"Immigration Act of 1924" Discusses racism in the government, how govt did not want anyone besides north-west europeans in the country. uses examples. good essay

Essay by JesscaHigh School, 11th gradeA+, December 2003

download word file, 3 pages 4.5

In 1924 Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1924. This act made it so that many immigrants weren't allowed into the country. The exclusion act accepted only two percent of the population of each nationality according to the census of 1890, instead of accepting three percent of the number of people of each nationality according to the census of 1910. At the turn of the twentieth century, people from different countries and nationalities began immigrating to the United States. More people from Southern and Eastern Europe began immigrating to the states, hoping for a better life, but ended up being turned away because the United States had already gotten their quota, which ended up to be a very small number. Congress passed the Exclusion Act of 1924 because the people of the United States were racist and wanted the US to be predominantly white, did not want high numbers of other races in America, and didn't like the ideas of anarchy and communism.

In the early twentieth century, the people of the United States were surrounded by different looking faces, which scared, intimidated, and angered them, making the people of the United States what we now call racist. Many people of the States thought that people born of something other than the Nordic race were somehow inferior to them, or other white people. The author Carl C. Brigham states that "the average intelligence of our immigrants is declining . . . as the migration . . . has increased . . . the representatives of the Alpine and Mediterranean races . . . are intellectually inferior to the . . . Nordic race." Many leaders of the United States, and the majority of the population of the United States did not want the oppressed from other countries "spoiling" the beautiful...