An examination of US history reveals a pattern of
xenophobia and nativism which often leads to discrimination and hostility
towards immigrants and different ethnic groups. Germans, Irish, and Italians
found themselves the target of anti-immigrant hysteria and discrimination. The
rhetoric used against recent immigrants also appears to bear some similarities
to past discussions. The early decades of the twentieth century appear as a
watershed in the history of American immigration as thousands of migrants from Eastern and Southern Europe poured into American docks. The United States
previously banned immigration from China and Japan through the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907 forbidding Japanese
immigration. The concern over immigration increased as largely Catholic and
Jewish immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe poured into the United
States threatening in the eyes of the elite the dominance of the Protestant majority
culture. Daniel Okrent in his book, The
Guarded Gate tells the story beginning in 1895 of anti-immigrant or restrictionist
politicians and elites who strived to not only limit immigration but halt the
large number of migrants from areas deemed too alien for the United States to successfully
assimilate. The move to limit
immigration soon discovered an ally within scientific racism and eugenics as
many progressive elites believed that the large numbers of Catholics and Jews derived
from an inferior racial grouping which would dilute the superior Northern
European ancestry of most Americans.
The
core concern of many progressive elites was the theory that if immigration
continued that the inferior genetic immigrants threatened to replace the
majority Northern European Protestant with their substandard racial
characteristics and supposed lower intelligence. Politicians led by Boston
Brahmin Henry Cabot Lodge initially sought to limit immigration trough a
literacy test for new immigrants. But failure to institute literacy tests led
to a use of scientific racism along with eugenics to provide a scientific basis
for immigration quotas. Charles Benedict Davenport, a descendent of New England
Puritans sought to use eugenics to improve an evolving humanity and established
the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory for the study of human improvement through
eugenics. Henry Goddard’s Kallikak study of “defectives” convinced many
states to impose sterilization upon those judged feeble minded or slow. Goddard
also examined recent immigrants at Ellis Island and judged that 79% of
Italians, 80% of Hungarians, and 83% of Jews were feeble-minded or imbeciles. Madison Grant, the founder of the Bronx Zoo, caused great concern of racial replacement
in his book The Passing of the Great Race,
where he declared that the white race faced extinction due to intermixing with
inferior racial groups and low birth rates. According to Grant and most who
expressed fears of immigration the immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe were
definitely not white but a different racial stock altogether. Interestingly, Grant’s ideas and writings later
found great reception in Nazi Germany and still find enthusiastic acceptance
among white supremacists and nationalists today.
The concern over immigration and the “science” of racial
classifications culminated in the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 which placed strict
quotas on new immigrants and based the quotas on the 1890 census. Areas such as
Britain and other Northern European countries received higher quotas based on
the descendants within America in 1890 while other areas received only a
pittance in the number of migrants allowed in the USA. The comprehensive was
not only meant to limit immigration but to preserve and protect White
Protestant society in the United States. Not only did the quotas inspire Hitler
and the Nazi Party, who verbally praised American efforts, but placed
roadblocks to fleeing Jews desperate to escape the horrors of the coming
Holocaust. Okrent’s work presents serious arguments regarding the consequences
of the bigotry and racism which drove much of the anti-immigrant hysteria of
the early 20th century. The appearance of the same arguments used by
white supremacists groups and even the use of the replacement theory by
respected commentators demonstrates the importance of examining this history
and makes The Guarded Gate a valuable
tool in examining this important history.
