In One Mighty and Irresistible Tide, journalist Jia Lynn Yang tells the story of immigration reform during the years between 1924 and 1965. As some readers might know, 1924 marks the year in which the National Origins Quota Act went into place, designed to recalibrate immigration patterns to favor Northwestern Europeans (Great Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, Germany, and France) who defined the earlier period of immigration, and severely restrict immigration from Southern Europe (Italy), Eastern Europe, and Western Asia (now known as the Middle East). It more or less banned immigration from Asia and Africa. It did not, however, restrict movement within the Western Hemisphere (in theory, no restrictions on immigration from North and South America). In 1965, they repealed this law and discriminatory quotas were eliminated, ushering in the contemporary period.
The intervening 40-year period between 1924 and 1965 is a complex one, in which, from the very beginning, community advocates and elected officials (either from the impacted communities or their allies) sought to find loopholes or ways to chip away at the quota laws. It was during this time, that certain preferences---e.g., skilled immigrants, family reunifications, refugee resettlement, etc.---became the tools of those seeking to challenge the 1924 law. The big players at the grassroots level were from the Jewish and Italian communities, primarily, but also included Catholic organizations, Japanese Americans, and others. There are two recent books that take a deep dive into both the Jewish and Italian efforts (Danielle Battisti's Whom Shall We Welcome and Maddalena Marinari's Unwanted: Italian and Jewish Mobilization against Restrictive Immigration Laws). I recommend them wholeheartedly (also of worth reading is Daniel Okrent's The Guarded Gate, which tells us more about how we got to the 1924 law). Yang, by contrast, focuses her story squarely on the legislative players, in particular Herbert Lehman, Pat McCarran, and the Kennedy brothers. She limits her discussion of the grassroots, focusing more or less exclusively on an advocate named Mike Masaoka. I enjoyed reading about his perspective and contributions. It was a story I had not heard before.
Moreover, Yang reminds us that it was during the 1950s that author Oscar Handlin described America as “Nation of Immigrants.” This descriptor is now so ingrained in our consciousness that we fail to realize that no one in the 19th or first half of the 20th century thought of the U.S. as such. Instead, America was founded, created, and propelled forward by settlers, colonists, and pioneers who tamed the plains. Immigrants were not part of America’s creation myth until mid-20th century. Of course, we know that virtually all the nations from Canada on down to the cone of South America were populated through immigration, and in the case of those to the south, also places where slavery figures prominently in the story.
Nevertheless, even though we commonly call ourselves a nation of immigrants, you will be hard pressed to find anyone in this country, outside a small cadre of academics, who actually know anything about immigration history or law. Not surprising, in The New York Times' recent “1619 Project,” Nikole Hannah-Jones could write, unquestioned, in her introductory essay to the series, that it was the black civil rights struggle that led to the 1965 immigration legislation, an assertion that is absolutely and completely inaccurate. And people repeat it like gospel. Yet, there is scarcely a grain of truth in it, and as Yang reveals, it was a many decades’ struggle involving the ethnic/national/religious groups who were impacted and their legislative champions that led to the change. And, in fact, the legislators pushing the 1965 bill, Yang tell us, worked hard to convince Lyndon Johnson to view it as part of his civil rights program---initially, he did not think of it as such. In sum, a fine book that tells a fascinating story and makes complex history accessible to the general audience. Excellent.
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