How grandma got legal

[Dr.Phool]

There were no immigration laws before the 1920's except for Chinese.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ngai16may16,1,3789.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

How grandma got legal
Illegal-immigration foes say today's migrants are different from their own forebears. They don't know U.S. history.
By Mae M. Ngai, MAE M. NGAI is a history professor at the University of Chicago and author of "Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America."
May 16, 2006

'MADE IN America — by immigrants" and "We too have a dream" read signs at the May 1 marches across the country. By invoking an American ideal, today's newcomers are staking their claim as the latest generation of nation-builders. But their critics object to this appeal to history; they resent comparisons to previous generations of immigrants, who were legal.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), for example, says his grandparents — Dutch immigrants who settled in Nebraska — didn't try to get ahead by breaking the law. Rather, they made it through "frugality … hard work, grit, honesty," he says. "They would be very upset about people who didn't do it the right way."


Such comparisons between past and present miss a crucial point. There were so few restrictions on immigration in the 19th and early 20th centuries that there was no such thing as "illegal immigration." The government excluded a mere 1% of the 25 million immigrants who landed at Ellis Island before World War I, mostly for health reasons. (Chinese were the exception, excluded on grounds of "racial unassimilability.")

(snip) more

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Yup.

This was back in the 20's, when a third of white americans were klan members and outspoken racial hatred was at an all time high.

Well, at least the hoods have come off.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Yes and this sentence sums it up: 'They don't know U.S. history.'

[mdmc]

3. we must learn!