History-
Mae Ngai mentions that the U.S. immigration policy contradicted the country's "democratic premises of citizenship" by basing entry solely on race (42). I wondered if the measures being taken by the American people and government of limiting the amounts of "non-whites" and unassimilable races could be seen as a form of patriotism. I don't remember Ngai mentioning patriotism at all. Do you think patriotism was/could be a factor? If so, why wasn't it mentioned? Should it have been? Do you think Ngai would agree it was partly patriotism or something else like a basic fear of allowing an unknown culture/people into their country?
Historiographical-
She uses a lot of sources from government documents to oral histories. Although the oral history sources and newspaper sources could give a bottom-up history, while I read the book, it seemed like it was more of a top-down history. Did you feel the same way? Should she have included more sources that gave the immigrant perspective? Is that possible? Could this history be written more in a bottom-up approach or was this the only way to write this book?
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History- After reading the Ngai book, I to was wondering about whether patriotism played a role in the decisions made in limiting access to non-whites. However, as I thought about this idea more, I believe that while it may have been used in the rhetoric to gain support, patriotism was not a large factor in the decisions. The only times in this book where patriotism might fit in is in the events of the Japanese internment camps. In this case patriotism was used much in the same way that it was recently used to justify going to war after 9/11. In each of these cases the public was asked to suspend civil rights or deny privileges to minority groups in the name of American security. Anyone who spoke against the practices was deemed to be unpatriotic. Similar to how many people of Arabic decent often face profiling and are forced to go through more safety screens, the Japanese Americans were seen as being loyal to their homeland and a threat to national security. Other then this I do not see many places where patriotism would have played a major role. I my opinion the bigger factors were the “findings” of the eugenicists along with simple racism by many in the public. The findings of these new scientists such as Harry Laughlin and Francis Galton, on differences in morals, intelligences, and diseases between races went far to change the public’s perception on race and nationality. By claiming new studies proved these non-whites to be inferior to their white peers, there was finally scientific evidence proving what many in the country already believed. With many new social problems becoming more prominent due to the rapid growth of American urban areas along with little job security, the public was looking for a scapegoat to place blame upon. Evidence of this can be seen by looking at some of the contradicting ideas that were blamed on immigrants. At different times immigrants were both accused of taking jobs from Americans, therefore bring down the birthrate along with being stereotyped as having large families which would cause their numbers to multiply quickly. Another case can be in Al Smith who campaigned against quotas in the North where their cheap labor was desired by business leaders along with campaigns for the quota system in the South were rural farmers would see immigrants as competition for jobs and where segregation of African Americans already was entrenched into daily life (35). Using these examples the anti-immigration movement cannot be viewed as a popular movement founded by those working closely with the immigrants but as a movement fueled by lies, deceit, and racist feelings.
ReplyDeleteAlong this line of thinking I was also intrigued by the stories that showed resistance to immigrants who were attempting to assimilate into society. The story that stood out the most for me was the one about Asians who took up farming, in order to gain a foot in the door and have their children grow up as citizens. This method sounds quite similar to the stories of the American dream, of having your own piece of land to work and gradually through hard work gain social standing. Yet the public instead of promoting this idea of gradual assimilation and working one’s way up in society, actually spoke against this idea attributing it to Asian sneakiness and proof of their loyalty to their homeland. To me this just proves that there was no way that these non-whites were going to be viewed as equals no matter how they lived or tried to adapt.