Americanization in the States: Immigrant Social Welfare Policy, Citizenship, and National Identity in the United States, 1908–1929

8. Americanization versus Restriction: Immigrant Social Welfare Policy in New York, California, and Massachusetts, 1919–1929

8   • Americanization versus Restriction Immigrant Social Welfare Policy in New York, California, and Massachusetts, 1919–1929 In the 1920s, as the national obsession about immigrant loyalty and the meaning of American citizenship peaked and then ebbed in favor of immigration restriction, pro-immigration progressives suffered attacks on their policies of Americanization. As the country became more politically conservative, immigrant social welfare agencies in New York, California, and Massachusetts struggled to maintain programs designed to reform the social environment to facilitate immigrants’ adoption of a more “American” way of life. But nativeborn Americans rejected Americanizers’ efforts to stabilize society by raising the standards of living of both the foreign- and native-born. Instead, the United States reversed one hundred years of immigration policy , adopted a policy that dramatically reduced the number of southern and eastern Europeans admitted, and totally barred Asian immigrants. This new immigration policy defined American citizenship and national identity in racial terms that progressive Americanizers had rarely used. To be an American no longer meant subscribing to certain political values, such as democracy, liberty, or equality. Rather, according to Congressional restrictionists, to be “American” meant to be of northern European descent; and since the “national origins” of true Americans were northern European, northern Europeans should be given preference as immigrants and future citizens over other, less desirable peoples. With the imposition of the first quotas in 1921, most Americans considered formal Americanization programs unnecessary; the few remaining state immigrant social welfare agencies survived by adapting themselves to new political conditions and significantly reducing the scope of their ambitions. The ultimate decline of progressive Americanization policies in the mid- to late-1920s was caused by the combination of repeated conservative attacks and the loss of political support caused by those attacks. 144 A cursory glance at the 1920s indicates a strong and resurgent conservatism in American society—the Red Scare, immigration restriction, passive presidents calling for “normalcy,” the Ku Klux Klan, and virulent racial violence . Some historians have cited the Americanization movement as further evidence of the country’s rightward shift toward nativism and conservatism in the 1920s. Yet the Americanization policy movement, with its emphasis on reforming the social environment, was a leading driver of progressive social activism after World War I.1 Eugenics and scientific racism influenced the 1921, 1924, and 1929 quota laws, but state Americanization programs were implemented independently of federal immigration policy and continued to focus on the settlement and adjustment of immigrants already in the country even after the adoption of immigration restriction.2 The new immigration policy’s primary effect on state immigrant social welfare agencies was to cause an increase in immigrants requesting legal advice and assistance in dealing with the new federal rules. Neither the new conservative political climate nor immigration restriction changed the attitudes of progressive or conservative Americanizers. It was only in the late 1920s when some progressive Americanization activists began to qualify their pro-immigrant stance in favor of some types of restriction, and this shift in position was in direct response to the demographic changes caused by the quota acts. World War I ended just as the United States had finally achieved full mobilization and was sending large numbers of troops to Europe. Reluctant to lose the feeling of national unity, Americans transferred their wartime zeal away from “swatting the Hun” to a new enemy, “the Red,” almost immediately after the declaration of the Armistice on November 11, 1918. Led by conservative law enforcement officials, patriotic organizations, and anti-union business leaders, the Red Scare offered a clear alternative vision of Americanism to that promoted by progressive Americanizers. “Red hunters” sought to maintain public opinion’s wartime insistence on “100 Percent Americanism,” which was now defined as opposition to labor organization, immigration, progressive political economy, and anything else that deviated from provincial, Anglo -Saxon American culture. The anti-radical hysteria affected state-based Americanization policies in different ways, depending on how the Red Scare unfolded in each state. In Massachusetts several dramatic strikes—including those by Lawrence textile workers, New England telephone operators, Boston elevated train operators, and the Boston police—directly contributed to Americans’ irrational fear of a communist revolution in the United States. The Massachusetts Bureau of Immigration was not immune to the anxieties felt by many Massachusetts Americanization versus Restriction 145 146 Americanization in the States residents. Fear of the “Red Menace” combined with hostility toward the undesirable immigrant, and the...