The second wave of immigration climaxed from 1861 to 1880, when about 5 million immigrants came to the U.S. After the Civil War, the country was at the peak of industrialization and was in strong demand for labor. President Lincoln lobbied the congress to pass the 1864 Immigrant Act in order to attract more European immigrants, making it the most important diplomatic task at that time. Thanks to immigration, the U.S got hundreds of thousands of skilled workers from Europe without having to invest much in education and training. According to statistics, during 1871 to 1892, about 23% of immigrants from western and northern Europe were skilled workers . They brought technology from iron, steel, textile and other industries, and later became an important force of U.S’s industrial revolution. The third immigration peak occurred from 1881 to 1920, when number of immigrants soared to 23.5 million. In this stage, the US government has repeatedly make legislation restricting European immigration and excluding Asian immigrants. The minor races of immigrants were treated in a way no different than how African Americans were treated. As more and more contract labor came to the U.S, the immigration law took this topic into consideration. In 1882 an act to exclude Chinese was established and following that was the 1892 Geary Act and the 1902 Scott Act , all requiring certain levels of prohibition and extended the length of time on the exclusion of Chinese. Considering how much immigrants had contributed, the exclusion acts were irrational decisions. For example, Samuel Slater was an immigrant to the US who successfully replicated the efficient cotton spinning machine, starting the American industrial revolution. The inventor of telephone, Alexander Bell, father of telegraph, Samuel Morse, and many other great inventors are descendants of immigrants or immigrants themselves. In addition, immigrants from China, Japan and the Philippines brought agricultural and horticultural techniques, while Italian immigrants contributed to gas, electricity, water and many other construction technologies to the U.S. Also, in the changing political landscape and early "westward movement", the role of Chinese workers cannot be ignored. As people from different races started to enter America, the straightforward and simple naturalization process for Federal citizenship stood in sharp contrast to the restricted access to naturalization in European countries, the original home for vast majority of nineteenth-century immigrants. Such simplicity, which allows foreigners to become American citizens, disguised the fact that there are limited citizenship rights accompanying naturalization. The contours of political citizenship, as linked to naturalization, only gradually emerged between the passage of the Bill of Rights and the 15th Amendment. As the rights of political citizenship became more clearly defined and more comprehensive during the nineteenth century, struggle over who would be eligible to exercise these rights to their fullest degree became crucial to the government. However, during the court hearings, the different attitude of judges toward these immigrants gradually decided where they were going. The system of naturalization based on what John Buenker has called “organic networks” had a number of different consequences. For one, it ended to exclude more recent immigrant groups from naturalization in disproportionate numbers, unless the enlisted the help of “old timers” as facilitators. From 1940 to 1990, the legal regulations on immigration had transited from “strictly limited” to “flexible”. After the immigrant quota system was established in the early 20s, the economic crisis broke out and the government had to put a strict limit on quotas. During 1931 to 1940, there were only 68,000 immigrants, which marked the lowest time of all since 1820 . After World War II broke out, the steady stream of military orders pulled U.S economy out of a prolonged recession. Labor shortages became a great problem, and the U.S government signed several labor contracts in 1942 with Mexico, Canada, New Zealand and other countries. This finally overthrew of the act of exclusion on contract labor . The congress authorized the President to continue to introduce contract labor, and required strict management from the government to prevent illegal immigration. The abolition of the Chinese Exclusion Act is the continuance of such consideration that China became an important alliance to the U.S during the World War II. The U.S Congress did so in December 1943 and granted 105 quotas to China each year, allowing Chinese to be naturalized as US citizens . In 1952, the congress promulgated the Alien Immigration and Nationality Act, resulting in an increase of total annual quota to 156,000. |
