Ethnic Identity in the 20th-Century U.S.

“You are very curious to us. You invite us to live among you in an atmosphere of equality that we have never known before; you give us ownership of our own lives for the first time and you ask no more of us than you do of yourselves. I hope you understand how special you are in this—how unique a people you are. Which is why it is all the more painful and confusing to us that so few of you are capable of living up to the ideals you set for yourselves.”

--Mandy Patinkin as Sangia Solenz-Aah, Alien Nation (1988)

The House I Live in (1945), starring Frank SinatraMusic and Lyrics, Earl Robinson and Abel Meeropol [Lewis Allen]

U.S. Immigration History Time Line

1790 First U.S. Naturalization Law1845 Irish Famine, first wave of massive immigration1865 Civil War ends, new era of industrial development1882 Chinese Exclusion Act1893 Ellis Island opens, Federal Government takes administrative responsibility from states1894 Immigration Restriction League founded1924 Johnson-Reed Immigration Restriction Act, or National Origins Act1942 Japanese American Internment1942-1964 Bracero Program for Mexican workers1943 Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act1952 McCarran-Walter Act1954 Operation “Wetback”1965 Hart-Cellar Act, or Immigration and Nationality Act1965 and after, first massive Third World immigration—Asia, the Americas,

Africa1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act

Immigration History Periodization

1790 – 1845 “Free White Persons”Modest immigration from West and North Europe

1845 – 1924 Anglo-Saxons and “Others”Massive immigration from Europe—increasingly from southern and

eastern Europe--modest immigration from Asia andMexico

1924 – 1965 “The 3 Great Races of Mankind”Relatively little immigration—restriction, Depression, warConsolidation of notions of “difference” coinciding with “color”

Post-1965 “A Nation of Immigrants: the New Pluralism and the New Racism”Heavy migration from the Americas and Asia, relatively little from EuropeCivil Rights and “Post”-Civil Rights erasMulticulturalismLegal and Illegal immigration

mfj1958DIG

White Ethnic Revival

Meredith Baxter & David Birney

Arnie Nuvo and family, Arnie

Rob Reiner as Michael Stivic, All in the Family

Valerie Harper as Rhoda Morgenstern, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda

Margaret Houlihan and Radar O’Reilly, M*A*S*H

Kojak

David Starsky, Starsky and Hutch

Baretta

Mary Beth Lacy and Christine Cagney

Arthur Fonzerelli, Happy Days

Laverne Defazio and Shirley FeenyLaverne and Shirley

Carla Tortelli, Cheers

Ellis Island

Legals and “Illegals” in a Nation of Immigrants