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Immigration Act of 1924

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A hand made into a fist is camouflaged against the American flag.

The Dark Parallels Between 1920s America and Today’s Political Climate

The early 1920s in the US offers historical lessons on how current pessimism about the state of the country can manifest in dangerous, discriminatory ways.
by Alex Green via The Conversation on March 10, 2025
President Calvin Coolidge raising his hand behind a podium to be sworn into office.
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Behind America’s First Comprehensive Federal Immigration Law

Even as the primary targets of immigration restrictionism have shifted, the consequences for immigrants remain profoundly shaped by the system created in 1924.
by Devin E. Naar via Made By History on July 9, 2024
1882 newspaper headline following the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

The 100-Year-Old Racist Law that Broke America’s Immigration System

The legacy of the Immigration Act of 1924 and the launching of the Border Patrol, which inaugurated the most restrictive era of US immigration until our own.
by Mae Ngai via Public Books on May 28, 2024
Wong Gin Foo to Wong Kim (in Chinese), March 31, 1930.

Paper Sons in the Era of Immigration Restriction

Chinese immigration and the Immigration Act of 1924.
by Ryan Reft via Library of Congress Blog on May 23, 2024
Man holding Israel flag and Palestine flag

Who Created the Israel-Palestine Conflict?

It wasn’t really Jews or Palestinians. It was the U.S. Congress, which closed American borders 100 years ago this month.
by Harold Meyerson via The American Prospect on May 6, 2024
Collage of photographs of U.S. Border Patrol.

The Racist Origins of America’s Broken Immigration System

How a little-known, century-old law perpetuated the odious notion that certain types of immigrants degrade our nation’s character.
by Felipe De La Hoz via The New Republic on May 1, 2024

The Johnson-Reed Act of May 24, 1924

The worldview laid out in the 94-year old law is still the foundational principle of American immigration policy today.
by Justin Broubalow via We're History on May 24, 2018
Mottled photographs of immigrants set against the Statue of Liberty.

The American Dream 100 Years After the National Origins Act

How a clerk on Ellis Island at the dawn of the 20th century documented discrimination through photography, and what that tells us about today’s malaise.
by Yousef O. Bounab via New Lines on February 17, 2025
Three immigrants with chained hands and feet ascending staircase to a plane to be deported.

America’s Medicalized Borders: Past, Present, and Possible Future

Undoing the politics of fear will require us to reckon with the legacies of nativism that divert our attention from the greatest threats to our health.
by Carlos Martinez via Public Books on May 29, 2024
graph of historic immigration data

How America Tried and Failed to Stay White

100 years ago the U.S. tried to limit immigration to White Europeans. Instead, diversity triumphed.
by Eduardo Porter, Youyou Zhou via Washington Post on May 15, 2024
Washed-out photo of a man, and redacted book cover of "Born Free and Equal."

Seeing Japanese American Heritage Through Ansel Adams’s Lens

A photographer excavates personal history through reconstruction of Adams's World War II photographs of Japanese Americans.
by Joseph Maida via The Nation on November 29, 2023
Ken Burns speaking into a microphone.

Shaming Americans

Ken Burns’s "The U.S. and the Holocaust" distorts the historical record in service of a political message.
by Amity Shlaes via City Journal on January 9, 2023
The cover of Dunbar-Ortiz's book alongside a picture of Mexican workers awaiting entry into the U.S.
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The Border and the Contingent Status of Mexican Workers

An excerpt from the most recent book, "Not 'A Nation of Immigrants': Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion."
by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz via HNN on August 24, 2021
Chinese miners in California

The Anti-Asian Roots of Today’s Anti-Immigrant Politics

Long before Trump, politicians on the country’s West Coast mobilized a white working-class base through violent hate of Chinese and Japanese immigrants.
by Mari Uyehara via The Nation on August 9, 2021
Men lined up on a set of stairs.

Who Is "Essential"?

On the need to rethink the U.S. immigration and refugee policy, which was shaped as part of Cold War strategy.
by Mae Ngai via Perspectives on History on August 21, 2020
Elizabeth Warren at a debate podium.
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Why Family Separation Is So Central to Trump’s Immigration Vision

Strengthening family ties has been key to overcoming nativism — and in 2020, it can do so again.
by Maddalena Marinari via Made By History on December 21, 2019

American Immigration: A Century of Racism

On Daniel Okrent's "The Guarded Gate: Bigotry, Eugenics, and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants Out of America."
by Sarah Churchwell via New York Review of Books on September 12, 2019

No Refuge

When Congress gave the Secretary of Labor discretion over any immigrant “likely to become a public charge,” they weren’t expecting someone like Frances Perkins.
by Rebecca Brenner Graham via Contingent on August 23, 2019

White Nationalism’s Deep American Roots

A long-overdue excavation of the book that Hitler called his “bible,” and the man who wrote it.
by Adam Serwer via The Atlantic on March 14, 2019

Manufacturing Illegality

Historian Mae Ngai reflects on how a century of immigration law created a crisis.
by Mae Ngai, Peter Costantini via Foreign Policy in Focus on January 16, 2019
Image of Hassan, a Syrian-American man

Syrian in Sioux Falls

In the 1920s, Syrian-Americans were compelled to prove their worth in a society where nativism was on the rise and citizenship often meant being considered white.
by Chris Gratien via Ottoman History Podcast on November 5, 2018

From Mooktie to Juan: The Eugenic Origins of the 'Defective Immigrant'

How eugenics shaped America's immigration policy.
by Aparna Nair via Nursing Clio on June 28, 2018
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Trump’s Views on Immigration Aren’t as Bad as Those in The 1920s. They’re Worse.

The designers of the quota system at least tried to hide their racism.
by David C. Atkinson via Made By History on January 14, 2018

Remembering Our KKK Past

A dark moment in American history offers lessons for the present.
by Jane Dailey via HuffPost on September 12, 2017

Trump’s Move to End DACA and Echoes of the Immigration Act of 1924

By ending DACA, President Trump seems to be trying to resurrect a national immigration policy defined by racial engineering.
by Jelani Cobb via The New Yorker on September 5, 2017

The Real History of American Immigration

Trump's break with tradition may be good or bad, but it's definitely different.
by Joshua Zeitz via Politico Magazine on August 6, 2017

The Yakima Terror

Ninety years ago in Washington, a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment resulted in horror for Filipinos.
by Steve Ross via Slate on August 4, 2017

A Brief History of America’s ‘Love-Hate Relationship’ With Immigration

Donald Trump’s restrictive plan is reminiscent of legislation from 100 years ago.
by Alan M. Kraut, Priscilla Alvarez via The Atlantic on February 19, 2017

What History Can Tell Us About the Fallout From Restricting Immigration

U.S. immigration policies are inextricably linked to American foreign relations.
by David C. Atkinson via TIME on February 3, 2017

Not Who We Are

The U.S. is neither a land of nativists nor a haven for immigrants. Since the founding, the truth has lain somewhere in between.
by Paul A. Kramer via Slate on February 3, 2017
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