|
Valuing Human Differences Immigrant Entrepreneurs in Chicago |
 |
|
immigration
timeline
|
|
|
| 1619 | first Africans came to work as endentured servants | |
| 1700s | 200,000+ Africans "imported" as slaves, mostly to southern agricultural plantations | |
| 1808 | importing slaves outlawed | |
| early
1800s |
influx of Irish begin to replace African labor force | |
| 1850s | 40,000+ Asians (mostly Chinese) come to California, mostly for railroad work | |
| by 1853 |
1 million economically displaced Germans come to the U.S. | |
| 1861- 1865 |
U.S. Civil War | |
| 1864 | Congress passes law allowing companies to pay transportation of new immigrant workers (costs then taken from wages) | |
| 1885 | federal and state laws adopted attempting to restrict immigration | |
| 1886 | Statue of Liberty erected | |
| 1890- 1914 |
4 million Italians come to U.S. | |
| 1891 | Bureau of Immigration created within the U.S. Treasury Department | |
| 1900- 1914 |
13 million immigrants come to U.S. | |
| 1907 | 1.28 million immigrants come to U.S. | |
| 1907 | Immigration Commission convenes, also called "Dillingham Commission" after chair Senator William Dillingham. Their report included a "Dictionary of Races" and was vetoed until 1917. | |
| 1914- 1918 |
World War I | |
| 1917 | Immigration Act of 1917. Requires all immigrants over the age of 16 to pass a literacy test and bars all Asians (except for Japanese). | |
| 1918 | World War I ends | |
| 1920- 1921 |
economic depression and strengthening labor union movement | |
| 1924 | Johnson-Reed Act (also known as the National Origins Act) limits immigration from Europe to 150,000 per year with specific ethic quotas based on the U.S. population for 1890 | |
| 1929 | immigration systems based on the National Origins Act now in full operation | |
| 1929 | stock market crash | |
| 1930s | the Great Depression | |
| 1939 | the SS St. Louis holding 930 Jews fleeing Hitler's Germany are refused entry to the U.S. | |
| 1939- 1945 |
World War II: immigration virtually halts | |
| 1940s | Southern blacks move north for industrial jobs to support war effort | |
| 1946 | "War Brides" and "Fiancés" acts relaxes immigration quotas for 150,000 wives and 25,000 children to enter the U.S. from Europe | |
| 1947 | legislation similar to these family acts allows 5,000 Chinese and 800 Japanese wives to move to the U.S. | |
| 1948 | Displaced Persons Act of 1948 (ammended in 1950) allows 400,000 war victims to move to the U.S. (many Germans) | |
| 1950 | Internal Security Act, written in reaction to alleged communist threats, excludes or deports "alien subversives" | |
| 1952 | "McCarran-Walter Act", the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, attempts to codify previous immigration laws. Based more on emotional response to communism than scientific measures. | |
| 1953 | Refugee Relief Act allows another 214,000 immigrants into the U.S. from communist countries, but ethnic allowances were banked against older quotas of the National Origins Act | |
| 1959 | 800,000 Cubans enter U.S. under an exception to the National Origins Act when Castro takes over | |
| 1962 | Migration and Refugee Assistance Act gives Executive Branch more flexibility to deal with immigration issues | |
| 1965 | Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 replaces National Origins Act quotas with "preference categories" based on family ties and job skills; immigration then rises 60% with a significant increase in Asian immigrants | |
| 1976 | Immigration and Nationality Act ammended to limit immigration from the rest of the Western Hemisphere | |
| 1980 | Congress expands "political refugee" category | |
| 1981- 1986 |
500,000 Southeast Asians move to U.S. | |
| 1986 | Congress enacts law making employers responsible for verifying citizenship | |
| late 1980s |
immigration lotteries allow entrance to random 10,000 non-Hispanic, non-Asians | |
| 1989 | Immigration Act of 1989 includes clause for president to reassess immigration policy again in 1992 | |
|
Source:
Based on Dan Lacey's The Essential
Immigrants, New York, Hippocrene: 1990. |
||
|
|
||
