Fantastically detailed book about the entangled eugenics and anti immigration movements in the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. ( )

A thorough and disturbing account of late nineteenth and early twentieth century thinking of politicians and privileged few and how they exerted their will and control over the immigration process. Used in researching my Italian roots ( )

Timely History of American Prejudice

Daniel Okrent’s subtitle refers to the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 (officially known as the Immigration Restriction Act). How the United States arrived at the point where Congress passed this, the most restrictive immigration law in U.S. history, is the subject of the book, covering ground from the 1890s through the passage of the 1924 law and up to 1965. In 1965, Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act, which removed the quotas and restrictions imposed by the 1924 act (which itself was modified along the way by the Immigration and Nationalization Act of 1952). All in all, readers will find the history of restricting immigration in the U.S. a very troubling affair, as it sanctioned racism, did harm by denying the U.S. productive citizens while also condemning many to early death, particularly during the rise of Nazism, and accomplished this by commingling racism with a pseudo science, eugenics, foisting the whole mess on the American people to such a rank and visible degree that Hitler and Nazi Germany picked up the scent and incorporated it into their volkish quest for Aryan racial purity and anti-Semitic mass murder.

We heard this during the last campaign for president, bringing into government only the best people. And so it was back in the late 19th century in Boston, when the best people, frightened about losing their hold on America, their personal power, and their wealth, aggressively moved to stem European immigration, particularly from what they regarded as inferior countries, among them Italy, Serbian states, and always Jews. Many of these best people of that age have either been forgotten by present day Americans, or never known to them, given the state of historical knowledge in the country. But these where the biggest of the big of their time, the grandees of the American enterprise: Henry Adams, Henry Cabot Lodge, Joe Lee, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (and later Jr.,the famed jurist, who wrote the Buck v. Bell [1927] decision that permitted compulsory sterilization of those deemed unfit; wrote Holmes, “Three generations of imbeciles is enough”). As Okrent shows in fine detail, these men and others of their class banded together and worked assiduously for nearly 40 years to dam immigration, to the point where finally only a trickle of people entered the country.

Serendipitously for them and their restriction campaign, Charles Davenport launched his eugenics research projects and lab at Cold Harbor, Long Island. He and successors, among them the notorious Harry Laughlin, propagated eugenics as the scientific way to strengthen American breeding stock. (Laughlin, as readers will learn, held a special interest in sterilization. He, though not knowing Carrie Buck, testified that she should be serialized in Buck v. Bell, referenced above. His views served as a model for Nazi Germany’s Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring. In 1936, the University of Heidelberg awarded him an honorary degree for his work in the “science of racial cleansing.”) And thus over a short time eugenics and immigration restriction functioned hand in hand to choke immigration until 1965.

The cast of characters in this sad saga of American history is much too long to enumerate here. Even those well read will sometimes find themselves taken aback by supporters of what’s come to be known as scientific racism, among them Margaret Sanger, Max Perkins, and Louis Brandeis. One of the most prolific and especially odious propagandists does deserve a mention, though. Lothrop Stoddard was a full blown white supremacist and influential author (Fitzgerald created a stand-in for him in The Great Gatsby). Among his books, The Rising Tide of Color proved especially popular, and is still available today (check Amazon for some very disturbing comments of praise).

A book all Americans should read, especially those who are of immigrant stock once restricted, and there are millions of us. Where would you be if your ancestors had not passed through Ellis Island before the restrictions? And what do you think we as a nation are sacrificing with our efforts at restriction? ( )

Timely History of American Prejudice

Daniel Okrent’s subtitle refers to the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 (officially known as the Immigration Restriction Act). How the United States arrived at the point where Congress passed this, the most restrictive immigration law in U.S. history, is the subject of the book, covering ground from the 1890s through the passage of the 1924 law and up to 1965. In 1965, Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act, which removed the quotas and restrictions imposed by the 1924 act (which itself was modified along the way by the Immigration and Nationalization Act of 1952). All in all, readers will find the history of restricting immigration in the U.S. a very troubling affair, as it sanctioned racism, did harm by denying the U.S. productive citizens while also condemning many to early death, particularly during the rise of Nazism, and accomplished this by commingling racism with a pseudo science, eugenics, foisting the whole mess on the American people to such a rank and visible degree that Hitler and Nazi Germany picked up the scent and incorporated it into their volkish quest for Aryan racial purity and anti-Semitic mass murder.

We heard this during the last campaign for president, bringing into government only the best people. And so it was back in the late 19th century in Boston, when the best people, frightened about losing their hold on America, their personal power, and their wealth, aggressively moved to stem European immigration, particularly from what they regarded as inferior countries, among them Italy, Serbian states, and always Jews. Many of these best people of that age have either been forgotten by present day Americans, or never known to them, given the state of historical knowledge in the country. But these where the biggest of the big of their time, the grandees of the American enterprise: Henry Adams, Henry Cabot Lodge, Joe Lee, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (and later Jr.,the famed jurist, who wrote the Buck v. Bell [1927] decision that permitted compulsory sterilization of those deemed unfit; wrote Holmes, “Three generations of imbeciles is enough”). As Okrent shows in fine detail, these men and others of their class banded together and worked assiduously for nearly 40 years to dam immigration, to the point where finally only a trickle of people entered the country.

Serendipitously for them and their restriction campaign, Charles Davenport launched his eugenics research projects and lab at Cold Harbor, Long Island. He and successors, among them the notorious Harry Laughlin, propagated eugenics as the scientific way to strengthen American breeding stock. (Laughlin, as readers will learn, held a special interest in sterilization. He, though not knowing Carrie Buck, testified that she should be serialized in Buck v. Bell, referenced above. His views served as a model for Nazi Germany’s Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring. In 1936, the University of Heidelberg awarded him an honorary degree for his work in the “science of racial cleansing.”) And thus over a short time eugenics and immigration restriction functioned hand in hand to choke immigration until 1965.

The cast of characters in this sad saga of American history is much too long to enumerate here. Even those well read will sometimes find themselves taken aback by supporters of what’s come to be known as scientific racism, among them Margaret Sanger, Max Perkins, and Louis Brandeis. One of the most prolific and especially odious propagandists does deserve a mention, though. Lothrop Stoddard was a full blown white supremacist and influential author (Fitzgerald created a stand-in for him in The Great Gatsby). Among his books, The Rising Tide of Color proved especially popular, and is still available today (check Amazon for some very disturbing comments of praise).

A book all Americans should read, especially those who are of immigrant stock once restricted, and there are millions of us. Where would you be if your ancestors had not passed through Ellis Island before the restrictions? And what do you think we as a nation are sacrificing with our efforts at restriction? ( )

Most of us, I imagine, are familiar with the Emma Lazarus’ poem, "The New Colossus", inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty, which includes the lines:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Many associate these lines as symbol of our Country, a welcoming message to immigrants, and a reminder that we're a nation of immigrants.

However, as Daniel Okrent makes clear in his recent book, "The Guarded Gate", our national history hasn't consistently followed that sentiment. Recently, President Trump had taken a strong anti-immigrant stance during his campaign for President, and made a border wall and limited immigration a big part of his Administration's goals. And with immigration such a hot-button topic today, it's worthwhile to review our nation's past policies and practises, and The Guarded Gate is a good place to start. Okrent makes it clear that the idea that immigrants are criminals who endanger our Country and steal our jobs didn't originate with President Trump. This book describes past political leaders and national policies which have been implemented, most designed to limit selected foreigners, and to foster white protestant immigration policies.

Going back as far as Washington's Presidency, it was the law of the land that only white immigrants could become naturalized citizens. It was only after the Civil War that blacks born in this Country would have birthright citizenship. And it took another several decades for the same privilege to be given to Asians born in the Country. Okrent describes a long history and wide-spread beliefs in the Country when non-white immigrants were considered "inferior", and policies based on race exclusion were widely supported. Non-English Europeans heading to the U.S. were generally considered the most stupid of their own nation, as Founding Father Benjamin Franklin expressed as early as 1753 when talking about German​ immigrant​s. In 1830, telegraph inventor Samuel F.B. Morris ranted about Italian immigrants and the likelihood and dangers of a coming Catholic theocracy in the Country. Even more wide-spread, after a series of revolutions in Europe in 1848 led to a large number of immigrants from central and eastern Europe, a new xenophobic political party was formed (the American Party, also known as the Know-Nothing Party) with a strong anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant platform.

Political support for anti-immigration policies led to enactment of various laws, including the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Asiatic Barred Zone Act of 1917, and the Immigration Act of 1924 which established national-origin quotas on immigrants. The intent of these laws was to limit uneducated, non-English speakers, especially Chinese, Jews, Italians, Greeks, and eastern Europeans.

Okrent also describes how support for those anti-immigrant beliefs and policies found pseudo-scientific support when Eugenics became popular in the late 1880's. Supporters of eugenics held that the quality of a human population could be improved by excluding certain genetic groups judged to be inferior, and promoting other genetic groups judged to be superior. Their belief was that race was the best determinant for an individual's value to society, ignoring the impacts of poverty, environment, and education​ on many of the immigrants who were considered inherently inferior​. ​These "inferior" races facing opposition for entry to the Country tended to be anyone NOT from northern Europe. This meant that the prejudice was focused mainly on newly arriving eastern Europeans, Jews, Italians, Greeks, most Asians, blacks, etc. Beyond the desire to limit immigration from those regions, eugenics supporters also pushed to improve the traits of the next generation of citizens by promoting sterilization of "undesirables".

Unfortunately, the beliefs and writings of the most extreme eugenics proponents ended up being adopted by many in Germany who became Nazi leaders. Hitler had admitted to being influenced by laws in several U.S. States which limited reproduction rights of those determined to be "unfit". In that sense alone, Okrent makes a good point in seeing how unjust criticism of others "not like us" can lead to unintended and disastrous consequences. ( )