Immigration and Reform

1. Immigration and Reform • Immigration Waves • First and Second Wave • Naturalization Law and Race • The Case of Puerto Rico • Chinese Exclusion Acts • Public opinion • Labor leaders’ opinion • Legislation • Loopholes in Legislation • Construction of Racial Difference • Visually • Legally • Immigration Restriction • Literacy tests and Quotas • Act of 1924

2. Immigration Waves in US History • antebellum, 1840-1860—largely northern European, especially England, Ireland and Germany—approx. 4.5 million • late 1890-1920—largely Southern and Eastern European, including Polish and Russian Jews, Italian, Greek—approx. 14.5 million • also Asian immigrants in the late 19th-early 20th century, in much fewer numbers (for example, Chinese immigrants built US railroads) • Immigration Act of 1924 establishes national quotas for immigration - immigration drops sharply • after 1965 immigration act reform - immigrants from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia outnumber those from Europe

3. Immigration Waves > Naturalization Law and Race in US History • 1790 - Congress limits naturalization to white persons • 1870 - Congress adds African Americans (naturalization limited to “free white persons” and “persons of African descent”) • 1952 - racial prerequisite for naturalization eliminated

4. Immigration Waves > The Case of Puerto Rico • 1898 - Puerto Rico acquired as a result of Spanish-American War • 1917 - US Citizenship extended to Puerto Ricans • 1950-1951 - Puerto Rico becomes a “Commonwealth,” has a right to establish a government with proper constitution, officially no longer a colony • 1953 - The largest Puerto Rican migration to the mainland US (69,124) • Plebiscites and referendums on the political status of Puerto Rico: 1967 (commonwealth 60%, state 39%, independence 1%) , 1993, 1998 - the commonwealth is reaffirmed each time with increasingly narrower margins • non-binding 1998 referendum: • remain a US commonwealth: 0.06% • “free association” between commonwealth and independence: 0.29% • become a state: 46.49% • declare independence: 2.54% • none of the above: 50.30%

5. Immigration Waves > The Godfather, Part II (1974)

6. Immigration Waves > Alfred Stieglitz, “The Steerage,” 1907

7. Chinese Exclusion > Cartoon on the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

8. Chinese Exclusion > “The Chinese: Many Handed But Soulless,” The Wasp, 1885

9. Chinese Exclusion > “The Bradys and the Chinese Dwarf,” ca. 1907

10. Chinese Exclusion > Labor leaders’ opinion • Denis Kearney, California’s Workingmen’s Party (typical) • Chinese laborers are “cheap working slaves” who lower white workers’ standard of living and should be banished from the U.S. • Joseph McDonnell, an Irish-born socialist • Intolerance against the Chinese repeats earlier “intolerant, silly and shameful cry” against the Irish. Workers should learn from this history and unite • B.E.G. Jewett, a socialist • Corporate employers-“oppressors, money-mongers”-are to blame • “What we want to fight is not the Chinese nor any other imported stock, be they Durham bulls or Spanish mules—be they men, women or babies—but we want to fight the importers, persons, who, ministering to their own greed, to the lust of the flesh and the pride of life, sell (or contract) into bondage the labor of others, and drive still others into deeper degradation and poverty. Let our pacific coast friends fight the wealth mongers, and not their slaves, and they will have not only justice but right on their side. Not say ‘the Chinese must go,’ but that ‘the oppressors, money-mongers, Sharons, et al. must go.’”

11. Chinese Exclusion > Acts of 1882, 1884, and 1888 and related legislation • Only Chinese non-laborers and those who were born in the U.S. can enter • Those who resided in the U.S. prior to 1880 can remain if they don’t leave the country • If they leave they can come back if they have at least one thousand dollars worth of property or debts owned to them • The status of wife and child followed that of a husband • No Chinese could be naturalized as U.S. citizen

12. Chinese Exclusion > Loopholes in Legislation • Many Chinese were able to get into the U.S. by appealing to U.S. Courts even after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 • The prohibition of judicial review of immigration decisions did not apply to the Chinese because unlike other immigrants until 1903 they did not come under purview of the Bureau of Immigration and immigration law • Judges often ruled in favor of Chinese plaintiffs because they adhered to Anglo- American common law traditions of habeas corpus and evidentiary rules of witness testimony (for example, did not require two white witnesses) • Newcomers relied on community groups and white lawyers to make their case for citizenship based on witness testimony • This continued until 1905 when the Bureau of Immigration took over Chinese immigration and was granted final jurisdiction in the question of citizenship

13. Construction of Racial Difference > Fragment What is this man’s ethnic background?

14. Construction of Racial Difference > Entire Cartoon, ca. Civil War

15. Construction of Racial Difference > Arnold Genthe, “An Unsuspecting Victim,” 1908

16. Construction of Racial Difference > Using photography to emphasize difference

17. Construction of Racial Difference > Emphasizing difference

18. Construction of Racial Difference > Emphasizing difference

19. Construction of Racial Difference > Jacob Riis, “Bandit’s Roost, 59 1/2 Mulberry Street,” c. 1888

20. Construction of Racial Difference > Jacob Riis, “Bandit’s Roost,” How the Other Half Lives (1890)

21. Construction of Racial Difference > Jacob Riis, “Mullen’s Alley, Cherry Hill,” 1888

22. Construction of Racial Difference > “Home of an Italian Ragpicker,” 1888

23. Construction of Racial Difference > “One of Four Pedlars Who Slept in the Cellar of 11 Ludlow Street Rear,” c. 1892

24. Construction of Racial Difference > Supreme Court Decisions In re Balsara, 1909 Asian Indians are probably not White Congressional intent U.S. v. Dolla, 1910 Asian Indians are White Ocular inspection of skin U.S. v. Balsara 1910 Asian Indians are White Scientific evidence  In re Sadar Bhagwab Singh, 1917Asian Indians are not White Common knowledge  Congressional intent In re Mohan Singh, 1919 Asian Indians are White Scientific evidence  In re Thind, 1920 Asian Indians are White Legal precedent U.S. v. Thind, 1923 Asian Indians are not White Common knowledge  Congressional intent In re Najour, 1909 Syrians are White Scientific evidence In re Mudarri, 1910 Syrians are White Scientific evidence  Legal precedent In re Ellis, 1910 Syrians are White Common knowledge  Congressional intent Ex parte Shahid, 1913 Syrians are not White Common knowledge Ex parte Dow, 1914 Syrians are not White Common knowledge In re Dow, 1914 Syrians are not White Common knowledge  Congressional intent Dow v. U.S., 1915 Syrians are White Scientific evidence  Congressional intent  Legal precedent

25. Construction of Racial Difference > Supreme Court Decisions In re Mallari, 1916 Filipinos are not White No explanation In re Rallos, 1917 Filipinos are not White Legal precedent U.S. v. Javier, 1927 Filipinos are not White Legal precedent De La Ysla v. U.S., 1935 Filipinos are not White Legal precedent De Cano v. State, 1941 Filipinos are not White Legal precedent In re Halladjian, 1909 Armenians are Whtie Scientific evidence  Legal precedent U.S. v. Cartozian, 1925 Armenians are White Scientific evidence  Common knowledge   Legal precedent In re Feroz Din, 1928 Afghanis are not White Common knowledge In re Ahmed Hassan, 1942 Arabians are not White Common knowledge  Ex parte Mohriez, 1944 Arabians are not White Legal precedent

26. Construction of Racial Difference > U.S. v Bhagat Singh Thind, 1923

27. Immigration Restriction > Ku Klux Klan Marching in DC

28. Immigration Restriction > Cartoon on the Literacy Test

29. Immigration Restriction > Cartoon on the Quota Act of 1921

30. Immigration Restriction > Act of 1924 (The Johnson-Reed Act) • Based ceilings on the number of immigrants from any particular nation on 2 percent of each nationality recorded in the 1890 census • Was directed against immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe who arrived in large numbers after 1890 • Barred all immigrants ineligible for citizenship on racial grounds, including all south and east Asians (including Indians, Japanese, and Chinese) • 1965 Hart-Celler Act abandones the national origins quota system

31. Immigration Restriction > Annual Immigration Quotas, 1924 • Germany - 51,227 • Great Britain - 34,007 • Ireland - 28,567 • Italy - 3,845 • Hungary - 473 • Greece - 100 • Egypt - 100

32. Immigration Restriction > Map of Europe, Literary Digest, 1924

33. Progressive Reform • Politics • Teddy Roosevelt and the rule of socially-conscious experts • End of “liberty of contract” doctrine • Art and Culture • Realism in art (Ashcan School) • Muckraking journalism • Documentary photography • Immigration and Labor • Settlement House movement • Idea of the “melting pot” • Fordism and Taylorism

34. Progressive Politics > President Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-1909

35. Art and Culture > John Sloan, Parade, Washington Square, 1910

36. Art and Culture > George Bellows, Dempsey and Firpo, 1924

37. Art and Culture > Cartoon about Muckraking Journalism

38. Art and Culture > Jacob Riis, “Bandit’s Roost, 59 1/2 Mulberry Street,” c. 1888

39. Art and Culture > Child Labor Poster with Lewis Hine’s Photographs

40. Immigration and Labor > Jane Addams, founder of the Hull House

41. Immigration and Labor > Hull House Complex, 1902

42. Immigration and Labor > Hull House Kindergarten Class, 1902

43. Immigration and Labor > Hull House “Labor Museum,” 1902

44. Immigration and Labor > Cartoon about the Melting Pot, 1889

45. Immigration and Labor > Henry Ford’s Model T, 1915

46. Immigration and Labor > Henry Ford’s automobile assembly line

47. Immigration and Labor > Photographic Motion Study, 1894

48. Immigration and Labor > Charlie Chaplin comments on the assembly line in Modern Times, 1936