Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America

While Ngai focuses on the period from 1924 through 1965, she explains how earlier immigration policies helped to shape the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924. Statutes, diplomatic agreements, and court rulings had racially excluded Asians from citizenship prior to that time. The 1924 law continued that policy. Establishing numerical restrictions for European immigration, the 1924 law broke new ground. However, it built on the restrictionist policies and attitudes prevalent in World War I and its aftermath. The Hart-Celler Immigration Act of 1965, though ensuring formal equality in the allocation of quotas, nonetheless retained numerical restrictions on the number of immigrants accepted annually. What is more, it extended numerical restrictions to the Western Hemisphere for the first time. Ngai highlights the continuity of this 1965 law, usually noted for its progressive break from the 1924 racist quotas, with the restrictionist laws of the past.

In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act passed. This law prohibited Chinese laborers from emigrating to the US. There were some exceptions for merchants, teachers, students, and diplomats, but the law drastically reduced Chinese immigration. In 1907, an agreement was reached with Japan to substantially reduce immigration from that country as well.