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Announcements

Announcements. Papers back Thurs 9/26 Schedule changes: T 10/1: Vincent Who? (2009) Dir. Tony Lam Th 1/3: CLASS CANCELED T 10/8: Bedi , Sheila A. “Constructed Identities of Asian & African Americans: A Story of Two Races & the Criminal Justice System. ” Th 10/10:

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Announcements

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  1. Announcements • Papers back Thurs 9/26 • Schedule changes: • T 10/1: Vincent Who? (2009) Dir. Tony Lam • Th 1/3: CLASS CANCELED • T 10/8: Bedi, Sheila A. “Constructed Identities of Asian & African Americans: A Story of Two Races & the Criminal Justice System.” • Th10/10: • Vo, Linda Trinh. “Beyond Color-Blind Universalisms: Asians in a ‘Postracial America.’” • Fan, Chris. “Jean Quan and the Death of Asian America.” Hyphen • Liu, Kenji. “Memory is Solidarity: Ogawa-Grant Plaza as Opportunity.” Reproductive Justice Blog. • T 10/15: IN-CLASS MIDTERM EXAM

  2. 1965 Immigration Act Cold War Liberalism

  3. Asian Exclusion • 1790 Naturalization Law – limits naturalized citizenship to “free white persons of good moral character” • 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act • 1908 Gentlemen’s Agreement • 1924 Immigration Act • Institutes national quotas based on existing population demographics to “maintain racial character of nation” • Western hemisphere = exempt (MX labor) • 1934 Tydings-McDuffie Act

  4. WWII to Cold War • Dec 7, 1941 – bombing of Pearl Harbor • Feb 19, 1942 – Executive Order 9066 • 1945 – bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki • 1954 – partition of Vietnam • Oct 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis

  5. Cold War Liberalism • Competing political & economic ideologies of Cold War: • Soviet communism & fascism • American capitalism & representative democracy • Assumption that free market economy goes hand in hand with democratic liberties • Contradiction = racial formations! • Racial meanings justify who counts as owners/property and citizens/aliens

  6. Cold War & Civil Rights “In important respects immigration reform was very much akin to civil rights and desegregation. Both movements against racial discrimination were animated by mass democratic mobilization, and both received support for their causes among liberal white elites, who in the context of the world war against fascism had found America’s race policies falling short of its democratic ideals… ‘An interesting extension of the American dilemma can be found in the field of immigration legislation… Certainly most Americans must experience a sense of moral embarrassment when asked to justify our present immigration laws in light of the democratic concept of ‘equal rights and justice for all’” (228)

  7. Cold War Racial Formations • Racialization as ideological process justifying and justified by political, social, & economic forces • Previous era  Manifest Destiny • Cold War  cultural pluralism (melting pot vs symphony) • “’Greatness,’ which half a century earlier comprised Anglo-Saxon race superiority, now inhered in the American pluralist ethos, which was envisioned paradoxically as universal and unique to the U.S. nation-state” (233) • Changing racial meanings but persistence of U.S. exceptionalism

  8. McCarran Walter Act • 1952 – “replaced” previous immigration acts: • maintained 1924 national quotas on ethnic white Europeans • imposed quotas on Caribbean but left rest of western hemisphere untouched • eliminated bar on Asian naturalizationbut upheld quota of 100 per year from Asian countries • Introduced new immigration controls: • 50% must be immigrants with skills in short supply in US • 30% must be parents of US citizens • 20% must be spouses or children of US citizens • Included provisions for denaturalization & deportation

  9. Liberal Critique • Anti-quota with emphasis on numerical equality • But does numerical equality actually ensure just treatment? (245) • Contrast with USSR fascism but no recognition of US history of racism • race equality as “’paradoxically always already accomplished and something that is never quite complete’” (242) • Insistence on US as land of (ethnic white) immigrants (246) • Call for reasonable immigration reform • But what is “reasonable” given the power of racial meanings?

  10. 1965 Immigration Act • 290,000 = total # of immigrants • Immediate family members of US citizens excluded (parents, spouses, minor children) • 170,000 = Eastern Hemisphere (Europe, Asia, Africa) • According to preference categories • 120,000 = Western Hemisphere (MX, Canada, etc) • No preference categories

  11. 1965 Categories • Unmarried children under 21 years of age of U.S. citizens • Spouses and unmarried children of permanent residents • Professionals, scientists, and artists "of exceptional ability" • Married children over 21 years of age and their spouses and children of U.S. citizens • Siblings and their spouses and children of U.S. citizens • Workers in occupations with labor shortages • Political refugees

  12. Questions • How did the 1965 Immigration Act affect the demographics of Asian immigrant communities in the US? • While opening up Asian immigration, how did the Act affect Mexican immigrant communities in the US? • While Cold War liberals were reforming immigration policies in the 60s & 70s, what political projects were Asian immigrants communities engaging in on the grassroots level?

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