Assigned Blog #3

Anti-Immigration in the United States started even before the 1900’s. Nativists and special interest groups pressured the federal government to “exclude unwelcome immigrants". Many of the immigrants that these groups wanted to keep out of the United States were prostitutes(originally Asian women), convicts, contract laborers, the mentally ill, and the diseased. Sometimes the government even put a head tax on new arrivals. However, in the early 20th century many different groups and organizations wanted the government to reduce and to regulate the number of “new” immigrants coming to the US. One of the proposals was to impose literacy requirements for all immigrants. Twenty years after the law was proposed Congress finally passed it in 1917. This law required all new immigrants to take a literacy test.

Immigration slowed drastically during World War I, but events following the war caused an intense opposition of immigration and soon came the “clash of cultures”. This “clash” soon lead to the Emergency Quota Act of 1921, an act limiting immigration to three percent of the number of immigrants of any particular country that had been living in the US in 1910. This act only partially reduced the constant flow of new immigrants. Three years after this act was passed Congress passed another act, the Immigration Act of 1924. This law restricted new arrivals to just two percent of foreign-born residents according to the Census of 1890. This law almost eliminated all immigration from southern and eastern Europe and also immigration from Asia.

The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan also played a big role in anti-immigration. They focused on defending white, Christian civilization, promoting community activities, enforcing morality, and combating corruption and concentrated economic power. Many of these activities were related to immigration, which is why they played such a big role. They wanted to preserve an "idealized golden-age" of the United States, and they focused on anti-immigration to achieve this. The Ku Klux Klan responded to cultural changes, and immigration caused a lot of cultural change in the United States. 

Anti-Immigration played a huge role in our nation's history. It also was a huge part of the 1920's and during that decade is when many laws were passed that had to do with immigration to the United States. 

Sources:

"Anti-Immigration and the KKK." EHistory. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2013. <http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/mmh/clash/imm_kkk/Immigration Pages/Immigration-page2.htm>.

"Immigration Act of 1924." United States History. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Dec. 2013. <http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1398.html>;.

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Comments

  • Very well done Emma!

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