Dean Johnson and Professor Chin Interviewed on 1965 Immigration Act by Capital Public Radio
Dean Kevin R. Johnson and Professor Gabriel "Jack" Chin were interviewed on the Capital Public Radio program Insight regarding the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. Together with Professor Rose Cuison Villazor, Professor Chin is an editor of a new book, The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965: Legislating a New America, to which Dean Johnson and Professors Cruz Reynoso, Bill Ong Hing, Brian Soucek, and Leticia Saucedo are contributors.
Professor Chin said that the Act profoundly impacted the demographics of the U.S. population by removing longstanding laws that severely restricted immigration from Asia. "Before the 1965 Immigration Act, 80-90 percent of the immigrants were Caucasians from northern and western Europe," said Chin. "Since then, two-thirds to three-quarters of immigrants have been Asians or Central and South Americans, so places like California and Texas are now 'minority majority' states, and the United States is predicted to follow. This is because of the 1965 Immigration Act."
Dean Johnson explained that although the Act set limits on immigration from Europe, those limits were so high that they had no practical impact. "Other nations were more severely affected, particularly with the Western Hemisphere quotas that were part of a compromise by the Johnson administration with conservatives who wanted to limit immigration and who were concerned with a population explosion in Latin America," he said. "Those new quotas had a dramatic impact limiting migration from Mexico and Latin America."
By limiting legal migration from Latin America while doing nothing to diminish the demand for labor in the United States or the economic incentives for migration, the Act inadvertently created the situation that exists today in which millions of undocumented people from Latin America live and work in the United States, Dean Johnson said.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965: Legislating a New America will be published this month by Cambridge University Press.