Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America

459 Pages·2005·4.55 MB·English

by  Mae M. Ngai

IMPOSSIBLE SUBJECTS
____________________________________________________
POLITICS AND SOCIETY IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICA
Series Editors
WILLIAM CHAFE, GARY GERSTLE, LINDA GORDON, AND JULIAN ZELIZER
A list of titles in this series appears at the back of the book
Mae M. Ngai
IMPOSSIBLE SUBJECTS
ILLEGAL ALIENS AND THE MAKING OF MODERN AMERICA
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD
Copyright © 2004 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton,
New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street,
Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
All Rights Reserved First printing, 2004
Fourth printing and first paperback printing, 2005
New paperback edition, with a new foreword by the author 2014
Paperback ISBN 978-0-691-16082-5
Library of Congress Control Number 2013957460
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available This book has
been composed in Minion Typeface Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
www.press.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the memory of
Shihhsun Ngai
and to
Hsueh-hwa Wang Ngai and
Michael S. Hing
It has always been easier, it always
will be easier, to think of someone as
a noncitizen than to
decide that he is a nonperson.
—ALEXANDER BICKEL, “Citizenship in the American Constitution”
Table of Contents
xi
List of Figures and Illustrations
xiii
List of Tables
xv
Acknowledgments
xix
Note on Language and Terminology
xxi
Foreword to the New Paperback Edition
Introduction
1
Illegal Aliens: A Problem of Law and History
15
PART I: THE REGIME OF QUOTAS AND PAPERS
One
The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 and the Reconstruction of Race in
Immigration Law 21
Two
Deportation Policy and the Making and Unmaking of Illegal Aliens 56
PART II: MIGRANTS AT THE MARGINS OF LAW AND NATION 91
Three
From Colonial Subject to Undesirable Alien: Filipino Migration in the
Invisible Empire 96
Four
Braceros, “Wetbacks,” and the National Boundaries of Class 127
PART III: WAR, NATIONALISM, AND ALIEN CITIZENSHIP 167
Five
The World War II Internment of Japanese Americans and the Citizenship
Renunciation Cases 175
Six
The Cold War Chinese Immigration Crisis and the Confession Cases 202
PART IV: PLURALISM AND NATIONALISM IN POST–WORLD WAR II
IMMIGRATION REFORM 225
Seven
The Liberal Critique and Reform of Immigration Policy 227
Epilogue 265
Appendix 271
Notes 275
Archival and Other Primary Sources 357
Index 369