Immigration Law 1943-1965 Asian Americans and the Law Dr. Steiner

Immigration Law 1943-1965

Asian Americans and the Law

Dr. Steiner

Filipino American Population:Immigration by Decade and Immigration Law in Effect

Decade ending Population Immigration in Prior Decade

Law in Effect in Prior Decade

1910 2,767 U.S. possession



1940 98,535 781 In 1934, 1917 & 1924 Acts

1950 122,707 4,324 In 1946, quota of 100

1960 176,310 19,307 1952 Act

1970 343,060 98,376 1953 Act; 1965 Act

1980 781,894 354,987 1965 Act

1990 1,406,770 525,300 1965 Act

--Hing, Making and Remaking Asian America Through Immigration Policy, 1850-1990

Asian Indian American Population:Immigration by Decade and Immigration Law in Effect

Decade ending Population Immigration in Prior Decade


1910 5,424 4,713 Open

1920 2,082 Asiatic barred Zone (1917)

1930 3,130 1,886 1924 Act

1940 2,405 496 1924 Acts

1950 1,761 In 1946, quota of 100

1960 12,296 1,973 1946 quota;1952 Act

1970 72,500 27,189 1952 Act; 1965 Act

1980 387,223 164,134 1965 Act

1990 815,447 147,900 1965 Act

--Hing, Making and Remaking Asian America Through Immigration Policy, 1850-1990

Chinese American Population:Immigration by Decade and Immigration Law in Effect

Decade ending

Population Immigration in Prior Decade


1880 105,465 123,201 Burlingame Treaty

1890 107,488 61,711 Chinese Exclusion Act




1930 102,159 29,907 Chinese Exclusion Act/1924 Act

1940 106,334 4,928 Chinese Exclusion Act/Chinese Repealer

1950 150,005 16,709 Chinese Repealer/Asian-Pacific Triangle

1960 237,292 25,201 Asian-Pacific Triangle

1970 436,062 109,771 Asian-Pacific Triangle; 1965 Act

1980 812,178 237,793 1965 Act

1990 1,645,472 446,000 1965 Act

Racing the Enemy The “yellow” color race code was the branding of

choice when referring to the Japanese. They were the “yellow peril,” and “yellow monkeys.” Even Time magazine in a report on Pearl Harbor used the phrase, “the yellow bastards!” The New York Times contributed with their own anti-Japanese rhetoric explaining how the Japanese “have kept their savage tradition ‘unbroken through ages eternal,’ from the fabulous age of their savage gods to the present day.” Anthony V. Navarro, A Critical Comparison Between Japanese

and American Propaganda during World War II

“Great East Asia War”December 13, 1941 Overthrow the American and British

imperialists, who have oppressed and squeezed one billion Asians, in order to establish an ideal order of co-prosperity and co-existence in East Asia.

Japanese Propaganda Leaflet

America is China’s ally. Americans say they love and admire the Chinese. But can you go to America, can you become citizens? No. Americans do not want you. They just want you to do their fighting. Their Exclusion Act names you and says you are unfit for American citizenship. . . . There will be no such discrimination against you in the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere.

“The Hypocritical and Ugly Face of the United States,” China Daily (June 24, 1943)

If the American government does not abolish the discriminatory laws against the Chinese, Asian people have no equality. . . . All Asians [must] unite together to drive away American and British imperialists from Asia in order to establish a prosperous Asia for the Asiatics.

Japanese radio broadcasts

Far from waging this war to liberate the oppressed peoples of the world, the Anglo-American leaders are trying to restore the obsolete system of imperialism.

Pearl S. Buck, Feb. 1942

The Japanese weapon of racial propaganda in Asia is beginning to show signs of effectiveness. . . . We cannot win this war without convincing our colored allies—who are most of our allies—that we are not fighting for ourselves as continuing superior over colored peoples.

Citizens Committee to Repeal Chinese Exclusion and Place Immigration on a Quota

Basis

Exclusion and Extraterritoriality

Exclusion and Extraterritoriality, Contemporary China (May 18, 1942) “White supremacy” of American immigration laws

and extraterritoriality criticized This is No Racial War, Contemporary China

(August 10, 1942) Freedom and equality for “all the oppressed races

and nations”

United States Department of StateJune 17, 1942 Japanese campaigns of “Asia for the

Asiatics” and “the colored races of the world united under Japanese leadership against the white races” could win in Asia

United States Rescinds ExtraterritorialityOct. 10, 1942 “Extraterritoriality” was invoked by colonial powers to deprive foreign nations of jurisdiction over crimes by Westerners, who would be tried by courts constituted by their home countries such as the United States Court for China.

FDR announced that United States had decided to rescind one-sided treaties

Chiang Kai-shek responded that FDR’s action would “unquestionably . . . boost morale of our Chinese to fight against aggression continuously” and “any other actions can not compare with the abolition of the unequal treaties”

Memorandum by the Advisor on Political Relations, Department of State (June 9,

1943) During the past forty years the Japanese,

increasingly smarting under the grievance, as they saw it, of our discrimination against them as a race, made of this discrimination a diplomatic issue and used the fact of this discrimination as a springboard and a projectile of propaganda among their own people against the white race in general and the United States in particular.

Hearings on Chinese Exclusion,House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, May/June 1943

Six hearings with fifty-one witnesses 42 witnesses favored repeal, arguing repeal

would help the United States win the war 9 opposed, including coalition named American

Coalition who called Chinese “morally the most debased people on the face of the earth”

Representative Walter H. Judd (Rep. Minn.), 1943

There will never be a war between the white and colored races, if only we keep the largest and strongest of them, the Chinese, with us.

FDR Special Message to CongressOct. 10, 1943

Congress had to “take the offensive in this propaganda war and repeal the laws that insult our only ally on the mainland of Asia”

FDR, Oct. 11, 1943

China is our ally. For many long years she stood alone in the fight against aggression. Today we fight at her side. She has continued her gallant struggle against very great odds. . . . By the repeal of the Chinese exclusion law, we can correct a historic mistake and silence the distorted Japanese propaganda.

FDR Dec. 17, 1943

It is with particular pride and pleasure that I have today signed the bill repealing the Chinese exclusion acts. . . . An unfortunate barrier between allies has been removed. The war effort in the Far East can now be carried on with a greater vigor and a larger understanding of our common purpose.

What did the Repealer accomplish?

Quotas for Chinese immigrants (105 per year)

Chinese immigrants became eligible for naturalization

Chinese Americans and WWII Approximately 14,000 Chinese served in U.S.

Armed Forces—22% of all Chinese adult males Harold Liu: “In the 1940s for the first time Chinese

were accepted by Americans as being friends because at that time, Chinese and Americans were fighting against the Japanese and the Germans and the Nazis. Therefore, all of a sudden, we became part of the American Dream. . . . It was a whole different era and in the community we began to feel very good about ourselves.”

Filipino Americans and WWII Bataan: “The gallant United States and Philippine

forces in Bataan peninsula surrendered today after enduring the tortures of hell. They were beaten, but it was a fight that ought to make every American bow his head in tribute. . . . The Americans fought for everything they loved, as did the Filipinos.”

Carlos Bulosan: “Bataan has fallen. . .Our defeat is our victory.”

Manuel Buaken: “No longer on the streetcar do I feel myself in the presence of my enemies. We Filipinos are the same—it is Americans that have changed in their recognition of us.

1946 Changes in Immigration Law

Filipinos and Asian Indians Naturalization and “Asiatic Barred Zone”

immigration restrictions lifted 100 person quota for each year established No quota for spouses and children of citizens

Chinese Annual quota of 105 remained in place, but

nonquota status extended to Chinese wives of citizens

McCarran-Walter Act (1952) Reaffirmed the basic provisions of the national

origins quota system; seventy percent of all immigrant slots allotted to natives of United Kingdom, Ireland, and Germany

Annual ceiling for all immigration set at 154,277. Immigration and naturalization exclusions against

Asians were abolished The act gave preferences (within the national origins

quotas) to foreigners with education or skills (fifty percent), as well as relatives (twenty percent)

McCarran-Walter Act and American Foreign Policy

This bill would make all persons, regardless of race, eligible for naturalization, and would set up minimum quotas for aliens now barred for racial reasons. Thus, persons of Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, etc., ancestry could be admitted and naturalized as any other qualified alien. No doubt this will have a favorable effect on our international relations, particularly in the Far East. American exclusion policy has long been resented there and, in the eyes of qualified observers, was an important factor in the anti-American feeling in Japan prior to the last World War. House Judiciary Committee Report (1952)

McCarran-Walter Act and the Asia-Pacific Triangle

McCarran-Walter and Asia-Pacific Triangle Asia-Pacific Triangle included all countries

from India to Japan and all Pacific islands north of Australia

Maximum quota for Triangle set at 2000, with annual quotas of 100 for the nineteen countries within Triangle

McCarran-Walter Act and Race:Minority Report Complete adoption of the principle that an alien be

chargeable to the quota of his country of birth, regardless of race, on the other hand, would enhance our Nation’s moral leadership in the world and, in particular, would strengthen our prestige in the critical areas of Asia and the lands of the Pacific where the struggle between democracy and communism rages most fiercely in the minds of men. The gain to us may be the lives of millions of our sons.

Pat McCarran (Dem., Nevada)Harms of Increased Asian Immigration, 1952

[T]he cold, hard truth is that in the United States today there are hard-core, indigestible blocs who have not become integrated into the American way of life, but who, on the contrary, are its deadly enemy. The cold, hard truth, Mr. President, is that today, as never before, untold millions are storming our gates for admission; and those gates are cracking under the strain. The cold, hard fact is, too, Mr. President, that this Nation is the last hope of western civilization; and if this oasis of the world shall be overrun, perverted, contaminated, or destroyed, then the last flickering light of humanity will be extinguished.

Harry S Truman’s Veto Message of McCarran-Walter Act These are only a few examples of the

absurdity, the cruelty of carrying over into this year of 1952 the isolationist limitations of our 1924 law. In no other realm of our national life are we so hampered and stultified by the dead hand of the past, as we are in this field of immigration.

Veto overriden.

JFK on “National Origins”July 23, 1963

It neither satisfies a national need nor accomplishes an international purpose. In an age of interdependence among nations, such a system is an anachronism for it discriminates among applicants for admission into the United States on the basis of the accident of birth.

Wait Lists under McCarran-Walter

When visas weren’t available, an alien could be placed on a waiting list

When 1965 Act passed, the largest backlog for visas was in Italy and Greece

But 40,000 were on the Chinese wait list, which meant a wait of 380 years because of a quota set at 105

The Hart-Celler Act of 1965 Abolished the national origins quota system

Allocated 170,000 visas to countries in the Eastern Hemisphere and 120,000 to countries in the Western Hemisphere. This increased the annual ceiling on immigrants from

150,000 to 290,000. Each Eastern Hemisphere country was allowed an

allotment of 20,000 visas, while in the Western Hemisphere there was no per-country limit.

Non-quota immigrants and immediate relatives (i.e., spouses, minor children, and parents of U.S. citizens over the age of 21) were not to be counted as part of either the hemispheric or country ceiling.

Three Decades of Mass Immigration (Center for Immigration Studies, 1995)

Hart-Celler Act

No person shall receive any preference or priority or be discriminated against in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of his race, sex, nationality, place of birth, or place of residence. . . .

Immigration and Foreign Policy Representative John Lindsay, 1965

[T]his nation has committed itself to the defense of the independence of South Vietnam. Yet the quota for that country of 15 million is exactly 100. Apparently we are willing to risk a major war for the right of the Vietnamese people to live in freedom at the same time our quota system makes it clear that we do not want very great numbers of them to live with us.

Gabriel Chin,The Civil Rights Revolution Comes to Immigration Law (1996) The revolutionary feature of the 1965 Act was its elimination

of race and national origin as selection criteria for new Americans. Race neutrality was a significant development for American immigration law . . . . The 1965 Act represents a high-water mark for opponents of immigration restriction. They celebrate the humane spirit of the 88th and 89th Congresses which, in two remarkable years, passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the 1965 immigration law. Diversification of the immigrant stream is, from this perspective, no less a civil rights triumph than is equal opportunity under law in the voting booth or in the workplace. The elimination of race as a factor was a practical as well as symbolic change. Since 1965, upwards of seventy-five percent of immigrants have been from Asia, Africa, or Central or South America.

LBJ at Signing Ceremony for Hart-Celler of 1965

This system violates the basic principle of American democracy–the principle that values and rewards each man on the basis of his merit as a man. It has been un-American in the highest sense, because it has been untrue to the faith that brought thousands to these shores even before we were a country.

Civil Rights and Immigration

The national origins quotas and the Asian-Pacific triangle provisions are irrational, arrogantly intolerant, and immoral. Senator Joseph Clark

(Dem. Pa.), 1965

Immigration and Civil Rights I would consider the amendments to the

Immigration and Nationality Act to be as important as the landmark legislation of this Congress relating to the Civil Rights Act. The central purpose of the administration's immigration bill is to once again undo discrimination and to revise the standards by which we choose potential Americans in order to be fairer to them and which will certainly be more beneficial to us. Rep. Robert Sweeney (D-OH) (Aug. 25, 1965)

Immigration and Civil Rights

Just as we sought to eliminate discrimination in our land through the Civil Rights Act, today we seek by phasing out the national origins quota system to eliminate discrimination in immigration to this nation composed of the descendants of immigrants. Rep. Philip Burton (D-Cal) (Aug. 25, 1965)

Civil Rights and Immigration After almost 100 years,

Asian peoples are no longer discriminated against in the immigration laws of our country. Edward Kennedy

(Dem. Mass)

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Prohibited discrimination in public places,

Provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities,

Made employment discrimination illegal

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Prohibited practices such as literacy tests that had used to disenfranchise blacks in South

Provided for special federal remedies

Hart-Celler Act:Family Reunification Immediate relatives defined as “the children,

spouses, and parents of a citizen of the United States”

Immediate relatives admitted “without regard to the numerical limitations in this Act”

Post-1965 Immigration Patterns In 1965, Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom,

Germany were the top countries sending immigrants to the United States

By 1973, the order was Mexico, the Philippines, Cuba, and Korea; China, India, and the Dominican Republic replaced Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany from the top ten.

Continent/Country of Origin Immigrants 1971-2002

Africa 875,700

Asia 7,331,500

China 1,179,300

India 1,005,100

Philippines 1,508,100

South Korea 839,600

Vietnam 1,098,000

Europe 3,300,400

North America 9,844,500

Caribbean 2,936,800

Central America 1,334,200

Mexico 5,141,600

Immigration Chains: Non-quota Family Reunification In 1975, 386,194 immigrants admitted to

U.S., including 132,469 Asians with 33,539 immediate relatives

In 1980, 560,639 immigrants admitted, including 236,097 from Asia with 59,029 immediate relatives

In 1990, 1,536,483 immigrants admitted, including 338,581 Asians, including 96,810 relatives

Professionals and Immigration Patterns

In 1973, less than 25% of immigrants were in professional and technical fields; 54% of Asians were in this category, including 67% of Filipinos and 83% of Asian Indians Maldwyn Allen Jones, American Immigration(2d ed. 1992)

Asian Pacific Americans with a Bachelors Degree or Higher by Ethnicity and Immigrant Status

0

10

20

30

40

50

60A

sian

Indi

an

Chi

nese

Filip

ino

Kor

ean

Vie

tnam

ese

Native Born

Immigrant

Table from Reframing the Immigration Debate 56 (1996)

Family Reunification/Occupational Categories, 1969, 1985, 1989Place of Birth Relatives

1969Relatives 1985

Relatives 1989

Occupational 1969

Occupational 1985

Occupational 1989

China 60.9% 80.9% 92.6% 20.8% 15.8% 5.2%

India 27 85.9 85.1 45 12.6 1.4

Japan 74.5 59.4 64.1 17.6 33.1 28.9

Korea 64 89.2 88.9 23.2 7.6 9.5

Philippines 55 86.9 87.8 42.3 7.6 8.1

Vietnam 82.7 15.7 98.8 8 .18 1.1

Family Reunification and Occupational Preference Categories Family reunification categories offered more

visas (80% of all preference and 100% of immediate-relative, nonquota visas until 1990) and less stringent requirements (relationship as spouse, parent, child, or sibling)

Occupational categories required certification from the Department of Labor that no qualified American worker could fill the position Hing, Making and Remaking Asian America Through Immigration Policy

Filipina Nurses and the 1965 Act By 1974, there were more than 10,000 Filipina

nurses in the United States. What accounts for this influx of nurses?

Push-pull factors American colonization had led to American-style nursing

programs Philippine colleges producing large numbers of

graduates, but the economy promised few jobs Philippine government actively encouraged nurses to go

to the United States for work The United States had a chronic nursing shortage

Philippine Economy

“There is an overabundance of a well-educated middle class in the Philippines, and a startling number of them cannot use their special learning after graduation. The Philippine government’s own statistics indicate that only 60% of today’s college graduates are employed in any more than menial jobs.” Los Angeles Times 1972

In addition to lack of jobs, wages were low.

Ferdinand MarcosAddress to Philippine Nurses Association 1973 And so, in short, what is the policy

of nursing? . . . It is our policy to promote the migration of nurses. . . . I repeat, we will now encourage the training of all nurses because as I repeat, this is a market that we should take advantage of. Instead of stopping the nurses from going abroad why don’t we produce more nurses? If they want a thousand nurses we produce a thousand more.

Overseas Employment Development Board Established by Philippine government in 1974

Publicized availability of Filipino labor in overseas labor markets

Evaluated overseas employment contracts Recruited Filipino workers for work abroad, including

vigorously promoting the migration of nurses

Catherine Ceniza Choy, Relocating Struggle: Filipino Nurses Organize in the United States

The Asian Population 2000 (Census Brief 2002)

The Asian Population 2000 (Census Brief 2002)

From the Mideast to the Pacific:A Profile of the Nation’s Asian Foreign-Born Population (Census Brief 2000)

Unintended Consequences?Bill Ong Hing (1993)

In considering and ultimately passing these [1965 immigration] reforms, policymakers did not pay careful attention to those Asian American and Asian social forces that Congress and state governments had previously endeavored to hold in check—Asian American family needs, economic ambitions, and residential patterns. Most policymakers did not understand how the political, economic, and social dynamics in Asian countries would influence immigration. They knew little about Asian American communities, Asian countries, and their relationship, and their analyses by and large were cursory and highly inaccurate. Asian immigration after 1965 took the United States by surprise.

Attorney General Robert Kennedy Predicts What? I would say for the

Asia-Pacific triangle it would be approximately 5,000, . . . after which immigration from that source would virtually disappear; 5,000 immigrants would come in the first year, but we do not expect that there would be any great influx after that.

Documents

Immigration Law 1943-1965 Asian Americans and the Law Dr. Steiner