1. Race, Cold War Civil Rights and the Hart-Celler Act of 1965
Anita Casavantes Bradford
Assistant Professor,
History and Chicano/Latino Studies
University of California Irvine
February 7, 2014

2. Immigration Reform: Messy Now, Messy Then
The 1964 Civil Rights Act, 1965 Voting Rights Act, and 1965 Hart-Celler Act are usually understood together as a high point for postwar liberal anti-racism—hooray for American democracy! But as you might expect, the story’s actually more complicated—and a lot more interesting….

3. Key Concepts for This Lecture
World War II--The “Double V” campaign
The McCarran Walter Act (1952)
Post-war liberal anti-discrimination coalition
Immigration reform as Cold War foreign policy
1965 Hart-Celler Act:
Family reunification
Chain migration
Ironies/Unintended Consequences

4. Civil Rights, Postwar Liberalism and Calls for Immigration Reform, 1941-1952
The “long civil rights era:” African American anti-discrimination struggle (1940s) -The “Double V” campaign: victory against fascism/racism abroad AND at home -U.S. government concern with racist reputation overseas -NAACP and white elites form early anti-discrimination coalition

5. Nazi Anti-U.S. Propaganda: Or, the (really evil) Pot Calling the Kettle Black?

6. The Cold War and the McCarran Walter Act (1952)
Conservatives in Congress resist ending national origins quota-offer the McCarran Walter Act as a ‘reform’:
Raised numerical quotas (but only slightly)
Gender equity: allowed husbands of U.S. women to enter as non-quota immigrants
Abolished Japanese exclusion
BUT…

7. The Cold War and the McCarran Walter Act (1952)
Found other ways to exclude racial “undesirables:”
Token quotas for ‘Asia Pacific Triangle’ and postcolonial people (a pre-emptive attempt to block non-white immigration from the developing world)
Qualitative restrictions/administrative procedures to block legal Mexican immigration-but tolerated/encouraged illegal entry and labor
Exclusion/deportation/denaturalization of ‘subversive’ and ‘immoral’ immigrants

8. Cold War Civil Rights? Contesting the National Origins Quota System
A growing anti-discrimination coalition: African Americans, Jews, ‘ethnic’ immigrant voters, NE Democratic Party
BUT: different motives for working against national origins quota:
Jews wanted a symbolic end to anti-Semitism
Catholics, Italians, wanted increased immigration
Blacks opposed to racist logic of the quota system-but focused more on domestic anti-discrimination struggle

9. Immigration Reform—a Weapon of Cold War Foreign Policy?
US racism well known in Asia, Latin America, Africa—key sites of emerging Cold War conflict
Connecting civil rights, immigration reform to foreign policy gave reformers political leverage
They argued immigration reform was necessary to combat Soviet anti-US propaganda, improve the nation’s image overseas, gain anti-communist allies in the developing world

10. A Favorite Cold War Tactic: Evoking our “Fallen Heroes”
“Let those who defend the national origins quota system be forced to read aloud the names of the winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor, or to recite the daily casualty lists coming out of Korea—and then let them dare to say that those of one national origin are less fit to be Americans, less fit to live and die for America, than those of another national origin.” Sen. Herbert Lehman (D-NY)

11. Performing Patriotism: Cold War Reformers ‘Walk the Line’
1950s: Tense/suspicious political climate, govt. campaign to ‘root out’ suspected communists
Liberal reformers vulnerable to charges of ‘commie’ sympathies
Their proposals for civil rights/immigration reform only went so far:
More concerned with formal legal equality than tackling deeper roots of racial injustice
Immigration reform focused on white Europeans, excluded Asians and Mexicans

12. Want to know more about the history of race and Foreign Policy?

13. Cultural history meets the history of U. S
Cultural history meets the history of U.S. race relations and Foreign Policy …

14. Lyndon B. Johnson, Civil Rights and Immigration Reform
Growing African American civil rights movement, white backlash in the South: need to improve US image overseas grows urgent
Leads to passage of:
1964 Civil Rights Act
1965 Voting Rights Act
1965 Immigration and Nationality Act
“repairs a very deep and painful flaw in the fabric of American justice…corrects a cruel and enduring wrong in the conduct of the American nation.”

15. Wait—I thought I ordered the liberal immigration reform…
Wait—I thought I ordered the liberal immigration reform…? The 1965 Hart-Celler Act
Quota for E Hemisphere (170,000)
74% of visas to family members
20% to ‘highly skilled’ immigrants
6% to ‘refugees’ (mostly anti-communist)
New W Hemisphere quota (120,000):
Eliminated legal temporary worker visas
No employer sanctions for hiring illegal workers
preserved ‘back door’ of state sponsored illegal immigration

16. Ironies and Unintended Consequences of Immigration Reform
Two goals of the Hart-Celler Act:
Open “front door” to European immigration
Preserve strict numerical limits on immigration
Actual result:
Non-quota family reunification visas allow chain migration from non-white developing nations (Asia and Latin America)
Growing European prosperity; E Hemisphere quotas go unfilled

17. Revisiting our Key Concepts:
The “Double V” campaign
The McCarran Walter Act (1952)
1950s/60s liberal anti-discrimination coalition
Immigration reform as a weapon of Cold War foreign policy
1965 Hart Celler Act
Family reunification
Chain migration

18. Food for Thought…
In what ways does the legacy of the Hart-Celler Act continue to shape debates over immigration today? What lessons for successful immigration reform can we take from the formulation/implementation of Immigration Reform in 1965?