Does America Really Want to Be a Nation of Immigrants? – The Eastsider LA

The 11th Annual Zcalo Book Prize Lecture

Moderated by Toms Jimnez, Professor of Sociology at Stanford University and author of The Other Side of Assimilation: How Immigrants are Changing American Life

The year 1924 was a watershed in American immigration. A victory for the eugenics movement, the Johnson-Reed Act established race-based quotas that succeeded in limiting the entry of Jews and Catholics from Southern and Eastern Europe, as well as strengthening restrictions already in place barring the entry of Asians and Africans. It would take an extraordinary political window following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to overhaul the quota system through the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965. By giving preference to family reunification and skilled workers, the legislation changed the demographics of the country, making it less European and less white. At the same time, it imposed the first numerical cap on Western Hemisphere immigration, making the U.S. less accessible for people coming from Mexico and other Latin American countries.

What lessons can we draw from these two historic shifts in American immigration? Has the United States ever been the nation of immigrants that it purports to be? And in our polarized times, can we fashion a new national identity that embraces immigrants and their families?

New York Times national editor Jia Lynn Yang, winner of the 11th annual Zcalo Public Square Book Prize for her debut book, One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965, visits Zcalo to discuss how immigration laws have changed the American population, our communities, and the countrys sense of itself.

Angelica Esquivel, winner of the 10th Annual Zcalo Poetry Prize, will deliver a reading of her poem, La Mujer, prior to lecture. Read more about Esquivel and her winning poem here.

The 2021 Zcalo Book and Poetry Prizes are generously sponsored by Tim Disney.

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Does America Really Want to Be a Nation of Immigrants? - The Eastsider LA