Impossible Subjects

Last updated
Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America
Impossible Subjects.jpg
Author Mae M. Ngai
SeriesPolitics and Society in Twentieth-Century America
Subject U.S. history
Genre Non-fiction
Publisher Princeton University Press
Publication date
2004
Media typePrint (hardcover)
Pages416
ISBN 9781400850235
Followed byThe Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America 

Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America, is a Frederick Jackson Turner Award-winning book by historian Mae M. Ngai published by Princeton University Press in 2004.

Contents

Background

Impossible Subjects was written by Mae M. Ngai and published in 2004 by Princeton University Press. [1] Impossible Subjects was Ngai’s first full-length book, and she has also published a number of works in major newspapers and academic journals. Ngai graduated from Empire State College with a B.A. and went on to Columbia University where she earned her M.A. in 1993 and her Ph.D in 1998. [2] Currently, Ngai is a professor of Asian American Studies and History at Columbia University in New York City and focuses on the invention of racial categories, specifically looking at the creation of Chinese racial categories.

Content

The book examines legislation, court cases, and attitudes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that affected immigration. Through Ngai’s analyses of these factors, readers are shown the long-lasting impacts these cases had on racial categories in the United States, and the way that they were aimed at maintaining whiteness. [3]

The book explores the history of immigration policy and border patrol in the United States, particularly its impact on race relations. In the introduction, Ngai explains the purpose of the book saying, "immigrants are integral to the historical processes that define and redefine the nation." [4] She breaks the introduction into three sections which are "Immigration and Citizenship," "Immigration Policy and the Production of Racial Knowledge," and "Nationalism and Sovereignty." She also begins to discuss several immigration laws that were enacted throughout the history of the U.S. including the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924.

Part One deals with the origins of anti-immigration policy and nativism in United States politics during the early 20th century, particularly the use of gradated categories of "whiteness" to permit or deny entry of immigrants from certain European and Asian countries. This section examines the different factors impacting immigration, including the need for cheap industrial labor and xenophobia. Various pieces of legislation are discussed, particularly the Immigration Act of 1924.

Part Two, she focuses on migrants from the Philippines and Mexico in the 1920s by discussing their role in the U.S. economy and how they challenged cultural norms about the traditional work force. The conclusion of the Spanish–American War and the racialization of Mexican immigrants, who had previously been considered white, are focuses of the section.

In Part Three, Ngai examines the shift of regulations around Japanese-Americans and Chinese-Americans especially their eligibility for citizenship. She uses Japanese internment camps as evidence of their lack of legal and social inclusion in the United States.

In Part Four, she analyzes the next era in immigration policy which she suggests is embodied in the Hart-Celler Act. She discusses how immigration policy was affected during the years of 1945-1965 by World War II. She concludes Part Four by showing how the immigration policies during the time period after 1965 contributed to increased illegal immigration and heightened a seemingly unsolvable problem going forward.

Critical reception

In his review in The New Yorker , Louis Menard praises Ngai's book for demonstrating how the categories of "legal" and "illegal" immigrants "are administrative constructions, always subject to change; they do not tell us anything about the desirability of the persons so constructed." [5]

Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965</span> American immigration law

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart–Celler Act and more recently as the 1965 Immigration Act, is a landmark federal law passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The law abolished the National Origins Formula, which had been the basis of U.S. immigration policy since the 1920s. The act formally removed de facto discrimination against Southern and Eastern Europeans as well as Asians, in addition to other non-Western and Northern European ethnic groups from the immigration policy of the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Immigration Act of 1924</span> 1924 United States anti-immigration law

The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the Asian Exclusion Act and National Origins Act, was a federal law that prevented immigration from Asia and set quotas on the number of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. It also authorized the creation of the country's first formal border control service, the U.S. Border Patrol, and established a "consular control system" that allowed entry only to those who first obtained a visa from a U.S. consulate abroad.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Wetback</span> 1950s U.S. immigration law enforcement initiative

Operation Wetback was an immigration law enforcement initiative created by Joseph Swing, the Director of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The program was implemented in June 1954 by U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell. The implementation of Operation Wetback was a result of Attorney General Herbert Brownell's touring of Southern California in August 1953. It was here that he made note of the "shocking and unsettling" issue that was illegal immigration. The short-lived operation used military-style tactics to remove Mexican immigrants—some of them American citizens—from the United States. Though millions of Mexicans had legally entered the country through joint immigration programs in the first half of the 20th century and some who were naturalized citizens who were once native, Operation Wetback was designed to send them to Mexico.

Immigration reduction refers to a government and social policy in the United States that advocates a reduction in the amount of immigration allowed into the country. Steps advocated for reducing the numbers of immigrants include advocating stronger action to prevent illegal entry and illegal migration, and reductions in non-immigrant temporary work visas. Some advocate tightening the requirements for legal immigration requirements to reduce numbers, or move the proportions of legal immigrants away from those on family reunification programs to skills-based criteria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeremiah Jenks</span>

Jeremiah Whipple Jenks (1856–1929) was an American economist, educator, and Professor at Cornell University, who held various posts in the US government throughout his career. He served as a member of the Dillingham Immigration Commission from 1907 to 1914 in which he led research projects on the state of immigration to the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952</span> American immigration law

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, also known as the McCarran–Walter Act, codified under Title 8 of the United States Code, governs immigration to and citizenship in the United States. It came into effect on June 27, 1952. Before the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, various statutes governed immigration law but were not organized within one body of text. According to its own text, the Act is officially entitled as just the Immigration and Nationality Act, but it is frequently specified with 1952 at the end in order to differentiate it from the 1965 law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saskia Sassen</span> Dutch-American sociologist (born 1947)

Saskia Sassen is a Dutch-American sociologist noted for her analyses of globalization and international human migration. She is a professor of sociology at Columbia University in New York City, and the London School of Economics. The term global city was coined and popularized by Sassen in her 1991 work, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Adna Hill</span> American statistician

Joseph Adna Hill (1860–1938) was an American statistician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Illegal immigration to the United States</span> Immigration to the United States in violation of US law

Foreign nationals (aliens) can violate US immigration laws by entering the United States unlawfully or lawfully entering but then remaining after the expiration of their visas, parole, TPS, etc. Illegal immigration has been a matter of intense debate in the United States since the 1980s.

The War Brides Act was enacted to allow alien spouses, natural children, and adopted children of members of the United States Armed Forces, "if admissible," to enter the U.S. as non-quota immigrants after World War II. More than 100,000 entered the United States under this Act and its extensions and amendments until it expired in December 1948. The War Brides Act was a part of new approach to immigration law that focused on family reunification over racial exclusion. There were still racial limits that existed particularly against Asian populations, and Chinese spouses were the only Asian nationality that qualified to be brought to the United States under the act. Additionally, the War Brides Act was well supported and easily passed because family members of servicemen were the recipients, but there were concerns over marital fraud which caused some tensions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Employment authorization document</span> Document issued by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services

A Form I-766 employment authorization document or EAD card, known popularly as a work permit, is a document issued by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that provides temporary employment authorization to noncitizens in the United States.

The Ann Arbor Hospital murders were the murders of 10 patients by unauthorized administration in their IV of the curare drug Pavulon in an Ann Arbor, Michigan, VA hospital in 1975. After a vast FBI investigation into the deaths, the nurses Filipina Narciso and Leonora Perez were charged with murder but convicted only for the charges of poisoning and conspiracy. Public opinion was against prosecution of the nurses on the basis that they could have had only the most trivial of possible motives for conspiring to commit such extremely serious crimes, and the case was dropped after a retrial had been ordered.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judicial aspects of race in the United States</span> Aspect of history

Legislation seeking to direct relations between racial or ethnic groups in the United States has had several historical phases, developing from the European colonization of the Americas, the triangular slave trade, and the American Indian Wars. The 1776 Declaration of Independence included the statement that "all men are created equal," which has ultimately inspired actions and legislation against slavery and racial discrimination. Such actions have led to passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States Congressional Joint Immigration Commission</span>

The United States Immigration Commission was a bipartisan special committee formed in February 1907 by the United States Congress, President of the United States and Speaker of the House of Representatives, to study the origins and consequences of recent immigration to the United States. This was in response to increasing political concerns about the effects of immigration in the United States and its brief was to report on the social, economic and moral state of the nation. During its time in action the Commission employed a staff of more than 300 people for over 3 years, spent better than a million dollars and accumulated mass data.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mae Ngai</span> American historian

Mae Ngai is an American historian and Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies and Professor of History at Columbia University. She focuses on nationalism, citizenship, ethnicity, immigration, and race in 20th-century United States history.

<i>Shanghai Girls</i> Novel by Lisa See

Shanghai Girls is a 2009 novel by Lisa See. It centers on the complex relationship between two sisters, Pearl and May, as they go through great pain and suffering in leaving war-torn Shanghai, and try to adjust to the difficult roles of wives in arranged marriages and of Chinese immigrants to the U.S. This work marks a return to many of the themes the author addressed in her first major work, On Gold Mountain, a memoir of her family's history. The novel is set between 1937–57 and matches Parts IV and V of the memoir.

Yamataya v. Fisher, 189 U.S. 86 (1903), popularly known as the Japanese Immigrant Case, is a Supreme Court of the United States case about the federal government's power to exclude and deport certain classes of alien immigrants under the Immigration Act of 1891. The Supreme Court held that the courts may not interfere with a pending deportation unless the administrative hearing was unfair. However, deportation procedures are subject to constitutional scrutiny, under the Due Process Clause.

Lucy E. Salyer is a professor of history at the University of New Hampshire known for her work on the history of immigration law in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madeline Y. Hsu</span> American historian of Chinese American and Asian American history

Madeline Y. Hsu is an American historian known for her scholarship in Chinese American and Asian American history. She is an elected Fellow of the Society of American Historians. She is the eldest granddaughter of the neo-Confucian scholar Xu Fuguan.

References

  1. Ngai, Mae M. (2014-04-27). Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Updated edition with a New Foreword ed.). Princeton University Press. ISBN   9780691160825.
  2. "Mae Ngai - Faculty - Department of History - Columbia University". history.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2017-03-09.
  3. M., Ngai, Mae (2014-01-01). Impossible subjects illegal aliens and the making of modern America . Princeton Univ. Press. ISBN   9780691160825. OCLC   935338156.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. Ngai, Mae M (2004). Impossible subjects: illegal aliens and the making of modern America . ISBN   9780691160825.
  5. "Patriot Games". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2017-01-24.
  6. "Berkshire Conference First Book Prize | Book awards | LibraryThing". www.librarything.com. Retrieved 2017-03-22.
  7. "Theodore Saloutos Book Award". IEHS Online. 2015-12-02. Retrieved 2017-03-09.

Sources