Abstract
In Crossing Borders: Migration and Citizenship in the Twentieth-Century United States, Dorothee Schneider provides an in-depth, historical, and transnational account of European, Asian, and Western hemisphere immigration to the US starting in the late 19th century. Schneider focuses primarily on the first half of the 20th century, as this was a time of significant levels of immigration and the institutionalization of federal immigration policies and organizations. To cover this broad historical period, the book chapters are organized around types of ‘border crossings’ that these immigrants traversed, including ‘departure, arrival, deportation, assimilation, and naturalization’ (p. 6). Specifically Schneider focuses on the ‘zone of negotiation’ or interactions between the state and immigrants at these border crossings (p. 3). They illustrate how these borders were experienced differently on the basis of one’s race, gender, class, nationality, and geographic location. In particular, they highlight the ways certain groups, especially non-European immigrants, have often faced exclusion unless their inclusion was helpful for US identity, economic, political, and nation-building interests. They also outline throughout the book how anti-immigrant activists frequently tried to exacerbate this exclusion, and yet immigrants used their agency and support from advocates to decide how and when to negotiate with the US immigration system and ‘borders’.
Following an introduction is the chapter entitled ‘Leaving Home’, where Schneider outlines the challenges many immigrants faced in their attempts to leave their home country. They explain that Asian and European nation-states varied in their practices of restriction or allowance of outmigration, while Western hemisphere nations did little to hinder it. Meanwhile, except for the restriction of many Asian immigrants, the US nation-state did not directly control which immigrants were permitted to depart for arrival here until the passage of the quota laws in the early 1920s. Instead, the US government generally outsourced immigration control to the transportation companies who were tasked with determining who was socially desirable enough to be allowed to immigrate. Schneider also illustrates the circular immigration patterns of some, the importance of social networks, and the strategies immigrants used to be able to travel and gain admittance into the US.
In Chapter two, ‘Landing in America’, Schneider explains how the US government became more involved in regulating immigration across its physical borders at the turn of the 20th century through increased federal immigration law, bureaucracy, and border enforcement. Each border location focused on different types of in-person inspections and exclusion. In general though, Schneider emphasizes that the US government focused on the restriction of ‘undesirable’ people from entering along class, gender, mental wellness, ‘criminality’, nationality and racial lines, with Japanese, Chinese, and eventually Mexican immigrants facing the most exclusion. With the passage of the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 this restriction became more formalized through quotas and visas. Furthermore, in Chapter three, ‘Forced Departures’, Schneider explains that exclusion in immigration policy was further solidified through the expansion of time limits and categories of people who could be deported. In particular, Schneider explains that updated deportation laws in 1917 and the Johnson-Reed Act were used to shape the existence of the ideal citizenry, and thus exclude and sometimes deport people who were not seen as ‘worthy’ (p. 123). This again included some poor people, women, communists, political activists, and many Mexican and Asian immigrants. On the other hand, in both chapters Schneider illustrates the ways many immigrants resisted or contested their exclusion.
In the fourth chapter, ‘Americanization’, Schneider discusses the efforts of progressives and the government to push immigrants to assimilate and naturalize beginning in the early 1900s. Yet they also explain that in the 1920s and 1930s immigrants actively negotiated and created their own forms of ‘Americanization’ outside of these efforts, through their ethnic communities, churches, unions, and other groups. This was especially the case for immigrants of color due to their social exclusion and segregation, and because most formal assimilation efforts and programs focused on European immigrants.
The final chapter, ‘Becoming a Citizen’, shows how the path to crossing the border into citizenship was not possible, prompt, linear, or guaranteed for everyone. With the Naturalization Law of 1906 the citizenship process became more formal and centralized federally, yet it was still very exclusionary. Many immigrants, generally the poor, non-white, and some women, were restricted from naturalizing or being politically included even after becoming a citizen. And while not all eligible immigrants applied for naturalization, many eventually did because it provided access to job opportunities, the ability to bring family members to the US, to get access to resources during the Great Depression, or to address pressure by the military to enlist or show patriotism during World Wars I and II.
Eventually, pressure to foster positive global relations pushed the US to lift immigration and naturalization restrictions on Asians starting in the 1940s and 1950s, and to pass the Hart-Cellar Act of 1965 which, at least formally, ended the racialized quotas for all immigrants. Schneider ends the book with an epilogue that outlines events, laws, and trends that have happened since 1965. To begin with, immigration from Asia and the Western hemisphere has since increased significantly. On the other hand, there has been increased anti-immigrant activism since the 1980s that has resulted in the passage of multiple laws that increased militarization of the US–Mexico border, decreased access to social and economic inclusion for undocumented immigrants, and increased deportations in recent years, particularly for Mexican immigrants. Thus, as before, immigration and naturalization policies have continued to be shaped by factors such as race and one’s general ‘worthiness’ in the context of national interests. Yet Schneider also reminds us that immigrants and their advocates continue to push against and sometimes transform such ‘borders’.
Schneider certainly accomplishes their goals of outlining historical perspectives and policies regarding US immigration and citizenship, the interplay between nation-states and immigrants, and the complicated paths immigrants follow. Additionally, among the strengths of this book is the level of detail and breadth Schneider offers, paying attention to how each group of immigrants were treated differently during this particular era of US immigration. They also make sure to include information on events and policies of the immigrants’ home countries, emphasizing the relationships between nation-states and transnational nature of immigration. In addition, Schneider’s use of theme of border crossings immigrants experience to frame this story is insightful and helps guide the reader through the extensive amount of information they provide. Nevertheless, at times it is difficult to digest and tie together all of this material, which is sometimes repetitive or disjointed within and across the chapters. Still, this book would be a very useful piece for advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and anyone interested in the history of US immigration and the legacy of racial, class, and gendered exclusion that persists today. This book also provides important evidence of how the nation-state, anti-immigrant activists, immigrant advocates, and immigrants themselves interact and actively (re)shape borders and lines of inclusion and exclusion. A future book expanding on Schneider’s epilogue, elaborating on border crossings and exclusion since 1965, would be extremely valuable. Such information would deepen our understanding around what is at stake for immigrants and their allies during a time of expanded demographic diversity, neoliberalism, and active xenophobia.