American Passage_ The History of Ellis I - Vincent J. Cannato [6]
On the other side was Commissioner-General of Immigration Frank Sargent. The former labor leader favored closer inspection and tighter restriction of immigrants, but conceded that he “would not advocate a ‘closed-door’ policy . . . as we still have need for a high class of aliens who are healthy and will become self-supporting.” For him and other like-minded individuals, the present law was fine, but needed to be more strictly enforced. The debate, then, was not one over the restriction of immigrants, but instead over the regulation of who may be allowed to enter the country.
“We desire to emphasize at this point that the immigration laws of the United States,” noted the American Jewish Committee in recommendations it made to the U.S. Immigration Commission, “have always been enacted to regulate immigration.” Both sides of the immigration debate agreed on the need for the United States to continue to accept immigrants and for the need to sort through those who arrived and reject those deemed undesirable. They differed, however, in how strictly to regulate immigration. In practice, this allowed almost three decades of continuous immigration, mostly from Europe, at levels that remain historic highs in American history. For all the talk about exclusion and restriction, less than 2 percent of individuals who knocked at its gate were ultimately excluded at Ellis Island.
The laws that dealt with European immigrants, as well as smaller numbers of Middle Eastern and Caribbean immigrants, were in marked contrast to the law directed toward Chinese immigrants. For the Chinese and other Asians, American immigration policy was one of restriction. This proved the exception to the larger rule of immigration regulation, and Americans at the time were quite conscious of this differential treatment and at pains not to replicate it with other immigrant groups. For Asians, their near-complete exclusion from the country was based on race; for all others seeking entry, officials would try to weed out supposedly undesirable immigrants based not on race, but rather on individual characteristics. Prejudice against southern and eastern Europeans certainly existed, but it was not written into the law until the quotas of the 1920s.
C ONTRARY TO MUCH THAT is written about American immigration, this book does not see this history strictly through the jaundiced interpretive lens of nativist sentiments or the sentimental notions of Ellis Island as a chronicle of American bounty and frothy idealism. Instead, this book looks at how actual people created, interpreted, and executed immigration laws at Ellis Island.
This is a story about the growing pains of a modern nation that was struggling with vast and seemingly disturbing changes. In response, America engaged in a debate about who could become an American. It was heated, loud, and often nasty. Raw emotions and blunt opinions were expressed in language that is often discomforting to modern readers.
In response to this debate, Congress translated these concerns into laws that were carried out at Ellis Island and other, smaller immigrant inspection stations around the country, where officials were confronted with the very real mass of humans who washed upon America’s shores daily.
Guarding the borders became the key to defining the character of the nation itself. Ellis Island represents the dawning of a new age: the rise of the United States as a modern nation-state. After the Civil War, it would become an industrial powerhouse, achieve a unified nation from coast to coast, and expand its power on the world stage by extending its sphere of influence into Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America. To manage this economic, military, and political behemoth, a new federal government had to be created almost from scratch. Immigration control should be placed in the context of the rise of this modern state.
The immigration service that ran inspection stations like Ellis Island was one of the country’s first large government programs. The