1965 Immigration Act Making (Il)Legal Immigrants

Question 1 How did the 1965 Immigration Act affect the demographics of Asian immigrant communities in the US?

1965 Categories 1.Unmarried children under 21 years of age of U.S. citizens 2.Spouses and unmarried children of permanent residents 3.Professionals, scientists, and artists "of exceptional ability" 4.Married children over 21 years of age and their spouses and children of U.S. citizens 5.Siblings and their spouses and children of U.S. citizens 6.Workers in occupations with labor shortages 7.Political refugees

Transforming Asian America % Japanese 27% Chinese 20% Filipino 1% Korean 1% South Asian 15% Japanese 21% Chinese 21% Filipino 11% Korean 10% South Asian 12% Vietnamese 4% Laotian 3% Cambodian Chain Migration  from 1.2 million in 1965 to million by 2000 “Brain Drain”& occupational downgrading as well as widening gap between rich & poor Tension between newly immigrated and established Americanized communities as well as with other minority groups

Question 2 While opening up Asian immigration, how did the Act affect Mexican immigrant communities in the US?

East vs West Numerical equality proven not a fair approach  cap on western hemisphere creates problem of illegal immigration “The imposition of 20,000 annual quota on Mexico recast Mexican migration as ‘illegal.’ When one considers that in the early 1960s annual ‘legal’ Mexican migration comprised some 200,000 braceros and 35,000 regular admissions for permanent residency, the transfer of migration to ‘illegal’ form should have surprised no one” (261)

Legality & Racialization Increased policing of border and of Mexican communities because of 1965 Act 781,000 deportations in 1976 vs 100,000 for all other nationalities (261) Actions by INS (ICE) and “the statistics they produce, have made an extraordinary contribution to the commonplace fallacy insinuating that Mexicans account for virtually all ‘illegal aliens,’ have served to stage the U.S.-Mexico border as the theatre of an enforcement ‘crisis,’ and have rendered ‘Mexican’ as the distinctive national/racialized name for migrant ‘illegality’” (261)

No Person Is Illegal To racialize MX immigrants as illegal is dehumanizing. It obscures & simplifies social, political, & economic conditions of immigration