How different would America have been had the tight restrictions on immigration not been enacted in the early 1920s? Was there anything that could have made that happen?
You mean overall, as in let Chinese and Japanese in? The population would be higher. In these here parts where I live, back then, there were laws passed to prevent Japanese from coming on over and working on the farms and orchards. If they had come on over, I imagine their assimilation would have brought quite a bit of East Asian influence into the area. Their grandchildren would own quite a few orchards, and the Mexicans would be working for them....
As I understand it immigration from Europe was also tightly restricted in the early 20s
??? That sounds improbable. Of course much of history sounds improbableIt's also the period that voting became restricted by citizenship in the United States.
Prior to the massive changes in immigration policy, residency was the only requirement to vote in the United States. Rather interesting really, and it's something I'm philosophically inclined to agree with. The change wasn't motivated so much by a desire for civic virtue as practical considerations: recent immigrants were getting to be quite politically powerful, and their radical proclivities endangered a lot of incumbent politicians.