Chapt 11 New Immigration

While the great immigration that started in 19th Century ended around the end of WWII, people never stopped to come to the United States for a better life. From the Roaring Twenties to the defeat of the Axis Powers, nearly five million immigrants came in droves to the United States, despite these groups being historically ignored for some time. What's interesting about this period of emigration to America is that the records of people going in and out of the United States kept going up for a few years, until following the Great Depression (1932-1935) did more remigrated than immigrated into this country. Before World War One, around 90% of immigrants were primarily European and the focus of the Immigration Act of 1924 was to attract more of these people, mainly from the British, Irish, German, and Scandinavian nations. This act was big, considering that the people of America's former WWI enemy, Germany, made up one fifth of the European immigration in 1924, jumping up to a tenth of the total of immigrants that settled in the United States.

It never occurred to me that the American Immigration Act of 1924 was set to attract people from the northern most countries in Europe, but it makes sense for a couple of reasons. These immigrants were essentially white which provided the United States with the excuse to increase and purify White American society. Although the Irish were historically discriminated for their customs and religion, eventually America came to accept them for their motives in political life and mainly since they were white. It was definitely the same case with the British, Germans, and Scandinavians, but most likely due to the similarities they shared with Americans as far as religion, customs, and perspectives on government were concerned. This connects a bit with Ben Franklin's thoughts of increasing the number of white people in America, except he regarded the Germans as a swarthy group and never recognized the Irish (likely since they were Catholics and American colonists never thought too well of them, as did the English).

Around this time, the number of immigrants from Canada and Mexico increased by 50%. This was a complex situation for these people (particularly the Mexicans) since there were from within the "New World" and not subject to the quota system. Provisions were made in 1921 to allow wives and children of United States citizens be nonquota persons, but not if they were aliens ineligible for citizenship. Others allowed in or back into America included resident aliens returning from visits back home, religious ministers and their families, domestic servants, and people practicing in a professional field. In the case of European immigrants, the British and Irish quotas was around sixty-five thousand annually, but it was never filled up. As restrictions on immigration got tighter, more people began to step into the United States illegally whether by fraud, jumping ship, crossing the Mexican or Canadian border without a visa, or through other means of entering. This era of immigration testifies to the notion that people of all nationalities will go to any lengths to start anew in the United States, even if the consequences of their arrival are undesirable.