Kamala Kelkar: By 1790, a Naturalization Act declared that “all male white inhabitants” would become citizens, a time when the country started enforcing its hierarchy of whiteness.
“Nordic was purest,” Moya said. “Eastern and Southern Europeans were ‘undermining the purity’ of the American stock.”
In 1882, the U.S. passed the Immigration Act, which imposed a 50 cent a head tax for every person who the country deemed “undesirable” and was sent back. That same year, it passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, declaring a moratorium on Chinese labor immigrants.
Public health inspectors would enforce this by making snap judgments at the border, picking out people who they thought looked peculiar, had the capacity for lunacy, criminality, or promiscuity or looked ugly. Italians, Slavs, and Jewish and Irish people were eyeballed for their ability to bolster the economy and either sent back or stigmatized. More here.