By cutting immigration so drastically, the American Immigration Act of 1924 brought huge changes to the United States. It created a new country. A less welcoming country. It revealed a country riddled with racism. As if there was ever any doubt about that. As Zakaria said, “The country got whiter and more monocultural.”
This is the country many American conservatives want back again when they beg to take America back, or make America great again. They are really saying, they want America to become white again.
Things changed again in the 1960s. As Fareed Zakaria said,
“In 1965 freedom and racial equality were on the march from Selma to Montgomery. Yet in America immigrants were basically allowed on the basis of the color of their skin. Asians, Africans, and other racial groups were severely restricted. The race-based immigration system that began in the 1920s, which Adolf Hitler had admired was still going strong.”
President Lyndon Johnson signed a number of different laws which were designed to establish, he said, that America would be colour blind when voting, going to school, and choosing its immigrants. The new immigration laws would usher in a much more diverse country filled with immigrants from around the world.
According to Zakaria,
“this demographic revolution happened largely by accident, thanks in part to a Congressman who wanted to keep America white. By the 1960s the racist authors of the 1924 Immigration Act got exactly what they wanted. American was overwhelmingly white.”
As Jia Lynn said, “ They wrote laws to ensure that that would happen. And it worked.” The percentage of foreign-born Americans dropped by nearly 2/3rd. There was no more American melting pot.
However, after seeing what the Nazis did in Germany, many people began to understand that a race-based immigration policy was not only wrong, it was wooden-headed. It made no sense. It excluded too many people America needed. Look what Jews like Einstein and Oppenheimer had done for America. Americans did not want to be like the Germans.
Those race-based immigration laws shut out too many good people. Even war heroes were held back. Even some Holocaust survivors were not allowed into the country while Nazis gained entry. Truman signed a new law allowing many new immigrants to come to America. This law had widespread support. But even Truman, who hated the race-based system was not able to have it ditched.