Most of us can remember the touching spectacle of Meg Whitman running for governor of California in all of her Republican splendor. In the home stretch of the campaign she was confronted by the fact that she had hired a nanny who didn't have one of those little green cards. Such a heartbreaking sight to watch this paragon of traditional society and law and order sputtering around. Ms. Whitman's difficulties neatly encapsulate the contradictions of the history of US immigration policy. How do you get cheap labor and maintain racial purity?
There is nothing whatsoever new about the debate over immigration in US society. Throughout the entire history of the country it has been a struggle between economic interests looking for a supply of cheap labor and essentially racist movements who claim to be protecting the interests of the "rightful" real Americans. Immigration, both voluntary and involuntary has been a central theme in out history. Our economic and political institutions have been and continue to be shaped by it. The notions of who qualifies as a "real" American has shifted over time as various of people have been identified as the alien threat of the moment. For all of the myth of the melting pot, there has never a time when the Emma Lasuras poem on the Statue of Liberty represented a national consensus.
In the spirit of manifest destiny the dominant Anglo-Saxon US establishment had taken control of the North American continent by the middle of the 19th C. They found themselves with more space and resources than they really knew what to do with. Thus began the revolving search for cheap help that continues to this day. People came in large numbers from Europe and Asia. The African slaves were mostly confined to the south and remained there after they were at least technically no longer slaves. There was ongoing debate about European and Asian immigrants that periodically erupted into violence. There was the recurring strain of racism that saw differences from the WASP establishment as marks of inferiority. During economic downturns there were populist uprisings blaming the newest immigrants for the shortage of jobs.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first legal restriction placed on immigration. In 1907 the so called gentleman's agreement to cutoff Japanese immigration was negotiated. These actions curtailed the supply of labor to the expanding economy of of the West. Industries such as agriculture, mining and railroads turned their eyes south of the border in a search for replacements. The pressures of WW I raised the level of nationalism and xenophobia. The Immigration Act of 1917 cutoff all immigration from Asia. The first red scare following the war was added to the brew of racist hysteria resulting in the Immigration Act of 1924 which imposed draconian restrictions on immigration from the more threatening sections of Europe. The golden door to was officially closed to the huddled masses from across the sea.
No quota was placed on immigration from Mexico and the various industrial interests managed to get most of the administrative difficulties placed in the path of immigrants waived. Mexican workers were seen as an ideal source of cheap docile labor that could easily be shoved back over the border when they weren't needed. At the same time black workers from the South began to migrate north to fill the cheap labor gap that had resulted from the greatly diminished flow of European immigrants.
In 1929 what can be seen as a first version of immigrant amnesty was passed as the Registry Act, it provided for full legalization of status for immigrants who had been in the US since 1921. With the arrival of the depression the tide turned and workers became a surplus commodity. The various forms of racist hostility that had previously directed toward immigrants from Europe and Asia were now focused on Mexicans. The American Federation of Labor decided that they were the enemies of the American working class. More radical unions came along and attempted to organize agricultural workers in California. There was a series of brutal and nasty strikes, with not a lot gained in the way of labor rights. The Wagner Act of 1935 that opened the door to union organizing in northern industrial states, specifically excluded agricultural workers from its provisions. They was done at the behest of the Jim Crow oligarchs.
With the arrival of WW II the tide turned again. Suddenly there was a severe shortage of labor particularly in agriculture at a time when the US needed to maximize its food producing capacity. Locking up all the Japanese farmers in concentration camps added to the problem. This led to the establishment of the bracero program of contract labor of workers from Mexico. As implemented by the US government it was a form of virtual indentured servitude. It brought a large number of contract workers to the US under controlled conditions. However, the demand for labor attracted others on undocumented status. The pendulum had swung back to a relatively open door. With the end of the war which had created the emergency justifying the bracero program, the agricultural interests were able to use their political muscle to get it continued. Border enforcement was kept light, particularly during harvest season and the flow of undocumented migrants continued to grow. Undocumented workers were attractive to employers who didn't even have to make a token pretense of following the government regulations of the contract program.
This pattern of schizophrenic immigration policy has continued to the present day. It has really been in existence in some form since the beginning of the nation. Having Mexican workers as the primary focus of the conflict has been in effective for almost a century. It seems improbable that there is any way to resolve the forces of racism and greed which continue to propel it.
I would like to invite you to a blog which I recently started, The Racist States of America.
It is exploring the history of racism in American society.
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What an offensive sentence. Nobody has a problem with LEGAL immigrants coming here, whatever their culture or 'color'. We admit millions of immigrants every year, legally, brown, black, yellow, white. There is NO program to enact 'racial purity' in our immigration.
Your agenda is quite clear when you raise Nicky Diaz as some kind of victim. Nicky Diaz is a lying sack of s*it. She LIED on her employment application to the employment agency that Meg Whitman used to hire household help, saying she was legally authorized to work in the USA. She LIED when she provided a SS# that didn't belong to her. She LIED for 9 years, while being paid $23 an hour to clean a house -- she should have been prosecuted for FRAUD and identity theft, and then summarily deported back to Mexico. Apparantly, illegally entering a country, and then engaging in identity theft and lying on employement documents is no big deal --- as long as you're a Mexican. They're the only ones we see whining and complaining when CAUGHT breaking laws.
http://guanabee.com/2010/09/meg-whitman-nicky-diaz-santillan-lied-employment-app/
EVERY period of high immigration to the USA has been followed by a period of high unemployment. Imagine 30% or even 50% unemployment. It is a documented fact that Americans endured these devastating levels of unemployment after periods of high immigration. Today professions where Illegal Immigrant workers are most prevalent suffer double digit unemployment while many professions where few Illegal Immigrants work have unemployment rates below 5%.
Creating an over-supply of Labor to drive wages into the cellar is the Robber Baron’s tool of choice. This diversion into racism diverts people from seeing that the widening difference between high and low wage earners in this country has mirrored the growth in our Illegal Immigrant population. Is history repeating itself for a sixth time as unemployment drags down wages creating the Robber baron’s dream, a large pool of low wage unemployed people?
If excessive immigration is such a benefit way was much of America filled with unemployed poor working for Robber Barons for slave wages until America began to control Immigration after 1914? And why after 1914, the Great Depression not with-standing, did America become an economic powerhouse during the time of greatest immigration control? And why are we now suffering “the worst recovery since the Great Depression” coincidentally after a period of Illegal Immigrant driven high immigration?
After the Civil War the next great wave of Immigration to the USA plunged us into the wonderful world of massive unemployment once again. It prompted the opening of Ellis Island to try to control and limit immigration. Even after Ellis Island opened the states of Maine, Kansas, and Michigan still experienced periods of unemployment exceeding 50%.
The Chinese were not vilified when they first arrived in California. Only after unemployment exceeded 30% because of excessive immigration did the populace turn their ire upon them, resulting in the obnoxious Union backed Chinese Exclusion Act.
At the turn of the century another wave of excessive immigration arrived from Eastern and Southern Europe. That flood so devastated to our economy that by 1910 unemployment reached 32% for the prime unskilled labor jobs of the day; manufacturing, mining, and transportation workers.
That is why we control immigration. Thanks to illegal immigration that bypasses that control, today unemployment is two to four times greater in professions where most illegal immigrants work.
Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder which paralyzes individuals throughout their lifetimes. Your use of the word in this context is insensitive to people who have no control over their condition. Please do not use it in this context in the future.
I surmise from the tenor of your piece that you regard yourself as someone more tolerant of diversity than those at which you direct some rather scathing ad hominems. Please show some compassion of your own.
Most other countries use points systems. Ability to speak the language gains so many points,. education gains you some more etc. Once you have the required number then you can immigrate. Family connection gains you points, but not enough to automatically meet the threshold - the prospective immigrant must still bring something to the table and be able to contribute.
Not so in the US. Even if you are utterly incapable of speaking a word of English and have no formal education beyond kindergarten, you can still get a green card just by marrying a US citizen.
is that a new record for you?
You cite quite a few instances of racism in American history, yet you forgot to mention which political party was in charge during these times. You feel free to bash the GOP at the beginning of your article and ignore any offense by the dems.
end our immigration problems. Chief among her ideas was a national ID card to be used only
twice in a citizens life, which would be when they were applying for a job or for government benefits. Cutting off the jobs and benefit magnet would cause those here illegally to return the way they came.
All of her ideas were applauded by the Clinton administration, yet none were ever implemented
by him or any succeeding president. In the place of Jordan's commission recommendations, came
only calls for more and more amnesties by ethnic advocates and those that benefit from massive
immigration and then pass on all the social,economic and environmental costs to our
communities.
Those citizens that dare to speak up for advocating less immigration are smeared as racist,xenophobes,nativist,anti immigrant bigots.
We are not a nation of immigrants, we are a nation of citizens that have been betrayed by
the media and BOTH parties on immigration for decades.
We deserve better.
Most Americans I know just want to see laws that work and see them enforced evenhandedly.