After They Closed the Gates: Jewish Illegal Immigration to the United States, 1921–1965 by Libby Garland (review)

Meticulously researched and written, Libby Garland’s book examines illegal Jewish immigration from the passage of the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921 (quickly revised and strengthened by the Johnson-Reed Act in 1924) until 1965 when the Hart-Celler Act ended the quota system. A work that challenges and reshapes the historiographical understanding of legal and illegal immigration, Garland examines how the laws were understood by a variety of individuals, groups, organizations, and government officials. The author presents the notion that the meanings associated with the laws were often shaped by the migrants themselves. This is an idea not previously examined by historians and helps make Garland’s study a fascinating portrait of Jewish immigration often ignored, dismissed, or misunderstood in the broader historiography. As she explains in the epilogue, she chose to examine Jewish illegal immigration both for personal reasons and because of the unique situation of Jewish communal and organizational life in the United States. What the reader comes away with though, is a broader understanding not merely of how Jews confronted the immigration laws but how the question of legality impacted Americans’ understanding of nationhood, boundaries, and emerging identities.

Garland’s narrative places the 1924 law into the broader historiographical picture of American immigration. She begins by reviewing the United States’ historical struggle to restrict certain immigrants dating back to 1790. With the successful passage of Johnson-Reed in 1924, however, the efforts of those who wanted to control the borders, define the nation, and construct notions of American identity came face to face with the difficulties of trying to define categories that the intended targets were unwilling (or unable) to agree with, comprehend or abide by. Unclear legal classifications confronted many migrants in the immediate aftermath of the law’s passage and as Garland explains, the broad and fragmented world of American Jewish organizations had to balance their desire to help migrants with the need to follow the law. Garland explains that Texas became an immediate location for this tension as Rabbi Marvin Zielonka of El Paso defended abiding the law to ensure the reputation of American Jewry. Garland’s description of Zielonka reflects the local, national, and international tensions confronted by Jews over whom to help, how to help, and who would control that help.

Garland depicts the migrant experience of adaptation to a new world established at the end of World War I. Throughout the book, Garland enhances her narrative with individual stories. She examines how migrants reacted to the law and adapted to their situations. In particular, she begins chapter four, entitled Illicit Journeys, with four different migrant stories that illustrate the difficulty migrants had confronting the often ambiguous legalities of the law. It was not just attaining documents that proved important for migrants but as Garland explains, understanding how to “perform” for government officials to ensure they could pass for legitimate and legal migrants. She also describes how these officials often had to rely on “gut feeling” to identify the legal from the illegal.

While Garland’s narrative provides the reader with interesting stories, tense and complex situations, and complicated identities, she also examines issues often ignored or minimized by historians. Specifically, she examines a 1931 Michigan law that required the registration of all unnaturalized foreigners (or aliens). As she does throughout the book, Garland revisits the evolving historiography on Jewish immigration, whiteness, and national identity. She explains that the registration law did nothing to change the emerging white identity of American Jews but did bring to question Jews’ ability to “belong” to the national community. Michigan’s law divided those who seemed native and those who seemed foreign. In this regard, the American Jewish response was informed by an anxiety that remained intense for the remainder of the interwar period but gradually alleviated during the Cold War. By time President Johnson signed the Hart-Celler Act...