Treated like Chinamen’

United States immigration restriction and white British subjects

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12876341
AutoresYves Rees (0000-0002-2278-7751, La Trobe University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2019
Volumen14
Número2
Páginas239-260
Fecha de publicación2019-07-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Global History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1740-0228 • E-ISSN: 1740-0236
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1740022819000056
OpenAlexW2961864877
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas51

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

Context (archaeology · Development economics · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Immigration · Immigration policy · Kinship · Political science · Politics · Rhetoric · Solidarity · White (mutation · Australian History and Society · Colonial History and Postcolonial Studies · History · Law · World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact