If you’re an American that means you’re an immigrant (unless you’re 100% Native American and your ancestors came over on the Bering Strait land bridge, in which case, your people are really really ancient immigrants). Curiously, America has always had problems with immigrants. Because immigrants are outsiders and people on the inside don’t like outsiders.
I graduated from St. Olaf College (Northfield, MN) in 1978. St. Olaf was founded in the 19th century by Norwegian Lutheran immigrants who wanted to educate their children. Educating children is good. The year I graduated, my grandparents (Theodore and Valfrid) came to St. Olaf College for their 50th college reunion. They attended my graduation as a fortuitous coincidence – I was their first grandchild to get a college degree – but I think they were mainly there for their class reunion. So I remember that they graduated from college in 1928.
I’m proud of my Norwegian heritage. I’ve done a lot of work on my family tree. Some branches of my family tree go back to the 1500s (mostly farmers and fishermen). The Norwegian government has done a great job of putting census results and church records on the internet. I’m 100% Norwegian, except for one guy who might have been Finnish and another guy who might have been French.
In doing my family tree research I came across something my grandmother wrote in 1927 about her family tree. Here’s an excerpt:
"The family has no record of a single abnormality or physical defect. My maternal grandfather was subject to heart trouble. However, this was due to overwork rather than to heritage.
My mother’s paternal grandfather was killed in an elevator when only thirty years of age. Other than this, my maternal ancestors were of average strength and vitality. The average length of their ages was between seventy and eighty years of age.
My paternal grandfather was killed while breaking horses for governmental purposes. Father’s paternal ancestors were of medium strength and of medium length of life, ranging between sixty and seventy years of age.
My father’s maternal ancestors were very long lived and physically very strong."
In 1927, my grandmother seemed to be very interested – obsessed almost – in abnormalities and defects. Why? I should mention she was only about 20 years old when she wrote this. Just a kid.
It’s all about Eugenics
Eugenics was a big political issue in the 1920s.
In 1924 (when my grandmother was a college freshman), Congress passed the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act, which limited future immigration from other countries to the percentage of immigrants from those countries in the 1890 census.
In 1924, why would anyone care about the old 1890 census, which happened 34 years in the past? Congress had more up-to-date census numbers – from 1900 and 1910 and 1920. Well, it so happens that Congress picked 1890 because, back in the old days (the 1890s), 86% of immigrants to the U.S. came from Northern and Western Europe (meaning England, Ireland, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, etc.). Only 14% of the 1890 immigrants came from Southern and Eastern Europe (meaning Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Russia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, Malta, and so on). Congress decided in 1924 that the future immigration limits would be based on the numbers from 1890.
And why did they pick 1890?
It was racism, pure and simple.
Congress wanted to encourage immigration by Northern and Western Europeans, who were mostly light-skinned white people, many of whom were also blond-haired and blue-eyed. Also, the people from that part of Europe were mostly Protestants (except maybe for Ireland, but most Irish immigration happened in the 1850s, so that wasn’t a problem).
Southern and Eastern Europeans tended to be darker-skinned (the code words back then were "olive-skinned" and "swarthy"). They had browner eyes and browner skin and they had hair that was black and curly. And their religion: Catholic or Greek Orthodox or Russian Orthodox or Jewish. In other words, they didn’t look like the WASPs in Congress. Plus, there were some Communists and Anarchists coming to America from the less desirable parts of Europe. After the 1890 census, the U.S. started receiving more and more Italians and Greeks and Jews and other swarthy people. The 1924 law that used the 1890 numbers didn’t quite slam the door on Southern/Eastern Europeans, but it did make the door significantly smaller.
About the same time, citizenship laws, immigration laws, and land-ownership laws denied any kind of equality to immigrants from Japan, China, India, or other Asian countries. And forget about Africans getting into the country. If you’re curious, look at a history book or Google it. The Supreme Court even ruled that people from the country of India don’t count as Aryans (even though every language in Europe comes from Indo-European roots (once called Indo-Aryan) except for the Finno-Ugric and Basque languages).
The 1924 Immigration Law was just one aspect of the Eugenics Movement
A second part of the Eugenics movement – which people back then called "Positive Eugenics" – was an attempt to encourage rich, white, successful Protestant people to have a lot of children. That way, the country would get whiter and more Protestant and, presumably, better and more successful. Some apartment buildings would only rent to white people (and Italians and Jews and Catholics didn’t count as white). Some banks gave better rates for house loans to white people.
A third, less savory, part of Eugenics – the "Negative Eugenics" part – was to prevent undesirable people from having children. Some states passed laws to sterilize thieves, murderers, rapists, drug addicts, welfare mothers, mentally retarded people, or insane people. Or – what the heck – diabetics or orphans or dwarves or epileptics or alcoholics or black people or pretty much anyone considered to be less than perfect. Indiana jumped on the Eugenics bandwagon.
The Eugenics idea was that defective people gave birth to defective children. Some people have good genes and others have bad genes. Some well-meaning white people fought to legalize birth control (with the idea that it would be given to poor, crazy, defective, dark-skinned, or otherwise undesirable people). Hey, let’s prevent losers from having kids, who are likely to grow up to be losers.
Which people should be sterilized and which people should have kids?
In World War I, the U.S. Army started giving I.Q. tests to draftees. If you scored well on the test, you’d be eligible for an officer’s commission. If not, you’d probably be cannon fodder in the trenches. Of course, rich white people’s kids (from good schools) scored higher on the tests than poor darker-skinned people’s kids (from bad schools or immigrant neighborhoods). That’s one way to separate the wheat from the chaff. Some pseudo-scientific theories of that era (phrenology, for example) tried to separate good people from bad people, based on the shapes of their skulls or bumps on their heads or how big their noses were or how far apart their eyes were. These tests and theories almost always proved that kids from well-established white families scored higher on I.Q. tests or phrenology tests than recent immigrants or blacks or criminals. It’s science! You can’t argue with science, can you?
I loved my racist Nanny
I loved my grandmother and she loved me. But when I became a teenager, I realized she had horribly racist views about blacks and Jews and pretty much anyone who wasn’t Norwegian-Lutheran-American. She didn't believe that German Lutherans would get into heaven (despite the fact that Martin Luther was a German). Mormons, too. Actually, I agree with her about Mormons. She didn’t like Mormons for a religious reason and I don’t like Mormons because they’re rabidly anti-gay. It’s a contradiction. I loved my Nanny, but I hated some things she said.
Loving my Nanny is probably a Contradiction
In the 1920s, people (whose ancestors were immigrants) were worried about the evil influence of immigrants. There will always be a Pat Buchanan warning white people that brown people are coming. We’re a melting pot. In the words of Walt Whitman (who was gay, by the way):
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
