Abstract
Moving forward from the Hart-Cellar Act with John D. Skrentny, Jennifer Lee, Jody Aguis Vallejo, Zulema Valdez, and Donna R. Gabaccia.
My father arrived in New York City in 1970 from Pakistan with only a few things: a suitcase, his green card in an officially-sealed envelope, and a hand-woven rug he could sell if he needed some extra money. He had no immediate job prospects and slept in the alcove of his brother’s Queens apartment. What he did have was a master’s degree in physics and experience working in a bank, and it wasn’t long before he got a $10,000 salary as a computer programmer for a marine insurance underwriter near Wall Street. Once settled, my mother came to join him. Some years and some jobs later, they had two kids, raising us in Virginia.
My parents arrived after the passage of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart-Cellar Act. The Act replaced national origin quotas, intended in large part to ensure a Euro-American majority, and aimed to attract skilled labor and reunite families. It opened the doors to immigrants from Asia, Africa, and Latin America and drastically altered the country’s demographic complexion. In the case at hand, only 2,500 Pakistani immigrants entered the United States between 1947 and 1965. By 1990, the there were about 100,000 Pakistani Americans. By 2005, their population had grown to 210,000.
The census did not have a category for Pakistanis. They were considered East Indians but counted as White. Pakistanis’ particular ethnic threads had yet to be woven into the American fabric, and people struggled to make sense of us. In the South, my parents were greeted with surprise over their “good English” and education. After a history class on segregation in grade school, a blond, blue-eyed classmate mentioned that, if Jim Crow laws were still in place, I’d have to use a “colored bathroom.” In junior high in the 1990s, a close friend’s mother told me over supper that I was “mostly White” (her husband objected half-heartedly, noting that we had different foods and traditions). Dubious though her words may sound, the message acknowledged a demographic reality: the neighborhood, town, and county were mostly White. Apparently, so was I. In high school, I’d find even a guy who had become a Neo-Nazi still thought we could be friends (as did the White, hip-hop loving bully who fended off the Neo-Nazi in exchange for me doing his art homework).
Since that time, successive immigration waves have further enhanced Northern Virginia’s ethnic and racial diversity. Where the presence of families like my own once seemed anomalous, now it is rather commonplace. Students from up to 200 countries now attend local schools. And more broadly, in three decades, non-Hispanic Whites are expected to be a minority in Virginia, and in the country as a whole. These shifts speak to the broader changes in American life that the 1965 Act inaugurated.
The following articles discuss the legacy of the 1965 Act. John Skrentny looks back at the passage of the Act, and suggests that supporters must have had some inkling of the demographic revolution it would engender. In a very quiet way, it marked a shift toward democratic values in immigration policy.
Jennifer Lee punctures the myth of model minorities. She finds that Asian immigrants tend to be very well educated compared to those from other regions. This relative advantage—not unique cultural traits—she argues, are responsible for their relative prosperity.
Jody Vallejo writes about the impact of the Act on Mexican migrants who now faced a restrictive hemispheric cap. This led to emergence of unauthorized Mexican migration due to the U.S.’s increasing unmet demand for low-wage labor. It left migrants in a legal limbo. Likewise, Zulema Valdez writes that, while the Act improved on the overtly racist policies of the past, it still carried nativist and illiberal traces evidenced in the increased surveillance, detentions, deportations, and maltreatment of guest workers.
Finally, Donna Gabaccia considers the moral panic that ensued upon discovery that more women than men were entering the U.S. Fears of immigrant dependency circulated, suggesting that women would take more than they contributed (not least by having children).