Immigration Act of 1924: Difference between revisions

Immigration Act of 1924
Nicknames	Johnson-Reed Act
Enacted by	the 68th United States Congress
Effective	May 26, 1924
Legislative history
	Introduced in the House of Representatives as H.R. 7995; Passed the House on April 12, 1924 (323-71); Agreed to by the House on May 15, 1924 (308-62) and by the Senate on May 15, 1924 (69-9); Signed into law by President Calvin Coolidge on May 24, 1924;

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President Coolidge signs the immigration act on the White House South Lawn along with appropriation bills for the Veterans Bureau. John J. Pershing is on the President's right.

The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the Asian Exclusion Act and National Origins Act (Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law (United States) 68–139, 43 Stat. 153, enacted May 26, 1924), was a United States federal law that prevented immigration from Asia, set quotas on the number of immigrants from certain countries, and provided funding and an enforcement mechanism to carry out the longstanding ban on other immigrants.

The 1924 act supplanted earlier acts to effectively ban all immigration from Asia^[1]^[2] and set a total immigration quota of 165,000 for countries outside the Western Hemisphere, an 80% reduction from the pre-World War I average.^[1] Quotas for specific countries were based on 2% of the U.S. population from that country as recorded in 1890.^[2] As a result, populations poorly represented in 1890 were prevented from immigrating in proportionate numbers—especially effecting Italians and Jews.^[1]^[3]^[4] According to the U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian, the purpose of the act was "to preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity."^[2] Congressional opposition was minimal.

A key element of the act was its provisions for enforcement. The act provided funding and legal instructions to courts of deportation for immigrants whose national quotas were exceeded. The act was revised in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952^[2] and replaced by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.

Background

The Naturalization Act of 1790 declared that only people of white descent were eligible for naturalization, but was modified in 1870, when eligibility was extended to people of African descent.^[5] Chinese and Japanese people were barred from immigrating to the U.S. in the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907, respectively.^[2] According to historian Mae Ngai, before World War I, the United States had "virtually open borders."^[6]

A limitation on Southern and Eastern European immigration was first proposed in 1909 by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge.^[7] In the wake of the post-World War I recession, many Americans believed that bringing in more immigrants from other nations would only make the unemployment rate higher. The Red Scare of 1919–1921 had fueled xenophobic fears of foreign radicals migrating to undermine American values and provoke an uprising like Russia's 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.^[8] The number of immigrants entering the United States decreased for about a year from July 1919 to June 1920 but also doubled the year after that.^[9]

Congressman Albert Johnson and Senator David Reed were the two main architects of the act. In the wake of intense lobbying, the act passed with strong congressional support.^[10] There were nine dissenting votes in the Senate^[11] and a handful of opponents in the House, the most vigorous of whom was freshman Brooklyn Representative and Jewish-American Emanuel Celler. Over the succeeding four decades, Celler made the repeal of the act his personal crusade.^{[citation needed]}

Proponents of the act sought to establish a distinct American identity by preserving its ethnic homogeneity.^[12]^[13] Reed told the Senate that earlier legislation "disregards entirely those of us who are interested in keeping American stock up to the highest standard—that is, the people who were born here."^[14] He believed that immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, most of them Catholics or Jews, arrived sick and starving and therefore less capable of contributing to the American economy, and unable to adapt to American culture.^[12] Eugenics was used as justification for the act's restriction of certain races or ethnicities of people in order to prevent the spread of perceived feeblemindedness in American society.^[15] Samuel Gompers, a Jewish immigrant and founder of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), supported the act because he opposed the cheap labor that immigration represented, despite the fact that the act would sharply reduce Jewish immigration.^[16] Both the AFL and Ku Klux Klan supported the act.^[17]

Lobbyists from the West Coast, where a majority of Japanese, Korean, and other East Asian immigrants had settled, were especially concerned with excluding Asian immigrants. An 1882 law had already put an end to Chinese immigration, but as Japanese (and, to a lesser degree, Korean and Filipino) laborers began arriving and putting down roots in western states, an exclusionary movement formed in reaction to the "Yellow Peril." Valentine S. McClatchy, founder of The McClatchy Company and a leader of the anti-Japanese movement, argued, "They come here specifically and professedly for the purpose of colonizing and establishing here permanently the proud Yamato race," citing their supposed inability to assimilate to American culture and the economic threat they posed to white businessmen and farmers. Despite some hesitation from President Calvin Coolidge and strong opposition from the Japanese government, with whom the U.S. government had previously maintained a cordial economic and political relationship, the act was signed into law on May 24, 1924.^[8]

Provisions

The immigration act made permanent the basic limitations on immigration into the United States established in 1921 and modified the National Origins Formula established then. In conjunction with the Immigration Act of 1917, it governed American immigration policy until the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which revised it completely.

The act provided that no alien ineligible to become a citizen could be admitted to the United States as an immigrant. This was aimed primarily at Japanese and Chinese aliens.^[2] It imposed fines on transportation companies who landed aliens in violation of U.S. immigration laws. It defined the term "immigrant" and designated all other alien entries into the United States as "non-immigrant", that is, temporary visitors. It established classes of admission for such non-immigrants.^{[citation needed]}

The act set a total immigration quota of 165,000 for countries outside the Western Hemisphere, (an 80% reduction from the pre-World War I average)^[1] and barred immigrants from the "Asia–Pacific Triangle", which included Japan, China, the Philippines (then under U.S. control), Siam (Thailand), French Indochina (Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia), Singapore (then a British colony), Korea, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), Burma (Myanmar), British India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and Malaya (the mainland portion of Malaysia).^[5] The act reduced the annual quota of any nationality from 3% to 2% of the number of foreign-born persons of such nationality residing in the United States in 1890 (though a 1910 census also existed).^[17] The reduced quotas were set to last through 1927.^[12] No quotas on immigration from the Western Hemisphere were put in place.^[1]^[18]

The act established preferences under the quota system for certain relatives of U.S. residents, including their unmarried children under 21, their parents, and spouses aged 21 and over. It also preferred immigrants aged 21 and over who were skilled in agriculture, as well as their wives and dependent children under age 16. Non-quota status was accorded to: wives and unmarried children under 18 of U.S. citizens; natives of Western Hemisphere countries, with their families; non-immigrants; and certain others. Subsequent amendments eliminated certain elements of this law's inherent discrimination against women.^{[citation needed]}

The act also established the "consular control system" of immigration, which divided responsibility for immigration between the State Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. It mandated that no alien should be allowed to enter the United States without a valid immigration visa issued by an American consular officer abroad.^{[citation needed]}

The National Origins Act authorized the formation of the U.S. Border Patrol, established two days after the act was passed, primarily to guard the Mexico–United States border.^[19] A $10 tax was imposed on Mexican immigrants, who were allowed to continue immigrating based on their perceived willingness to provide cheap labor.^[1]

Results

The act's revised formula reduced total immigration from 357,803 in 1923–24 to 164,667 in 1924–25. The law's impact varied widely by country. Immigration from Great Britain and Ireland fell 19%, while immigration from Italy fell more than 90%.^[20]

From 1901–1914, 2.9 million Italians immigrated, an average of 210,000 per year.^[21] Under the 1924 quota, only 4,000 per year were allowed since the 1890 quota counted only 200,000 Italians in the U.S. By contrast, the annual quota for Germany after the passage of the act was over 57,000 since German-born residents in 1890 numbered 2,850,000. Some 86% of the 155,000 permitted to enter under the act were from Northern Europe, with Germany, Britain, and Ireland having the highest quotas.^{[citation needed]} The provisions of the act were so restrictive that in 1924 more Italians, Czechs, Yugoslavs, Greeks, Lithuanians, Hungarians, Poles, Portuguese, Romanians, Spaniards, Chinese, and Japanese left the United States than arrived as immigrants.^[17]

The law sharply curtailed immigration from those countries that were previously host to the vast majority of the Jews in America, almost 75 percent of whom immigrated from Russia alone.^[4] Because Eastern European immigration only became substantial in the final decades of the 19th century, the law's use of the population of the United States in 1890 as the basis for calculating quotas effectively made mass migration from Eastern Europe, where the vast majority of the Jewish diaspora lived at the time, impossible.^[22]

During World War II, the U.S. modified the act to set immigration quotas for their allies in China and the Philippines.^[5] The immigration quotas were eased in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 and replaced in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.

Notes

^ Defined in the act as immigrants from Germany, Free City of Danzig, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the British Isles and Scandinavia
^ Defined in the act as immigrants from the Baltic States, all Slavic nations, Hungary, Romania, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Albania and Greece

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Murrin, John M.; Hämäläinen, Pekka; Johnson, Paul E.; Brunsman, Denver; McPherson, James M. (2015). Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American People, Volume 2: Since 1863. Cengage Learning.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f "The Immigration Act of 1924 (The Johnson-Reed Act)". U.S Department of State Office of the Historian. Retrieved 2012-02-13.
^ Fisher, Marc (January 28, 2017). "Open doors, slamming gates: The tumultuous politics of U.S. immigration policy". Washington Post. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
^ ^a ^b Stuart J. Wright, An Emotional Gauntlet: From Life in Peacetime America to the War in European Skies (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), 163
^ ^a ^b ^c Guisepi, Robert A. (January 29, 2007). "Asian Americans". World History International.
^ Matza, Michael (June 25, 2017). "Your immigrant ancestors came here legally? Are you sure?". Philly.com. Retrieved December 22, 2018.
^ Lodge, Henry (1909). "The Restriction of Immigration" (PDF). University of Wisconsin. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-03-06. Retrieved 2012-03-02. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
^ ^a ^b Imai, Shiho. "Immigration Act of 1924". Densho Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-08-15.
^ Cannato, Vincent J. (2009). American Passage: The History of Ellis Island. New York: Harper. p. 331. ISBN 0-06-194039-9.
^ "Immigration Bill Passes Senate by Vote of 62 to 6". New York Times. April 19, 1924. Retrieved February 18, 2011.
^ "Senate Vote #126 (May 15, 1924)". govtrack.us. Civic Impulse, LLC. Retrieved 20 May 2011.
^ ^a ^b ^c Jones, Maldwyn Allen (1992) [1960]. American Immigration (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 237. ISBN 978-0226406336.
^ "Who Was Shut Out?: Immigration Quotas, 1925–1927". History Matters. George Mason University. Retrieved January 3, 2012.
^ Stephenson, George M. (1964). A History of American Immigration. 1820–1924. New York: Russel & Russel. p. 190.
^ Baynton, Douglas C. (2016). Defectives in the Land : Disability and Immigration in the Age of Eugenics. Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-0-226-36433-9.
^ Gompers, Samuel. "Immigration and labor".(subscription required)
^ ^a ^b ^c Steven G. Koven, Frank Götzke, American Immigration Policy: Confronting the Nation's Challenges (Springer, 2010), p. 133
^ Hayes, Helene (2001). U.S. Immigration Policy and the Undocumented. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. ISBN 978-0-275-95411-6.^{[page needed]}
^ Airriess, Christopher A.; Contemporary Ethnic Geographies in America, p. 40. ISBN 1442218576
^ Murray, Robert K. (1976). The 103rd Ballot: Democrats and the Disaster in Madison Square Garden. New York: Harper & Row. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-06-013124-1.
^ Historical Statistics of the United States: 1789–1945, Series B 304–330 (p. 33). US Bureau of the Census, 1949.^{[original research?]}
^ Julian Levinson, Exiles on Main Street: Jewish American Writers and American Literary Culture (Indiana University Press, 2008), 54

External links

Statistics of who was allowed in after the Immigration Act of 1924
"'Shut the Door': A Senator Speaks for Immigration Restriction" – transcript of speech given before Congress by Sen. Ellison D. Smith, April 9, 1924
Eugenics Laws Restricting Immigration
Text of 1924 Immigration Act and enabling proclamation by the President
Quotas defined in Immigration Law of 1924

[20] Defined in the act as immigrants from Germany, Free City of Danzig, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the British Isles and Scandinavia

[21] Defined in the act as immigrants from the Baltic States, all Slavic nations, Hungary, Romania, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Albania and Greece

[LEP-1] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Murrin, John M.; Hämäläinen, Pekka; Johnson, Paul E.; Brunsman, Denver; McPherson, James M. (2015). Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American People, Volume 2: Since 1863. Cengage Learning.

[gov-2] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f "The Immigration Act of 1924 (The Johnson-Reed Act)". U.S Department of State Office of the Historian. Retrieved 2012-02-13.

[washpost-3] Fisher, Marc (January 28, 2017). "Open doors, slamming gates: The tumultuous politics of U.S. immigration policy". Washington Post. Retrieved 29 January 2017.

[Wright-4] Stuart J. Wright, An Emotional Gauntlet: From Life in Peacetime America to the War in European Skies (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), 163

[Guisepi-5] Guisepi, Robert A. (January 29, 2007). "Asian Americans". World History International.

[6] Matza, Michael (June 25, 2017). "Your immigrant ancestors came here legally? Are you sure?". Philly.com. Retrieved December 22, 2018.

[7] Lodge, Henry (1909). "The Restriction of Immigration" (PDF). University of Wisconsin. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-03-06. Retrieved 2012-03-02. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

[Imai-8] Imai, Shiho. "Immigration Act of 1924". Densho Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-08-15.

[9] Cannato, Vincent J. (2009). American Passage: The History of Ellis Island. New York: Harper. p. 331. ISBN 0-06-194039-9.

[10] "Immigration Bill Passes Senate by Vote of 62 to 6". New York Times. April 19, 1924. Retrieved February 18, 2011.

[11] "Senate Vote #126 (May 15, 1924)". govtrack.us. Civic Impulse, LLC. Retrieved 20 May 2011.

[jones277-12] Jones, Maldwyn Allen (1992) [1960]. American Immigration (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 237. ISBN 978-0226406336.

[13] "Who Was Shut Out?: Immigration Quotas, 1925–1927". History Matters. George Mason University. Retrieved January 3, 2012.

[14] Stephenson, George M. (1964). A History of American Immigration. 1820–1924. New York: Russel & Russel. p. 190.

[:0-15] Baynton, Douglas C. (2016). Defectives in the Land : Disability and Immigration in the Age of Eugenics. Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-0-226-36433-9.

[16] Gompers, Samuel. "Immigration and labor".(subscription required)

[koven-17] Steven G. Koven, Frank Götzke, American Immigration Policy: Confronting the Nation's Challenges (Springer, 2010), p. 133

[18] Hayes, Helene (2001). U.S. Immigration Policy and the Undocumented. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. ISBN 978-0-275-95411-6.^{[page needed]}

[19] Airriess, Christopher A.; Contemporary Ethnic Geographies in America, p. 40. ISBN 1442218576

[22] Murray, Robert K. (1976). The 103rd Ballot: Democrats and the Disaster in Madison Square Garden. New York: Harper & Row. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-06-013124-1.

[23] Historical Statistics of the United States: 1789–1945, Series B 304–330 (p. 33). US Bureau of the Census, 1949.^{[original research?]}

[24] Julian Levinson, Exiles on Main Street: Jewish American Writers and American Literary Culture (Indiana University Press, 2008), 54

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@@ Line 41: / Line 41: @@
 A limitation on [[Southern Europe|Southern]] and [[Eastern Europe]]an immigration was first proposed in 1909 by Senator [[Henry Cabot Lodge]].<ref>{{cite news |url=http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/pdocs/lodge_immigration.pdf |work=University of Wisconsin |title=The Restriction of Immigration |date=1909 |accessdate=2012-03-02 |first1=Henry |last1=Lodge |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120306093754/http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/pdocs/lodge_immigration.pdf |archivedate=2012-03-06 |df= }}</ref> In the wake of the [[post-World War I recession]], many Americans believed that bringing in more [[immigrants]] from other nations would only make the unemployment rate higher. The [[Red Scare]] of 1919–1921 had fueled [[Xenophobia|xenophobic]] fears of foreign radicals migrating to undermine American values and provoke an uprising like Russia's 1917 [[October Revolution|Bolshevik Revolution]].<ref name=Imai>{{cite web|last=Imai |first=Shiho |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Immigration%20Act%20of%201924/ |title=Immigration Act of 1924 |publisher=Densho Encyclopedia |accessdate=2014-08-15}}</ref> The number of immigrants entering the United States decreased for about a year from July 1919 to June 1920 but also doubled the year after that.<ref>{{cite book |last=Cannato |first=Vincent J. |title=American Passage: The History of Ellis Island |location=New York |publisher=Harper |year=2009 |isbn=0-06-194039-9 |pages=331 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zgz2gapK1DwC&pg=PA331 }}</ref>
-[[Albert Johnson (congressman)|Congressman Albert Johnson]] and [[David A. Reed|Senator David Reed]] were the two main architects of the act. In the wake of intense [[lobbying]], the act passed with strong congressional support.<ref>{{cite news |newspaper=New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1924/04/19/archives/immigration-bill-passes-the-senate-by-vote-of-62-to-6-ban-on.html |title=Immigration Bill Passes Senate by Vote of 62 to 6 |date=April 19, 1924 |accessdate=February 18, 2011}}</ref> There were nine dissenting votes in the [[United States Senate|Senate]]<ref>{{cite web|title=Senate Vote #126 (May 15, 1924)|url=http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=s68_1-126&sort=vote|work=govtrack.us|publisher=Civic Impulse, LLC|accessdate=20 May 2011}}</ref> and a handful of opponents in the [[United States House of Representatives|House]], the most vigorous of whom was freshman [[Brooklyn]] Representative and Jewish-American [[Emanuel Celler]]. Over the succeeding four decades, Celler made the repeal of the act his personal crusade.
+[[Albert Johnson (congressman)|Congressman Albert Johnson]] and [[David A. Reed|Senator David Reed]] were the two main architects of the act. In the wake of intense [[lobbying]], the act passed with strong congressional support.<ref>{{cite news |newspaper=New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1924/04/19/archives/immigration-bill-passes-the-senate-by-vote-of-62-to-6-ban-on.html |title=Immigration Bill Passes Senate by Vote of 62 to 6 |date=April 19, 1924 |accessdate=February 18, 2011}}</ref> There were nine dissenting votes in the [[United States Senate|Senate]]<ref>{{cite web|title=Senate Vote #126 (May 15, 1924)|url=http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=s68_1-126&sort=vote|work=govtrack.us|publisher=Civic Impulse, LLC|accessdate=20 May 2011}}</ref> and a handful of opponents in the [[United States House of Representatives|House]], the most vigorous of whom was freshman [[Brooklyn]] Representative and Jewish-American [[Emanuel Celler]]. Over the succeeding four decades, Celler made the repeal of the act his personal crusade.{{cn|date=February 2019}}
-Proponents of the act sought to establish a distinct American identity by preserving its ethnic homogeneity.<ref name=jones277>{{cite book|last=Jones|first=Maldwyn Allen|authorlink=Maldwyn Jones|title=American Immigration|location=Chicago|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=1992|origyear=1960 |edition=2nd|isbn=978-0226406336|page=237}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Who Was Shut Out?: Immigration Quotas, 1925–1927|url=http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5078|work=History Matters|publisher=[[George Mason University]]|accessdate=January 3, 2012}}</ref> Reed told the Senate that earlier legislation "disregards entirely those of us who are interested in keeping American stock up to the highest standard—that is, the people who were born here."<ref>{{cite book |first=George M. |last=Stephenson |title=A History of American Immigration. 1820–1924 |location=New York |publisher=Russel & Russel |year=1964 |page=190 }}</ref> He believed that immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, most of them Catholics or Jews, arrived sick and starving and therefore less capable of contributing to the American economy, and unable to adapt to American culture.<ref name=jones277 /> [[Eugenics in the United States|Eugenics]] was used as justification for the act's restriction of certain races or ethnicities of people in order to prevent the spread of perceived feeblemindedness in American society.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Defectives in the Land : Disability and Immigration in the Age of Eugenics|last=Baynton|first=Douglas C.|publisher=Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press|year=2016|isbn=978-0-226-36433-9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zdrFDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA45|page=45}}</ref> Most proponents of the law were rather concerned with upholding an ethnic status quo and avoiding competition with foreign workers.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Eckerson |first=Helen F. |year=1966 |title=Immigration and National Origins |journal=Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science |volume=367 |series=The New Immigration |pages=4–14 |jstor=1034838 |doi=10.1177/000271626636700102}}</ref> [[Samuel Gompers]], a Jewish immigrant and founder of the [[American Federation of Labor]] (AFL), supported the act because he opposed the cheap labor that immigration represented, despite the fact that the act would sharply reduce Jewish immigration.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.numbersusa.com/content/learn/issues/unions/what-samuel-gompers-had-say-about-illega.html |first=Samuel |last=Gompers |title=Immigration and labor |date= }}{{subscription required}}</ref> Both the AFL and [[Ku Klux Klan]] supported the act.<ref name=koven>Steven G. Koven, Frank Götzke, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=Pq04PFuRmQgC&pg=PA133 American Immigration Policy: Confronting the Nation's Challenges]'' (Springer, 2010), p. 133</ref>
+Proponents of the act sought to establish a distinct American identity by preserving its ethnic homogeneity.<ref name=jones277>{{cite book|last=Jones|first=Maldwyn Allen|authorlink=Maldwyn Jones|title=American Immigration|location=Chicago|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=1992|origyear=1960 |edition=2nd|isbn=978-0226406336|page=237}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Who Was Shut Out?: Immigration Quotas, 1925–1927|url=http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5078|work=History Matters|publisher=[[George Mason University]]|accessdate=January 3, 2012}}</ref> Reed told the Senate that earlier legislation "disregards entirely those of us who are interested in keeping American stock up to the highest standard—that is, the people who were born here."<ref>{{cite book |first=George M. |last=Stephenson |title=A History of American Immigration. 1820–1924 |location=New York |publisher=Russel & Russel |year=1964 |page=190 }}</ref> He believed that immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, most of them Catholics or Jews, arrived sick and starving and therefore less capable of contributing to the American economy, and unable to adapt to American culture.<ref name=jones277 /> [[Eugenics in the United States|Eugenics]] was used as justification for the act's restriction of certain races or ethnicities of people in order to prevent the spread of perceived feeblemindedness in American society.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Defectives in the Land : Disability and Immigration in the Age of Eugenics|last=Baynton|first=Douglas C.|publisher=Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press|year=2016|isbn=978-0-226-36433-9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zdrFDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA45|page=45}}</ref> [[Samuel Gompers]], a Jewish immigrant and founder of the [[American Federation of Labor]] (AFL), supported the act because he opposed the cheap labor that immigration represented, despite the fact that the act would sharply reduce Jewish immigration.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.numbersusa.com/content/learn/issues/unions/what-samuel-gompers-had-say-about-illega.html |first=Samuel |last=Gompers |title=Immigration and labor |date= }}{{subscription required}}</ref> Both the AFL and [[Ku Klux Klan]] supported the act.<ref name=koven>Steven G. Koven, Frank Götzke, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=Pq04PFuRmQgC&pg=PA133 American Immigration Policy: Confronting the Nation's Challenges]'' (Springer, 2010), p. 133</ref>
 Lobbyists from the [[West Coast of the United States|West Coast]], where a majority of Japanese, Korean, and other East Asian immigrants had settled, were especially concerned with excluding Asian immigrants. An 1882 law had already put an end to Chinese immigration, but as Japanese (and, to a lesser degree, Korean and Filipino) laborers began arriving and putting down roots in [[Western United States|western states]], an exclusionary movement formed in reaction to the "[[Yellow Peril]]." [[Valentine S. McClatchy]], founder of [[The McClatchy Company]] and a leader of the anti-Japanese movement, argued, "They come here specifically and professedly for the purpose of colonizing and establishing here permanently the proud [[Yamato people|Yamato race]]," citing their supposed inability to assimilate to American culture and the economic threat they posed to white businessmen and farmers. Despite some hesitation from President [[Calvin Coolidge]] and strong opposition from the Japanese government, with whom the U.S. government had previously maintained a cordial economic and political relationship, the act was signed into law on May 24, 1924.<ref name=Imai/>
@@ Line 61: / Line 61: @@
 ==Results==
-[[Image:European immigration to the United States 1881-1940.png|right|thumb|250px|Relative proportions of immigrants from Northwestern Europe{{efn|Defined in the act as immigrants from [[Germany]], [[Free City of Danzig]], [[Switzerland]], [[Austria]], [[Belgium]], [[France]], [[Luxembourg]], [[British Isles|the British Isles]] and [[Scandinavia]].}} (red) and Southern and Eastern Europe{{efn|Defined in the act as immigrants from the [[Baltic States]], all [[Slavs|Slavic nations]], [[Magyar people|Hungary]], [[Romania]], [[Italy]], [[Spain]], [[Portugal]], [[Albania]] and [[Greek people|Greece]].}} (blue) in the decades before and after the immigration restriction legislation.]]
+[[Image:European immigration to the United States 1881-1940.png|right|thumb|250px|Relative proportions of immigrants from Northwestern Europe{{efn|Defined in the act as immigrants from [[Germany]], [[Free City of Danzig]], [[Switzerland]], [[Austria]], [[Belgium]], [[France]], [[Luxembourg]], [[British Isles|the British Isles]] and [[Scandinavia]]}} (red) and Southern and Eastern Europe{{efn|Defined in the act as immigrants from the [[Baltic States]], all [[Slavs|Slavic nations]], [[Magyar people|Hungary]], [[Romania]], [[Italy]], [[Spain]], [[Portugal]], [[Albania]] and [[Greek people|Greece]]}} (blue) in the decades before and after the 1924 act]]
 The act's revised formula reduced total immigration from 357,803 in 1923–24 to 164,667 in 1924–25. The law's impact varied widely by country. Immigration from Great Britain and Ireland fell 19%, while immigration from Italy fell more than 90%.<ref>{{cite book |first=Robert K. |last=Murray |title=The 103rd Ballot: Democrats and the Disaster in Madison Square Garden |location=New York |publisher=Harper & Row |year=1976 |page=7 |isbn=978-0-06-013124-1}}</ref>
@@ Line 69: / Line 69: @@
 The law sharply curtailed immigration from those countries that were previously host to the vast majority of the Jews in America, almost 75 percent of whom immigrated from Russia alone.<ref name=Wright>Stuart J. Wright, ''An Emotional Gauntlet: From Life in Peacetime America to the War in European Skies'' (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), 163</ref> Because Eastern European immigration only became substantial in the final decades of the 19th century, the law's use of the population of the United States in 1890 as the basis for calculating quotas effectively made mass migration from Eastern Europe, where the vast majority of the [[Jewish diaspora]] lived at the time, impossible.<ref>Julian Levinson, ''Exiles on Main Street: Jewish American Writers and American Literary Culture'' (Indiana University Press, 2008), 54</ref>
-During [[World War II]], the U.S. modified the act to set immigration quotas for their allies is China and the Philippines.<ref name=Guisepi /> The quotas were eased in the [[Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952]] and replaced in the [[Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965]].
+During [[World War II]], the U.S. modified the act to set immigration quotas for their allies in China and the Philippines.<ref name=Guisepi /> The immigration quotas were eased in the [[Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952]] and replaced in the [[Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965]].
 ==See also==
 * [[Anti-Italianism]]
+* [[Antisemitism in the United States]]
+* [[China Swede]]
 * [[Eugenics in the United States]]
 * [[List of United States Immigration Acts]]
 * [[Paris Peace Conference, 1919#Japanese approach|Racial equality proposal]]
 * [[White Australia policy]]
-* [[Antisemitism in the United States]]
 * [[Yellow Peril]]
-* [[China Swede]]
 ==Notes==
@@ Line 88: / Line 88: @@
 ==Further reading==
+*{{cite journal |last=Eckerson |first=Helen F. |year=1966 |title=Immigration and National Origins |journal=Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science |volume=367 |series=The New Immigration |pages=4–14 |jstor=1034838 |doi=10.1177/000271626636700102}}
 *{{Cite book |title=U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Laws and Issues: A Documentary History |editor1-last=Lemay |editor1-first=Michael Robert |editor2-last=Barkan |editor2-first=Elliott Robert |publisher=Greenwood Press |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-313-30156-8|ref=harv }}
 *{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/213815614|title=White by law : the legal construction of race|last=Ian|first=Haney-López|date=2006|publisher=New York University Press|isbn=0814736947|edition=Rev. and updated, 10th anniversary|location=New York|oclc=213815614}}
@@ Line 116: / Line 117: @@
 [[Category:Anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States]]
 [[Category:Anti-Croat sentiment]]
-[[Category:Anti-immigration politics in the United States]]
 [[Category:Anti-Estonian sentiment]]
 [[Category:Anti-Filipino sentiment]]
@@ Line 122: / Line 122: @@
 [[Category:Anti-Hungarian sentiment]]
 [[Category:Anti-Igbo sentiment]]
+[[Category:Anti-immigration politics in the United States]]
 [[Category:Anti-Indian sentiment in the United States]]
 [[Category:Anti-Iranian sentiments]]
@@ Line 130: / Line 131: @@
 [[Category:Anti-Pakistan sentiment]]
 [[Category:Anti-Portuguese sentiment]]
-[[Category:Anti-Serbian sentiment]]
-[[Category:Antisemitism in the United States]]
 [[Category:Anti-Romanian sentiment]]
+[[Category:Anti-Romanyism]]
 [[Category:Anti-Russian sentiment]]
+[[Category:Antisemitism in the United States]]
+[[Category:Anti-Serbian sentiment]]
 [[Category:Anti-Slavic sentiment]]
 [[Category:Anti-Spanish sentiment]]
@@ Line 140: / Line 142: @@
 [[Category:Anti-Vietnamese sentiment]]
 [[Category:Asian-American issues]]
-[[Category:Italian-American history]]
 [[Category:Eastern Europeans in the United States]]
-[[Category:History of the United States (1918–45)]]
+[[Category:Eugenics in the United States]]
 [[Category:Hispanophobia]]
+[[Category:History of the United States (1918–45)]]
+[[Category:Italian-American history]]
 [[Category:Nordicism]]
 [[Category:Presidency of Calvin Coolidge]]
 [[Category:United States federal immigration and nationality legislation]]
 [[Category:United States repealed legislation]]
-[[Category:Anti-Romanyism]]
-[[Category:Eugenics in the United States]]

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