‘Treated like Chinamen’: United States immigration restriction and white British subjects

In 1921, the United States introduced national immigration quotas. Although designed to curb the arrival of ‘undesirables’ from south-east Europe, this quota system also applied to Britain and its white Dominions. By 1929, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa were each allocated 100 quota places...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of global history Vol. 14; no. 2; pp. 239 - 260
Main Author Rees, Anne
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.07.2019
Subjects
Annual reports
Censuses
Deportation
Identity
Immigration
Immigration policy
International relations
Kinship
Men
Noncitizens
Quotas
Race
Restrictions
Rhetoric
Seminars
New Zealand
South Africa
United Kingdom > UK
Australia
United States > US
Europe
immigration
Britain
Australia
United States
whiteness
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Summary:In 1921, the United States introduced national immigration quotas. Although designed to curb the arrival of ‘undesirables’ from south-east Europe, this quota system also applied to Britain and its white Dominions. By 1929, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa were each allocated 100 quota places per annum. The British quota was far greater, but still struggled to meet demand. Through a focus on the Australian example, this article investigates how an immigration regime intended to bolster America’s ‘Anglo-Saxon’ identity also exposed the limits of Anglospheric kinship by closing the gates to white Britons. Although the quotas had a comparatively minor impact on Britons, their exclusion held great significance in the context of Anglo-American relations, where the rhetoric of transnational white solidarity produced expectations of unqualified welcome in the United States. After 1921, as such welcome disappeared and then failed to rematerialize, the global community of white men’s countries was shaken and remade.
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ISSN:1740-0228
1740-0236
DOI:10.1017/S1740022819000056