In the beginning of 1924, the United States’ immigration had reached a record high. It is said the percentage of immigrants entering the country from foreign countries was so high that it warranted government intervention. The White Americans who are still the majority population up to the present started fearing that the immigrants would star taking over their businesses and infringe on their culture and traditions. Since they were the ruling class, they had to make due with law provisions that would restrict immigration. The major immigrants were from Europe, Mexico and the larger Latin America and the African Americans. Formerly, slaves, the Black community was also beginning to fight for their rights and enter the congress.
Paul Spickard book, almost all aliens not only discuss the theme of race, ethnicity, immigration and the general origin of the different section of the American society, but it also describes ways in which the government of the United States attempted to control the issue of immigration. In his book, Paul gives appendices which show how the government of the day set to put restrictions on the issue of restriction. As per the subject of discussion, the government amended the law and passed a statute known as the Immigration Act of 1924. This Act is also known as Johnson Act. The government set this statute to the then ethnic distribution which was bringing a problem to the general welfare of the White Americans. Paul in his book explains that the government passed this law to respond to the high rate of immigration from Asia, Eastern and Southern Europe. It was meant to freeze people entering into the country from these specific areas. The law also introduced population quotas known as nationality quotas.
With the establishment of the Immigration Act of 1924 came the National Origins Formula. Spickard says that the government set the national immigration to a cap of 150, 000 persons per year. In addition to the above law, other laws which were passed by the government of the United States include; the Nationality Act (1940), the Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act (1943), the Nationality and Immigration Act (1952) and the Nationality and Immigration Act (1965). All these Acts were meant to control the immigration of persons. Some were specific, like the Chinese Exclusion Repeal while others were general.
According to Paul Spickard, the laws targeted exclusion at the time they were enacted. The main reasons why the White Americans targeted to exclude immigration were for socio-economic reasons. For example, the Repeal Act which targeted the Chinese was because the government of the United States wanted to regulate the inflow of more Chinese nationals into the country. The statute also set to naturalize the already existing Chinese population so as to make them U.S. citizens. The other reasons why the United States excluded other races were because they saw them as competition for their jobs and a threat to their culture.
The White American views eventually changed over the time, explains the author. This is because instead of seeing them as competition to their socioeconomic needs and culture, they began seeing them as complementary to them. The other races became entrepreneurs and added more jobs into the economy and their culture supplemented the White American culture. The writer, whose chronology of events start in the 1600s to the present, gives a wide variety of reasons why the attitudes eventually changed and the United States became what it is now.
Works Cited
Spickard, Paul R. Almost All Aliens: Race, Colonialism, and Immigration in American History and Identity. London: Routledge, 2007. Print
