TENSIONS OVER IMMIGRATION
During the 1920s, the United States sharply restricted foreign im- migration for the first time in its history . Large inflows of foreigners long had created a certain amount of social tension, but most had been of Northern European stock and, if not quickly assimilated, at least pos- sessed a certain commonality with most Americans . By the end of the 19th century, however, the flow was predominantly from southern and Eastern Europe . According to the census of 1900, the population of the United States was just over 76 mil- lion . Over the next 15 years, more than 15 million immigrants entered the country .
Around two-thirds of the inflow consisted of “newer” nationalities and ethnic groups — Russian Jews, Poles, Slavic peoples, Greeks, south- ern Italians . They were non-Prot- estant, non-“Nordic,” and, many Americans feared, nonassimilable . They did hard, often dangerous, low-pay work — but were accused of driving down the wages of native- born Americans . Settling in squalid
CHAPTER 10: WAR, PROSPERITY, AND DEPRESSION
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
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urban ethnic enclaves, the new im- migrants were seen as maintaining Old World customs, getting along with very little English, and sup- porting unsavory political machines that catered to their needs . Nativists wanted to send them back to Europe; social workers wanted to American- ize them . Both agreed that they were a threat to American identity .
Halted by World War I, mass immigration resumed in 1919, but quickly ran into determined oppo- sition from groups as varied as the American Federation of Labor and the reorganized Ku Klux Klan . Mil- lions of old-stock Americans who belonged to neither organization ac- cepted commonly held assumptions about the inferiority of non-Nordics and backed restrictions . Of course, there were also practical arguments in favor of a maturing nation putting some limits on new arrivals .
In 1921, Congress passed a sharp- ly restrictive emergency immigra- tion act . It was supplanted in 1924 by the Johnson-Reed National Origins Act, which established an immigra- tion quota for each nationality . Those quotas were pointedly based on the census of 1890, a year in which the newer immigration had not yet left its mark . Bitterly resented by south- ern and Eastern European ethnic groups, the new law reduced immi- gration to a trickle . After 1929, the economic impact of the Great De- pression would reduce the trickle to a reverse flow — until refugees from European fascism began to press for admission to the country .