenship became an increasingly small number. So, through
their truly unscientific classifications of nationality and race, the quota board defined
the world in terms of race. "The quota system distinguished persons of the colored races from
White persons from White countries" (page 27). This new classification system is shocking to
read, and it's also shown on page 28 in the chapter. You can see that "white Americans and
immigrants from Europe have National Origins, meaning they can be identified by the country
of their birth or their ancestors' birth. But people of color were imagined as having no
country of origin; they lay outside the concept of nationality and therefore citizenship. They
were not even bonafide immigrants" (page 27). The National Origins quota system believed that
America was and should remain a white nation descended from Europe and should protect their
racial stock from immigrant stock, who they saw as "all persons who entered the United
States after 1790 and their descendants." Mae Ngai argues that while Congress did
not go so far as to sponsor race breeding, it did seek to transform immigration law into
an instrument of mass racial engineering. Importantly, Congress and the quota board,
like many people at this time, believed that race was self-evident, meaning you could see and
understand someone's race just by looking at them. This is a common idea that persists
today – that we can group people based on how they look when we know that
it's much more complex than that. The immigration quota is based on national origin,
chart published in 1929 by the Census Bureau, made people feel confident in their
understanding of race because this chart, eventually published by the Census Bureau,
was shrouded in the prestige of science, government authority, and served as an unwavering
fact that influenced race thinking and policies. The Census Bureau became scientific evidence
of innate essential racial differences and created a "language of interpreting
the social world." Now, we had terms for classifying urban and rural populations, social
and economic classes, racial groups, and more. This demographic data also gave rise to a
panic about preserving the white race. When people saw these charts with all these
different people from around the world, it became even more important to them to preserve
what they saw as a pure white racial stock. Numerous scholars published passionate pleas
warning that the upward mobility of immigrants would lead to "race suicide" for the white
American race. Mae Ngai mentions that demographic data was to 20th-century racists what craniometric
data had been to race scientists during the 19th century, referring to the pseudo-scientific
studies of skulls for varying racial groups. This demographic data was used by the U.S.
government to translate into actual categories of identity for the purposes of regulating
and restricting immigration and immigrants. Thus, Knight says, the invention of National
Origins was not only an ideological project; it was also one of state-building. The
National Origins quota system created categories of difference that reclassified
Americans as racialized subjects. It gave these so-called scholars and other
scientists supposed rationales that said, "Look, immigrants and those who are not
of our native stock are different than us, and we can't allow our racial stock to
become muddied up with these different people from their different countries, with their
different beliefs, and their different religious practices and languages and skin colors."
It didn't matter; they didn't want that. The National Origins quotas remained in effect
until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which abolished the quotas and established
a new system of immigration based on family reunification and employment preferences. The
quotas have been widely criticized for their discriminatory nature and their impact on the
racial and ethnic makeup of the United States. Before I move on, I also want to point out that
as far as who was ineligible for citizenship, I've mentioned that anyone
considered immigrant stock was ineligible, as well as all non-white
people residing in the United States in 1920, even if they were born in the U.S. All
immigrants in the Western Hemisphere and their descendants. All descendants of
enslaved peoples and all descendants of American Indians, regardless of their place of
birth, were also ineligible for citizenship. An important category here that I haven't
discussed is that all Asians, except people from Japan and the Philippines, were also ineligible
for citizenship. This wasn't because the U.S. loved people from Japan and the Philippines; it
was for political purposes. There were sensitive political ties to these areas, and the U.S. didn't
want to upset the Japanese government or disrupt diplomatic relations. That's why they reluctantly
allowed people from Japan and the Philippines to become citizens and to immigrate to the U.S.
legally. In general, all other Asians were not eligible for citizenship, and the Chinese were
especially discriminated against at the time. It was through these new racial classifications
that the quota board and the Census Bureau created in the 1920s that we first hear this
term "Asiatic," which is the root of why we refer to anybody from these regions as Asian.
So, this Immigration Act of 1924, also known as the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, was crucial for
many reasons, not just in determining who was and wasn't eligible for citizenship, not just because
it gave us insight into the racial ideologies, nativism, and pseudoscientific theories shaping
the world and the public consciousness at the time, but also because it created all of these
classifications that didn't exist before. Race was a very specific thing, and to not be white at
this time meant much more than you can imagine. This act said if you were not
white, you had no country of origin, even if you were born in the United States, and
you could never be eligible for citizenship. Let's continue with the idea of whiteness.
The Immigration Act of 1924, as I mentioned, was momentous for many reasons. For one,
it essentially barred half of the world's population from entering the United States.
It created all of these classifications, and one of the reasons for those exclusions
was the idea that Asians were unassimilable. Remember that assimilation refers to the
process of conforming to the dominant culture's assumptions, norms, beliefs, values,
and customs. Congress believed that Asians were simply unassimilable, meaning they could never
assimilate to the U.S. way of life because their culture was considered too foreign.
Congress saw them as forever foreigners, unable to conform to American ways of life.
Importantly, if they couldn't do that, they would never be able to embody the ideals of the
white American citizen or those of native stock. So, this law was contested by many individuals
over the years, but two landmark court cases were especially noteworthy. The first case
involved an Asian man named Takao Ozawa, and the court case is Ozawa vs. U.S. from 1922.
The second case is U.S. vs. Bhagat Singh Thind, who was from India. These landmark court cases
occurred before the Immigration Act of 1924. The main statute determining eligibility at the time
was the Naturalization Act of 1790, which limited naturalization of immigrants to "any free white
person of good character." Here again, we see the idea that unless you are white or descended from
a free white person, you weren't able to become a U.S. citizen, even if you could prove that you
had assimilated to the dominant American culture. Nowhere is this more glaring than in the
case of Takao Ozawa. Ozawa argued his case for citizenship based on his impeccable moral
character, his assimilation into American society, and his wholehearted embrace of American political
ideals. He had immigrated from Japan as a child in 1894, meaning he had been a legal resident
of the United States for almost 30 years. He graduated from high school in Berkeley,
California, attended the University of California, moved to Honolulu in 1906, married, and
had two children whom he sent to American churches and American schools. He worked for
an American company, spoke English fluently, and did not drink, smoke, or play cards. In
his brief to the court, he famously said, "In name, General Benedict Arnold
was an American, but at heart, he was a traitor. In name, I am not an American,
but at heart, I am a true American" (Page 42). Similarly, Bhagat Singh Thind argued that he was
very much assimilable, someone ready and willing to assimilate to the U.S. way of life. He argued
that he was "willing and eager to undertake the responsibilities of citizenship, having shown my
eagerness by buying liberty bonds to help carry on America's part in the war and enlisting
in the fighting forces of the country." He wrote this brief from Camp Lewis, Washington,
where he was stationed with the U.S. Army. He was a veteran of World War I who had come
to the United States from the Punjab in 1913. But despite their strong claims to citizenship,
whiteness was already a condition of full U.S. citizenship, as evidenced in the Dred Scott vs.
Sanford case in 1857. The Supreme Court held that the United States Constitution was not meant
to include American citizenship for people of African descent, regardless of whether they were
enslaved or free or born in the United States. The rights and privileges that the Constitution
provided to American citizens could not apply to them. For more information on this, you can
look up the Dred Scott vs. Sanford case of 1857. Therefore, in these two cases, Ozawa vs. U.S. and
U.S. vs. Bhagat Singh Thind, it became a question of whether a Japanese man or an Indian man could
be considered white because they had proven from all other cases that they were true
Americans who had assimilated to the culture. The question of whiteness was the
main issue here. In each of the cases, the court interpreted whiteness to mean
something more than just skin color, and once again, they used pseudoscientific
theories and concepts to back their decisions. In both cases, the court argued that
race was simply common knowledge. At the same time, the terms white and Caucasian
became antagonistic concepts in terms of the law, which created problems for the court. Ozawa said
that Japanese people should be considered white because of the color of their skin and their
high intelligence. The court, however, rejected his claim to citizenship by arguing that Ozawa
was not Caucasian, even if he had white skin. They determined that being Caucasian was
the new determining factor. A year later, Thind agreed with the court and stated that race
was more than just skin color. He argued that you could have a white skin color and
still not be Caucasian. He said, "I am Indian, and I have roots in the region of
the Caucasus Mountains, which makes me Caucasian." But the court rejected Thind's claim to
citizenship, calling it outright ridiculous. They noted that any person with common sense
could see that an Indian person was not white. So for Singh, he might be white but
was rejected for not being Caucasian. For Ozawa, he might be white but was
rejected for not being Caucasian. No matter how contradictory, no matter
how hypocritical, the U.S. legal system at the time found ways to exclude anyone
whom they felt did not embody whiteness. Here are some key takeaways from this chapter: Our understanding of race has changed over time
and continues to evolve. Scientific racism was once widely accepted, and these pseudoscientific
theories were used to justify horrific behaviors, exclusionary policies, and legal discrimination. The value placed on racial categories
has also changed over time. In the 1920s, being white meant more than
just having one skin color; it also meant being a person worthy of U.S. citizenship
and protection under the Constitution. Early immigration laws were highly discriminatory
and relied on racist classifications and pseudoscientific theories. Whiteness was a
condition for citizenship at the time, but that is no longer the case. The National Origins
quotas influenced decades of legal discrimination and were directly based on
illegitimate data and racism. Studying our history, even the uncomfortable parts, is essential for
understanding the context in which we live today, confronting and addressing past injustices,
recognizing and challenging biases and prejudices, and developing critical thinking skills
to engage with the world more around us. If you're interested, I have a few
discussion questions that you might want to consider. You can ask these questions
to yourself or work with others to answer them. 1. Have you seen or experienced the
pressure to assimilate in any situation? Recall that assimilation is about conforming
to or adopting a dominant culture's customs, traditions, language, or other ways of
life. In general, I'm sure that we've all had an experience where we've had to
assimilate in some way, shape, or form. 2. To what extent should immigrants be
expected to assimilate into the dominant culture of their new country, and how does
the expectation of conformity impact how they experience inclusion and belonging? This
is a complex question with no easy answers. 3. What is a good citizen? What does a good
citizen look like, and what do they do? What does it mean if you don't have
those qualities? Does it mean that you shouldn't be a citizen or that
you're not worthy of citizenship? 4. Where do we see nativist ideas operating in
the U.S today? Now that you know what nativism is, you might recognize it more
in political discourse today. 5. In what ways is the legacy of the
Immigration Act of 1924 continuing to influence current debates about
immigration policy and border control? Understanding this historical context and
these early immigration laws can help you see how they inform contemporary debates
on immigration and border control. If you're interested in this material, I highly
recommend reading the rest of Maini's book; it's excellent. You might also consider
doing further research on the court cases I mentioned here. Having discussions
with those around you and using these discussion questions can be a valuable
way to explore these topics further.