By Gabriel Renelt, Staff Writer
On Tuesday, Sept. 29, Stanford Sociology and Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity Professor Tomás R. Jiménez gave a presentation aimed at answering the question: are we still, and have we ever been, a nation of immigrants? This lecture was presented by The United States’ oldest honors society, Phi Beta Kappa.
Professor Jiménez is the founding director of Stanford’s institute for advancing justice societies. He received his bachelor’s degree from Santa Clara University and his Ph.D. at Harvard. Through Jiménez’s research, he has published several books and academic articles on the idea of America as a nation of immigrants.
Professor Jiménez argued that simply being a nation with lots of immigration does not necessarily mean the nation will identify itself as a nation of immigrants.
Professor Jiménez noted that, “Countries like Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Monaco and Liechtenstein have about 50% of their population as immigrants… but they do not identify as a nation of immigrants in the way the United States does.”
Jiménez detailed that the idea of being a nation of immigrants is more of a national narrative rather than a demographic fact, in other words it’s a story a nation tells about itself. He added that “we should think of nations as narratives and stories that tell about who we are… and when to make claims of unity for culture and politics.”
Ultimately, Jiménez believes “it’s not enough to just have lots of immigrants, there has to be stories and national self-understanding.”
Professor Jiménez then went on to chronologically order the American peoples perceived views on immigration and pinpoint when he believes we started to adopt the narrative that we are a nation built on immigration.
Before World War II, Jiménez notes that America was not as keen on the self-proclaimed title of “a nation of immigrants.”
Jiménez noted, “The Johnson Reed Act (1924) … responds to anxiety about particularly southern and Eastern Europeans coming to America, specifically anxiety about their race.” This example showcases Americas position on immigration at the time as it moved away from previous open border policies toward legal enforcement of those who can enter.
Jiménez explained that this trend in legislation on immigration was mostly built upon ethnic, racial and religious factors through American history.
After the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act. (1882) Chinese, and other Asian immigrants, became villainized in American education and law until it was officially repelled in 1943.
Through old school textbooks, Jiménez showed how Americans, and their educators, thought about groups of immigrants. Jiménez stated, “the Chinese are in these textbooks to illustrate who Americans are and are not. They talk about how the Chinese immigrants are taking jobs… it is not surprising that white mobs should have tried to drive the Chinese out by force.”
Though the Chinese Exclusion Act was repelled in 1943, many states continued to restrict property ownership by Chinese Americans until 1965.
“Congress are overwhelmingly negative about immigrants until we reach the early 1950s into the 1960s and it becomes positive. We start talking positively about immigrants, they were good, they contributed” Jiménez described.
He added, “in 1958, this is when I would argue the idea of the nation of immigrants as we understand it today is warm, John F. Kennedy writes this pamphlet and makes the claim… we are in fact a nation of immigrants.”
This is the first most direct shift Jiménez finds that contributes to the identity of our nation as a nation of immigrants. The shift comes from the words of the first Catholic President in a predominantly Christian protestant nation.
Towards the end of his lecture, Jiménez describes what he describes as a splinter in opinion on immigration. “For Republican members of Congress, there’s not a ton of daylight between Democrats and Republicans until we reach the kind of early 2000s,” he notes.
“And now you have a party that I think most people would describe, and they would describe themselves, as a pro immigrant immigration party (Democrats) and another that would describe itself as the kind of anti-immigration party (Republicans),” Jiménez argued based on the splintering trends.
After his lecture, Professor Jiménez thanked Phi Beta Kappa, the organizers of the event, for allowing him to speak and took personal questions after the event ended.
