A. E. Poe says:

Erika Lee is a very angry woman. Her diatribe on American immigration policy equates anyone who is concerned about porous borders , the enforcement of laws in a nation of laws, and containment of disease as being a racist. It’s hardly fair. And it detracts from her history of immigration legislation and enforcement. Yes, the Chinese Exclusion Act was reprehensible. Yes, we were and are a nation filled with racial prejudices and hatreds.

Immigration restrictions on other ethnic groups, according to Lee, were reflections of a racist policy towards Asians. She admits that the numbers of Asian immigrants was historically small and generally confined to the west coast. She then invests California, and San Francisco in particular, with an enormous amount of political power which was used to restrict immigration throughout the country. Lee is not convincing in her contention that the immigration issue was driven purely by an irrational racist beliefs and concerns over invading Asian hordes. She did not fully explain how the United States Congress, 3,000 miles distant, and generally unaffected by Asian immigration would develop a policy arising out of racism towards a group of which they were barely aware.

Exclusion based upon race is wrong. Looking different, having different cultural traditions, and not speaking the dominant language of English were and are roadblocks for all immigrants, not just the Chinese. Lee is a constant apologist for behaving as an outsider while expecting to be treated as an insider. Blaming national policy decisions on racial attitudes is too simplistic. Lee could have made an argument which addressed the nativistic xenophobia that was prevalent in the Gilded Age which was partly due to the arrival of masses of southern and eastern European immigrants. She could have argued that the closing and consequent filling of the frontier caused concerns about immigration in general. She contends that Angel Island was more racist than Ellis Island. She is too quick to condemn.

Chapter Four does provide valuable information on Chinese coming to the United States as sojourners. She explains that the immigrants are not unskilled laborers, but rather people who could improve the nation. She provides a good comparison between unskilled Mexican and Asian immigrants who come to this country in order to provide for their families back in the home country. Although she describes how employers needed these laborers, she doesn’t investigate the economic impact of taking earnings out of the country rather than investing them in the country. She also provides a good description of how the Chinese with the help of immigration attorneys sought to and often did circumvent the law. She seems to imply that if some people can find loopholes in laws, then the laws should be repealed, or that people who manage to arrive in this country illegally should be rewarded for their tenacity by receiving amnesty.

Lee has researched her subject thoroughly. Her list of oral and written primary documents is impressive. However, Lee’s book graphically demonstrates the difficulty that the United States now has in reforming its immigration policies and enforcing its borders (what Lee refers to as gatekeepers). To paraphrase Robert Frost, good fences make good neighbors. It appears that a concern for national security will generate an automatic response that such concerns are racist rather than a practical solution to security issues.

Rating: 3 / 5