Immigration and American Identity

America as a Nation of Immigrants

Give me your tired, your poor Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teaming shore

Send these, the homeless, the tempest tossed to me

I lift my lamp beside the golden door Emma Lazarus

Welcoming the Uprooted

Land of Freedom – politics

Melting Pot –culture Upward Mobility –

economics Immigration as

modernization process – tradition-bound peasants changed to modern capitalistic individuals

Reevaluating Immigration

Economic Opportunity vs. Stratification Political Freedom vs. Discrimination Cultural Assimilation vs. Diversity Individual vs. strong family, kinship,

community networks

Who are the immigrants?

24 million from 1860 – 1920 Old Immigrants

Pre 1880’s, 85’% from Western and Northern Europe New Immigrants

Post- 1880 80% from Eastern & Southern Europe More New Immigrants

Approximately 1 million immigrants from Asia 1850-1934

Approximately 1 million from Latin America mostly after 1910

Vietnamese post 1973 Mexican and Latin America today

Why did they immigrate?PUSH factors Economic motivation Global expansion of capitalism

“The capitalist form of production, under which goods are produced for sale in order to make the largest profit possible and workers receive wages for selling their labor” Sucheng Chan

Disruption of agricultural economy “After 1850, the spread of industrialization and

commercialized agriculture led to further declines in the number of landholdings that could support families” quoted from The Transplanted by John Bodnar

Political Unrest and Persecution

Pogroms [organized killing] eg. (Russia & Eastern Europe) Jewish family migration – settlement

Only 3% ever returned to Europe 1.4 million in NYC’s Lower East Side by 1915

Mexican Revolution 1910-11 1900 – 1930 Mexican American population in

the Southwest grew from 375,000 to 1,160,000

Family Decision

Male migratory wage-earners i.e. go to America work and send money home Only 50% return to home country “Wild Geese” – Irish

Chain Migration Extended kinship network – one comes to

American and earns the money necessary to send for the remaining family members

Family reunification Esp. women

Pull Factors“Looking for Streets of Gold” “America was in everybody’s mouth. Businessmen talked of it

over their accounts: the market women made up their quarrels that they might discuss it from stall to stall: people who had relatives in the famous land went around reading their letters for the enlightenment of less fortunate folks… all talked of it, but scarcely anybody knew one true fact about this magic land.”

Mary Antin – Russian Immigrant

“Heroes were sitting right there in the room and telling what creatures they met on the road, what customs the non-Chinese follow…Nuggets cobbled the streets in California, the loose stones to be had for the stopping over and picking them up… In their hunger the men forgot that the gold streets had not been there when they'd gone to look for themselves.”

From Chinamen – by Maxine Hong Kingston

Two Theories : Melting Pot Theory

Learn to speak English

Adopt American way of dress

Practice American customs when out in public places

Native customs are left for home and neighborhood events.

Salad Bowl - Theory

Retain Native language

Continue to dress according to your culture

No particular regard for American culture, holidays, social practices

Very public displays of native culture

Economic Opportunities? Labor Market Segmentation will lead to the rise of

Labor Unions Primary vs. Secondary Labor Market Differences in jobs, working conditions, benefits,

security wages etc. Dual wage economy

“cheap labor” = same work, for less pay Transnational industrial reserve army

“to weigh down white workers during periods of economic expansion and to hold white labor in check during periods of overproduction” i.e. keep labor cost down

Old immigrants and native born vs. New Immigrants

Men vs. Women Whites vs. non-whites

Race and Citizenship

Right of naturalization and citizenship Naturalization law of

1790 specified that naturalized citizenship was reserved for whites

Revisions instituted for African-Americans;

Mexican- Americans and Native- Americans

Political Parties and Labor unions both opposed easy immigration policies

Chinese Immigrants as Case Study

322,000 immigrated to America between 1852-1882

Played a key role in developing the economic and transportation infrastructure of the American West

Mining

2/3 of Chinese American population were involved in mining in the 1860’s

“The Gold Rush” California of 1849 and again in 1870 in the Black Hills

Foreign Miners’ Tax (1852) $3 monthly tax for every

foreign miner who did not desire to become a citizen.

Collected $5 million from Chinese, which was 25% – 50% of California state revenue by 1870

(Implications for California TODAY?)

Railroad Construction

12,000 Chinese employed by Central Pacific Railroad (90% of their work force in mid-1860’s

Paid $31/month without board or lodgings

5,000 Chinese workers strike in 1870 for higher wages and an 8-hour day

Typical Railroad Bridge constructed in California

Manufacturing

46% of labor force in San Francisco employed in 4 key industries Boots and shoes Woolens Cigars and tobacco Sewing

Often faced consumer boycott and union label opposition

Domestic Service and “women’s work” 72% of all laundry workers in California were

Chinese.

Class hostility channeled into racial antagonism

Class hostility channeled into racial antagonism (b)

The Anti-Chinese Movement: The Chinese Must Go! Political

Disfranchisement and Physical Violence People v. Hall (1854

Ca.) Chinese ineligible

to testify in court against whites.

Racial Segregation and Social Harassment are common.

People vs. Hall The People of the State of California v. George W. Hall or

People v. Hall was an appealed murder case in the 1850s in which the California Supreme Court established that Chinese Americans and Chinese immigrants had no rights to testify against white citizens. The opinion was delivered in 1854 by Justice with the concurrence of Justice J. Heydenfeldt.

The ruling effectively freed Hall, a white man, who had been convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Ling Sing, a Chinese miner in Nevada County. Three Chinese witnesses had testified to the killing.

The ruling was an odd extension of California Criminal Procedure's existing (1850) exclusion, "No black or mulatto person, or Indian, shall be allowed to give evidence in favor of, or against a white man." It was held that either "Indian" denoted anyone of the Mongoloid race or that "black" applied to anyone not white.

The ruling effectively made white violence against Chinese Americans unprosecutable, arguably leading to more intense white on Chinese race riots, such as the .

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

1st group to be designated for exclusion based on nationality and class

Chinese laborers targeted for immigration and exclusion

All Chinese immigrants denied right to become naturalized citizens

Why support from the upper and middle classes?

Social Darwinism “Scientific basis for justifying racial hierarchy and Eugenics. {the proposed improvement of the human species by encouraging or permitting reproduction of only those people with genetic characteristics judged desirable}

Cultural vs. social vs. economic motivations Easier to racially scapegoat than to reform economic

system

Implications for future immigrants: Who else is not white? Who will be discriminated against? Definitely races from Asia and Africa African Americans and the Jim Crow laws Anyone who visually appears to be non white or

even less white Aliens become ineligible for citizenship Immigration is limited

Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1906-1907 Land Ownership

Mostly limited to whites Alien Land Laws are passed.

Ambiguously Raced:Social Construction of Race Mexican-Americans

Spanish or Indigenous peoples? South Asian “Indians”

Bhaget Singh Thind case (1923) “Caucasian” but NOT WHITE

Irish, Eastern and Southern Europeans Ethnic and religious differences viewed the same

as racial differences Anglo-Saxon race is superior I.Q. Testing and Progressive education needed

Gradation of non-white identity leads to increased discrimination Ellis Island (1900) vs

Angel Island (1910) 2% rejection rate vs.

25% rejection rate 29 questions asked

vs. 200 – 1000 questions

1924 Immigration Act

Nationality Quota System (in place until 1965) 2% of 1890 census figures limits 164,000 for the total year

Targeted toward reducing Southern and Eastern European Immigration

Cut of all immigration of “aliens ineligible for citizenship” i.e. Asian immigration the only exception Filipinos – “American Nationals”

Immigration within the Western Hemisphere exempted (e.g. Mexico, Canada,) American factories need labor

Individual strategies for achieving acceptance Assimilation

Get Education Embrace Popular

culture Work and save money for

upward mobility Biculturalism – doing and

acting a little of each culture.

These options were not available to all!!

Note: 1922 Ozawa case

Takao Ozawa v. United States, 260 U.S. 178 (1922), was a case in which the United States

Supreme Court found Takao Ozawa, a Japanese man, ineligible for naturalization. In 1922, Takao Ozawa filed for United States citizenship under the Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906 which allowed white persons and persons of African descent or African nativity to naturalize. He did not challenge the constitutionality of the racial restrictions. Instead, he attempted to have the Japanese classified as "white."

Opinion of the Court in Ozawa Case

In 1922, Takao Ozawa, a Japanese immigrant who had attended the University of California, also appealed the rejection of his citizenship application. He argued that his skin was physically white and that race shouldn't matter for citizenship. The Supreme Court, however, decided that the Japanese were not legally white based on science, which classified them as Mongoloid rather than Caucasian. Less than a year later, in the case of United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, the court contradicted itself by concluding that Asian Indians were not legally white, even though science classified them as Caucasian. Refuting its own reasoning in Ozawa, the justices declared that whiteness should be based not on science, but on "the common understanding of the white man."

Bhagat Singh Thind (A British national from India )In US since

1913 for Education July 1918 recruited to serve in the US army

promoted to sergeant

He received his citizenship certificate on December 9, 1918 wearing military uniform as he was still serving in the US army. However, the Immigration and Naturalization Service did not agree with the district court granting the citizenship. Thind’s citizenship was revoked in four days, on December 13, 1918, on the grounds that he was not a “free white man.” Thind was trusted by the US to be a soldier in the army and had all the rights and privileges like any “white man.” He was worthy of trust to defend the US but his color stood in his way for the US to trust him for citizenship.

Thind received US citizenship for the second time on November 18, 1920.