The Immigration Acts of
1917 and 1924
Asian Americans and the Law
Dr. Steiner
Carroll D. Wright
Massachusetts Commissioner of Labor Statistics, 1881

The Canadian French are the Chinese of the
Eastern United States.

They care nothing for our institutions. . .
.They do not come to make a home among
us. . . . Their purpose is merely to sojourn a
few years as aliens. . . And, when they have
gathered out of us what will satisfy their
ends, to get them from whence they came,
and bestow it there. They are a horde of
industrial invaders, not a stream of stable
settlers.
Cesare Lombroso
Receding hairline,
forehead wrinkles,
bumpy face,
broad nose,
fleshy lips,
sloping shoulders,
long arms, and
pointy fingers
New Physiognomy (1866)

On the left, Florence Nightingale; on the right, Bridget McBruiser.
The Jukes

Richard L. Dugdale,
The Jukes: A Study in Crime, Pauperism,
Disease, and Heredity (1877)



Seven generations of petty criminals, prostitutes,
and paupers
Traced back to “Margaret, the Mother of
Criminals”
Arthur H. Estabrook, The Jukes in 1915

The family was still “unredeemed” and beset by
“feeblemindedness, indolence, licentiousness, and
dishonesty”
William Z. Ripley,
The Races of Europe (1899)

Ripley divided European peoples into three
sub-categories of the Caucasian race:




Nordic
Alpine
Mediterranean
Ripley focused on the cephalic index
(measurement of head size)
William Z. Ripley,
“Races in the United States” (1908)

It is not alone the rapid increase in our
immigration which merits attention. It is also the
radical change in its character, in the source from
whence it comes. Whereas, until about twenty
years ago, our immigrants were drawn from the
Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic populations of
northwestern Europe, they have swarmed over
here in rapidly growing proportions since that time
from Mediterranean, Slavic, and Oriental sources.
A quarter of a century ago, two-thirds of our
immigration was truly Teutonic or Anglo-Saxon in
origin. At the present time, less than one-sixth
comes from this source.
David Starr Jordan, The Blood of the Nation: A
Study of the Decay of Races Through the Survival
of the Unfit (1902)

The blood which is “thicker than water” is the symbol
of race unity. In this sense the blood of the people
concerned is at once the cause and the result of the
deeds recorded in their history. For example,
wherever an Englishman goes, he carries with him
the elements of English history. It is a British deed
which he does, British history that he makes.
David Starr Jordan, The Blood of the Nation: A Study
of the Decay of Races Through the Survival of the
Unfit (1902)

Thus, too, a Jew is a Jew in all ages and climes, and
his deeds everywhere bear the stamp of Jewish
individuality. A Greek is a Greek; a Chinaman
remains a Chinaman. In like fashion the race traits
color all history made by Tartars, or negroes, or
Malays.
Madison Grant
The Passing of the Great Race in America (1916)



Grant’s book strongly influenced
immigration restriction and antimiscegenation policies in the United
States.
He popularized “Nordic” race theory
in the United States.
He served as the vice president of the
Immigration Restriction League from
1922 to his death in 1937; he
provided statistics for the
Immigration Act of 1924 to set the
quotas on immigrants from “lessdesirable” countries.
The Passing of the Great Race in America

In dealing with European populations the best method
of determining race has been found to lie in a
comparison of proportions of the skull, the so-called
cephalic index. This is the ratio of maximum length to
maximum width taken at the widest part of the skull
above the ears. Skulls with an index of 75 or less, that
is, when the width is three-fourths or less than the
length, are considered dolichocephalic, or long skulls.
Skulls of an index of 80 or over are round skulls, or
brachycephalic.
The Passing of the Great Race in America

Intermediate indices, between 75 and 80, are
considered mesocephalic. These are cranial indices. To
allow for the flesh on living specimens, about two per
cent is to be added to the index, and the result is the
cephalic index.
The Passing of the Great Race in America


This cephalic index, though an extremely important if
not the controlling unit character, is, nevertheless, but
a single character and must be checked up with other
somatological traits. Normally, a long skull is associated
with a long face, and a round skull with a round face.
The use of this test, the cephalic index, enables us to
divide the great bulk of the European populations into
three distinct subspecies of man, one northern and one
southern, both dolichocephalic or characterized by a
long skull, and a central subspecies which is
brachycephalic, or characterized by a round skull.
The Passing of the Great Race in America

The first is the Nordic or Baltic subspecies.
This race is long skulled, very tall, fair
skinned, with blond or brown hair and
light colored eyes. The Nordics inhabit the
countries around the North and Baltic
Seas, and include not only the great
Scandinavian and Teutonic groups, but
also other early peoples who first appear
in southern Europe and in Asia as
representatives of Aryan language and
culture.
The Passing of the Great Race in America

The second is the dark Mediterranean or Iberian
subspecies, occupying the shores of the inland
sea, and extending along the Atlantic coast until
it reaches the Nordic species. It also spreads far
east into southern Asia. It is long skulled like the
Nordic race, but the absolute size of the skull is
less. The eyes and hair are very dark or black,
and the skin more or less swarthy. The stature is
stunted in comparison to that of the Nordic race
and the musculature and bony framework weak.
The Passing of the Great Race in America

The third is the Alpine subspecies occupying all
central and eastern Europe, and extending
through Asia Minor to the Hindu Kush and the
Pamirs. The Armenoids constitute an Alpine
subdivision and represent the ancestral type of
this race which remained in the mountains and
high plateaux of Anatolia and western Asia. The
Alpines are round skulled, of medium height and
sturdy build, both as to skeleton and muscles.
The coloration of both hair and eyes was
originally very dark and still tends strongly in that
direction, but many light colored eyes, especially
gray, are now found in the Alpine populations of
western Europe.
“Nordic Theory”

Grant divided the human species into primarily three
distinct races:
 Caucasoids (based in Europe),
 Negroids (based in Africa),
 Mongoloids (based in Asia).
“Nordic Theory”

Grant further subdivided Caucasoids into three
groups:
 Nordics (who inhabited Scandinavia, northern
Germany, England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland,
Flanders, parts of northern France, and northern
Poland),
 Alpines (whose territory stretched from central
France through Switzerland, northern Italy,
Austria, southern Germany, southern Poland,
central Russia, and into Central Asia),
 Mediterraneans (who inhabited southern France,
the Iberian peninsula, southern Italy, Greece, and
parts of Wales).
The Passing of the Great Race in America

The Nordics are, all over the world, a race of
soldiers, sailors, adventurers, and explorers, but
above all, of rulers, organizers, and aristocrats in
sharp contrast to the essentially peasant
character of the Alpines. Chivalry and
knighthood, and their still surviving but greatly
impaired counterparts, are peculiarly Nordic
traits, and feudalism, class distinctions, and race
pride among Europeans are traceable for the
most part to the north.
The Passing of the Great Race in America

What the Melting Pot actually does in practice,
can be seen in Mexico, where the absorption of
the blood of the original Spanish conquerors by
the native Indian population has produced the
racial mixture which we call Mexican, and which
is now engaged in demonstrating its incapacity
for self-government. The world has seen many
such mixtures of races, and the character of a
mongrel race is only just beginning to be
understood at its true value.
The Passing of the Great Race in America

The lowering of the birth rate among the most
valuable classes, while the birth rate of the lower
classes remains unaffected, is a frequent
phenomenon of prosperity. Such a change
becomes extremely injurious to the race if
unchecked, unless nature is allowed to maintain
by her own cruel devices the relative numbers of
the different classes in their due proportions.
The Passing of the Great Race in America

To attack race suicide by encouraging
indiscriminate breeding is not only futile, but is
dangerous if it leads to an increase in the
undesirable elements. What is needed in the
community most of all, is an increase in the
desirable classes, which are of superior type
physically, intellectually, and morally, and not
merely an increase in the absolute numbers of
the population.
Lothrop Stoddard,
The Rising Tide of Color
Against White World-Supremacy (1920)

If white civilization goes down, the
white race is irretrievably ruined. It
will be swamped by the triumphant
colored races, who will obliterate the
white man by elimination or
absorption. What has taken place in
Central Asia, once a white and now a
brown or yellow land, will take place
in Australasia, Europe, and America.
Not to-day, nor yet to-morrow;
perhaps not for generations; but
surely in the end. If the present drift
be not changed, we whites are all
ultimately doomed. Unless we set
our house in order, the doom will
sooner or later overtake us all.
The Rising Tide of Color
Against White World-Supremacy

Were the white world to-day really
convinced of the supreme importance of
race-values, how long would it take to
stop debasing immigration, reform social
abuses that are killing out the fittest
strains, and put an end to the feuds which
have just sent us through hell and
threaten to send us promptly back again?
The Great Gatsby (1925)



“Civilization’s going to pieces,” broke out Tom violently.
“I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things.
Have you read “The Rise of the Colored Empires’ by
this man Goddard?”
“Why no,” I answered, rather surprised by his tone.”
“Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it.
The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be–
will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s
been proved.” . . . “Well these books are all scientific,”
insisted Tom…. “This fellow has worked out the whole
thing. It’s up to us, who are the dominant race, to
watch out or these other races will have control of
things.”
The Great Gatsby (1925)
“We’ve got to beat them down,” whispered
Daisy, winking ferociously toward the
fervent sun.
 “You ought to live in California–” began
Miss Baker, but Tom interrupted her by
shifting heavily in his chair.
 “This idea is that we’re Nordics. I am, and
you are, and you are, and–” After an
infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy
with a slight nod, and she winked at me
again. “–And we’ve produced all the things
that go to make civilization–oh, science and
art, and all that. Do you see?”

Sir Francis Galton and Eugenics



In Hereditary Genius (1869),
Galton argued that men of
exceptional ability tended to
come from a small number of
Anglo-Saxon families.
Galton also graded races,
declaring, for example, that “the
average intellectual standard of
the negro race is some two
grades below our own.”
Galton’s racism did not merely
extend to non-white races but
“inferior” white races as well.
Galton and Eugenics



Galton invented the term “eugenics” in 1883,
which he defined as “the study of the agencies
under social control that seek to improve or impair
the racial qualities of future generations either
physically or mentally.”
Galton's eugenics gave a scientific basis for the
belief that those from the best race, class, and
family should rule and breed.
The Eugenics movement found its strongest
proponents in the United States and Germany
The Eugenics Movement



Charles Davenport, an American eugenics leader,
defined Eugenics as the “the science of the
improvement of the human race by better breeding.”
The Eugenics message was that those with the richest
genetic inheritance should mate and reproduce while
those “born to be a burden to others” should be
discouraged or prevented from having children.
In practice this meant encouraging whites of northern
and western European background to have more
children and working to reduce the immigration of
southern and eastern Europeans, along with Africans,
Asians, and Pacific Islanders, to virtually zero.

Contagion: The Spread of Eugenics Throughout American Popular Culture in the
1920s
Race Betterment Foundation
Founded by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (his
brother invented the corn flake) in 1914
 First Race Betterment Conference called for
creation of super race



“We have wonderful new races of horses, cows,
and pigs. Why should we not have a new and
improved race of men?”
Kellogg wanted “the white races of Europe . . .to
establish a Race of Human Thoroughbreds.”
an eye to racial progress,
encouraging the
reproduction of the “best
blood,” and discouraging
or preventing the
reproduction of its worse
strains
Eugenics Society of America,
“Fitter Family” Winner, Texas State Fair
Eugenics Society of America,
“Fitter Family” Winner, Kansas State Fair
AntiMiscegenation
Eugenic
Sterilization
Immigration
restriction
Anti-Miscegenation Laws
Forty-two states had at one time an antimiscegenation law that prohibited marriages
between whites and non-whites
 Eugenicists lobbied for the passage of such
laws as the 1924 Act to Preserve Racial
Integrity in Virginia


Lothrop Stoddard: ”I consider such legislation . . .
to be of the highest value and greatest necessity
in order that the purity of the white race be
safeguarded from possibility of contamination
with nonwhite blood…. This is a matter of both
national and racial life and death.”
Eugenics and Immigration Laws

In 1911, Immigration Restriction League
President Prescott Hall asked his former Harvard
classmate Charles Davenport of the Eugenics
Record Office (ERO) for assistance to influence
Congressional debate on immigration. Davenport
recommended a survey to determine the national
origins of “hereditary defectives” in American
prisons, mental hospitals and other charitable
institutions. Davenport appointed ERO colleague
Harry Laughlin to manage the research program.

Paul Lombardo, Eugenics: Laws Restricting Immigration
Harry Laughlin

The compulsory
sterilization of certain
degenerates is therefore
designed as a eugenical
agency complementary to
the segregation of the
socially unfit classes, and
to the control of the
immigration of those who
carry defective germplasm.
Eugenics and Immigration Laws

In 1920, Laughlin appeared before the U.S.
House of Representatives Committee on
Immigration and Naturalization. Using data for
the U.S. Census Bureau and a survey of the
number of foreign-born persons in jails, prisons
and reformatories, he argued that the “American”
gene pool was being polluted by a rising tide of
intellectually and morally defective immigrants –
primarily from eastern and southern Europe.

Paul Lombardo, Eugenics: Laws Restricting Immigration
Harry Laughlin, Analysis of America’s
Modern Melting Pot (1922)
Eugenics and Immigration Laws

The Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, was
designed to halt the immigration of Italians and
eastern European Jews, whose numbers had
grown markedly during the period from 1900 to
1920. The method was simply to scale the
number of immigrants from each country in
proportion to their percentage of the U.S.
population in the 1890 census – when northern
and western Europeans were the dominant
immigrants. Under the new law, the quota of
southern and eastern Europeans was reduced
from 45% to 15%.

Paul Lombardo, Eugenics: Laws Restricting Immigration
Erika Lee, “The Chinese Exclusion Example:
Race, Immigration, and American Gatekeeping,
1882-1924"

How did the effort to exclude Chinese
influence the restriction and exclusion of
other immigrant groups?


Provided the legal architecture for the 1924
Act
Introduced a “gatekeeping ideology” and
legalized the need to restrict, exclude, and
deport undesirable immigrants
Erika Lee, “The Chinese Exclusion Example:
Race, Immigration, and American Gatekeeping,
1882-1924”

How did the racialization of Chinese as
excludable aliens contribute and intersect
with the racialization of other Asian,
southern and eastern European, and
Mexican immigrants?



Whiteness and immigration restriction
Chinese and “Americans”
Anti-Asian nativism became model


Racial inferiority and racial unassimilability
“The Chinese of Europe”
Erika Lee, “The Chinese Exclusion Example:
Race, Immigration, and American Gatekeeping,
1882-1924”

How did the Chinese Exclusion Act itself
set significant precedents for the
admission, deportation, documentation,
and surveillance of both new arrivals and
immigrant communities within the United
States?


Bureaucracy: Inspectors for Chinese
immigrants were the first federal immigration
officials
Identification and Recording of Immigrants:
Certificates of Residence and Certificates of
Identity
Immigration Act of 1917

Section 3 lists “classes of aliens” that
would be excluded from the United States.
Which of these classes seem drawn from
the Chinese Exclusion example?
Asiatic Barred Zone
Persons who are natives not possessed by
the United States adjacent to the
Continent of Asia, situate couth of the
twentieth parallel latitude north. . .
 Barred immigration from all of Asia,
except for China, Japan, and the
Philippines (and Chinese, Japanese, and
Filipino immigrants couldn’t naturalize)

Immigration Act of 1917

Section 3 at the bottom of 876 also lists
exceptions. Are these exceptions
influenced by the Chinese Exclusion
example?
Immigration Act of 1917

What happens to “skilled labor”?
Immigration Act of 1924

When President Calvin Coolidge signed the
1924 act, he said, “America must remain
American.” What did he mean by this
comment?
Los Angeles Times headline,
April 13, 1924

NORDIC VICTORY IS SEEN IN DRASTIC
RESTRICTIONS
Immigration Act of 1924
The quotas were based upon the 1890
census, although more recent censuses
were available. Why use the 1890
census?
 The 1920 census would have permitted
42,000 Italian and 31,000 Polish
immigrants under a 2% quota; using the
1890 census would allow 4,000 Italians
and 6,000 Poles.

Immigration Act of 1924, sec. 11

The annual quota of any nationality shall
be 2 per centum of the number of foreignborn individuals of such nationality
resident in continental United States as
determined by the United States census of
1890, but the minimum quota of any
nationality shall be 100.
Immigration Quotas Based Upon
National Origin (Ngai 74)
China 100*
 Germany 25,957
 Great Britain 65,721
 Greece 307
 India 100*
 Italy 5,802
 Japan 100*
 Spain 252

Immigration Act of 1924

What’s the difference between quota and
non-quota immigrants?
Immigration Act of 1924

In section 13(c), all aliens “ineligible for
citizenship” are excluded except for some
stated exceptions such as those eligible
under section 4's “non-quota immigrant’s
provisions.” Which immigrant groups were
the likely target of this provision?
Ngai, The Architecture of Race in
American Immigration Law

Ngai argues that the Immigration Act of
1924 “comprised a constellation of
reconstructed racial categories.” How so?