United States doesn't impose immigration quotas after WWI

How would American society have developed had restrictions on immigration not been imposed after World War I and in the 1920's?

Would it be more of a melting pot than it is today? Immigrants were coming in all the time prior to this change.
 
I would expect more Italian immigration to the extent that New York and New Jersey might have been Italians as Buenos Aires and earlier Italian immigrants and their children might penetrate to Midwest in order to avoid post-WWI Italian immigrants. I would expect Italian Americans to be as populous as the Germans of OTL. I might say that there would be 50 million Italian Americans by 2015 instead of 20 million. I think Pope Francis' father might have gone to the United States instead of Argentina in this scenario.

There would have been large waves of Germans emigrating to the United States, escaping the hardships of war reparations and hyperinflation and more German immigrants would preserve the German language in the United States especially in rural Midwest and persist by present day. I might say that there would be 75 million German Americans by today instead of 50 million 2015 OTL.

There would have been more Eastern Europeans especially Russians, escaping the Bolsheviks and perhaps, might populate the East and West Coasts and form a strong political force in favor of White Russian cause and likely, United States won't forge diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. I could say that Russian Americans would have been 15 million by today like the Italians in 2015 OTL.

Assuming Adolf Hitler rises to power, I think he might encourage emigration instead of extermination of Jews and if Hitler did it, then the United States would have been more populated by Jews with 30 million by today instead of merely 10 million 2015 OTL. More Jewish immigration would alter American politics because of larger population.

Because of continuous European immigration to the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, Great Migration among African Americans would have been butterflied away and be struck with the hardships of Jim Crow's segregation and would put the most of the Deep South into perpetual poverty. Therefore, civil rights for African Americans might not happened even today and segregation stays.
 
Even if immigration restriction could be avoided in the 1920's (which I doubt) it is *really* hard for me to see it not happening in the 1930's. It's the Great Depression, "we don't even have enough jobs for our own people" etc.
 
I would expect more Italian immigration to the extent that New York and New Jersey might have been Italians as Buenos Aires and earlier Italian immigrants and their children might penetrate to Midwest in order to avoid post-WWI Italian immigrants.

In OTL Chicago, NW Indiana, and SE Wisconsin are quite well penetrated by Italian populations.
 
Even if immigration restriction could be avoided in the 1920's (which I doubt) it is *really* hard for me to see it not happening in the 1930's. It's the Great Depression, "we don't even have enough jobs for our own people" etc.

In the Great Depression, the US had negative net migration. The immigration quotas kept out refugees from Nazi Germany, not economic migrants. The quotas were based on national origin, and Germany was on the right side of the divide, but once the Jews started fleeing Germany, the US added supplemental quotas to prevent that. This was not about the jobs; it was pure racism.
 
I knew there was anti-semitism in the United States in the 1920s and '30s. I didn't know we actually cut quotas in response to Jewish refugees. Not cool, and definitely a missed opportunity.
 
Honestly, it's hard for me to see the US not imposing these quotas in the 1920s. They were wildly popular - they passed Congress almost unanimously, and had the support of business interests as well as labor.

Already a generation before, in the late 19c, the elites of New York planned the city around the assumption that immigrants were a problem to be solved. The impetus behind the construction of the subway was that immigrants would then move to single-family houses in the suburbs and commute to work and become proper Americans. This didn't happen, because the city had grown so much that the neighborhoods developed around the subway lines featured the tenement houses we know today. The elites' disdain for any expression of culture other than WASP did not decrease, and shifted toward roads and urban renewal projects. That's how much they hated the ethnics.
 
I would expect more Italian immigration to the extent that New York and New Jersey might have been Italians as Buenos Aires and earlier Italian immigrants and their children might penetrate to Midwest in order to avoid post-WWI Italian immigrants. I would expect Italian Americans to be as populous as the Germans of OTL. I might say that there would be 50 million Italian Americans by 2015 instead of 20 million. I think Pope Francis' father might have gone to the United States instead of Argentina in this scenario.

There would have been large waves of Germans emigrating to the United States, escaping the hardships of war reparations and hyperinflation and more German immigrants would preserve the German language in the United States especially in rural Midwest and persist by present day. I might say that there would be 75 million German Americans by today instead of 50 million 2015 OTL.

There would have been more Eastern Europeans especially Russians, escaping the Bolsheviks and perhaps, might populate the East and West Coasts and form a strong political force in favor of White Russian cause and likely, United States won't forge diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. I could say that Russian Americans would have been 15 million by today like the Italians in 2015 OTL.

Assuming Adolf Hitler rises to power, I think he might encourage emigration instead of extermination of Jews and if Hitler did it, then the United States would have been more populated by Jews with 30 million by today instead of merely 10 million 2015 OTL. More Jewish immigration would alter American politics because of larger population.

Because of continuous European immigration to the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, Great Migration among African Americans would have been butterflied away and be struck with the hardships of Jim Crow's segregation and would put the most of the Deep South into perpetual poverty. Therefore, civil rights for African Americans might not happened even today and segregation stays.

Great speculations.

Black migration still occurs, because industry still is in the urban centers and WW2 still occurs, and demands black migration. After WW2, the urban centers of the US still retain more social services than down south, so it will still attract southern migration to the rust belt.

I think a possible butterfly is that immigration restriction never occurs for racial reasons, but rather for economic reasons by the 1970s. There would be too far large an influx of unskilled Europeans with by the 1970s, a post-industrial American society. You do not need a ton of hispanic and asian immigrants for menial labor when you have bunch of poor Italian and Eastern Europeans willing to do it.

The immigration pause between the world wars with the post ww2 economic boom created a surplus of high-skill workers that made latin-american immigration necessary. Change the 1920s-40s, and all of the sudden you have a whole generation of unskilled, poor people willing to work with their hands.

Further, Europeans proved to be quite adept at Americanizing Trump-style unlike immigrants from Latin America and Asia. For example, I know tons of Italians and other Europeans whose parents were immigrants, but they are vehemently anti-immigrant.

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So, European-Americans will likely by the 70s turn the spigot off near completely, probably saying that they have to be more like Japan to compete economically.
 
I would expect more Italian immigration to the extent that New York and New Jersey might have been Italians as Buenos Aires and earlier Italian immigrants and their children might penetrate to Midwest in order to avoid post-WWI Italian immigrants. I would expect Italian Americans to be as populous as the Germans of OTL. I might say that there would be 50 million Italian Americans by 2015 instead of 20 million. I think Pope Francis' father might have gone to the United States instead of Argentina in this scenario.

There would have been large waves of Germans emigrating to the United States, escaping the hardships of war reparations and hyperinflation and more German immigrants would preserve the German language in the United States especially in rural Midwest and persist by present day. I might say that there would be 75 million German Americans by today instead of 50 million 2015 OTL.

There would have been more Eastern Europeans especially Russians, escaping the Bolsheviks and perhaps, might populate the East and West Coasts and form a strong political force in favor of White Russian cause and likely, United States won't forge diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. I could say that Russian Americans would have been 15 million by today like the Italians in 2015 OTL.

Assuming Adolf Hitler rises to power, I think he might encourage emigration instead of extermination of Jews and if Hitler did it, then the United States would have been more populated by Jews with 30 million by today instead of merely 10 million 2015 OTL. More Jewish immigration would alter American politics because of larger population.

Because of continuous European immigration to the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, Great Migration among African Americans would have been butterflied away and be struck with the hardships of Jim Crow's segregation and would put the most of the Deep South into perpetual poverty. Therefore, civil rights for African Americans might not happened even today and segregation stays.

Italian immigration between 1900 and 1915 to the U.S. had a return rate of around 45%. Meaning nearly half of all Italians returned home, the lack of quotas meant that many came with the intent of eventually returning. Also, 3/4 of Italian immigrants were men during this period. This was no different than Argentina. The difference with Argentina was that during the 1857-1946 period, three-quarters of all immigrants came from Italy or Spain. The U.S. had a much more diverse immigrant pool.

German mass immigration to the U.S. peaked in the 1880s and was on a slow decline by 1913 with only 25,000 immigrants from Germany arriving in the U.S. Because German immigration in large numbers began during the colonial period, Germans and their descendants were always going to outnumber Italian-Americans. The imposition of immigration quotas in the U.S. also led to more Italian women immigrating to the U.S. in the 1920s to join their husbands, as now many set down their roots. At most you may get 2-3 million more Italian Americans in the country.

As for Pope Francis, keep in mind that northern Italians emigrated almost exclusively to Brazil and Argentina where they already had established communities. Between 1900-1915 Italian immigrants from Piedmont were the second largest group arriving in Argentina, with only slightly more from Sicily. The U.S. in contrast was overwhelmingly dominated by Italians from Southern Italy and Sicily, with some 85% coming from southern Italy and Sicily. Keep in mind that even amongst Italians different villages sent emigrants to different cities abroad. The reason Pope Francis' family came to Argentina, was because the people from that region generally migrated to Buenos Aires, where upon arrival they could rely on people from their villages to assist them.

German immigrants might emigrate en masse during the 1920s, but that is hard to say. One group that most definitely will be larger is Jewish Americans. Jewish immigration to the United States came to a virtual halt due to the quotas. Unlike the other groups from Eastern Europe, they overwhelmingly migrated as family groups. New York could easily have achieved a Jewish majority, with 70% of all Jewish emigration from Europe settling in the city.
 
I think a possible butterfly is that immigration restriction never occurs for racial reasons, but rather for economic reasons by the 1970s. There would be too far large an influx of unskilled Europeans with by the 1970s, a post-industrial American society. You do not need a ton of hispanic and asian immigrants for menial labor when you have bunch of poor Italian and Eastern Europeans willing to do it.

What Eastern Europeans? We're discussing post-WW1 PODs, so the USSR still exists, and presumably WW2 and the Iron Curtain happen on schedule.

For the same reason, what Italians? Postwar Italy was no longer poor.

Asian immigration probably gets liberalized on schedule. Civil rights-era America would find the Chinese Exclusion Act and such risible no matter what.

The immigration pause between the world wars with the post ww2 economic boom created a surplus of high-skill workers that made latin-american immigration necessary. Change the 1920s-40s, and all of the sudden you have a whole generation of unskilled, poor people willing to work with their hands.

...except that the US mass-deported ethnic Mexicans in the 1950s in Operation Wetback, even though at the time its immigrant population was at a nadir.

The big change in skill level in the US happened around the Depression and WW2. In the Depression, high school education became near-universal, since teenagers didn't have work. In WW2, every available working hand was used for the war effort; at this point, "skilled" means "literate and capable of operating machines," rather than "college graduate." A few million more immigrants would mean higher industrial output in the war, and not have a major effect on the skill composition of postwar America.

Further, Europeans proved to be quite adept at Americanizing Trump-style unlike immigrants from Latin America and Asia. For example, I know tons of Italians and other Europeans whose parents were immigrants, but they are vehemently anti-immigrant.

Huh? Ted Cruz, a second-generation Hispanic-American, is vehemently against immigration. Reihan Salam, a second-generation Bangladeshi-American, has played a major role in wrecking the consensus on the moderate right in favor of increasing the H-1B visa cap. If we're going by the "are second-generation immigrants nativists?" standard, then today's nonwhites are no different from the postwar era's ethnic whites.

If we go by more objective standards, like speaking English rather than the ancestral language, then assimilation is actually faster today. Second-generation immigrants to the US today speak English better and their parents' language worse than they did 100 years ago. Second-generation Chinese-Americans in particular tend to speak English almost exclusively, but second-generation Hispanic-Americans speak English better than Spanish as well. A large cadre of first-generation immigrants learn English, which was not true 100 years ago, when it was easier to stay in one's ethnic enclave.
 
What Eastern Europeans? We're discussing post-WW1 PODs, so the USSR still exists, and presumably WW2 and the Iron Curtain happen on schedule.

Between 1918-1939, which is good for a whole additional generation of Polish,, Yugoslavian, and other immigrants.

For the same reason, what Italians? Postwar Italy was no longer poor.
Southern Italy and Sicily, which provided the vast majority of Italian immigration, still were poor and will immigrate.

Asian immigration probably gets liberalized on schedule. Civil rights-era America would find the Chinese Exclusion Act and such risible no matter what.

Immigration limitations like I said might come about for economic, not racial reasons.

...except that the US mass-deported ethnic Mexicans in the 1950s in Operation Wetback, even though at the time its immigrant population was at a nadir.

Again, I said 1970s would lead to restrictions ITTL. So, your comment here is not relevant.

The big change in skill level in the US happened around the Depression and WW2.

Of course, and it continued with the GI bill and tons of immigrants working their butts of and making sure their kids get schooled. However, this changes with tons of poor immigrants still coming in from Europe during the interwar years.

Huh? Ted Cruz, a second-generation Hispanic-American, is vehemently against immigration.

LOL, he is running for President in 2016, you take that seriously? Again, I was not making the categorical statement that non-European immigrants are never against immigration. I was merely making the observation that Europeans tend to be more vehemently anti-immigrant than other ethnicities in the US, something that even can be seen in 1800s political cartoons like the one I posted.

A large cadre of first-generation immigrants learn English, which was not true 100 years ago, when it was easier to stay in one's ethnic enclave.
1. Hollywood
2. Music
3. Texting...hard to text when phones don't have letters in your native language. In Cambodia, all the young people know enough English merely to text.
 
Between 1918-1939, which is good for a whole additional generation of Polish,, Yugoslavian, and other immigrants.

1921-1929, not 1918-1939. The labor migrants stopped coming in the Depression.

Southern Italy and Sicily, which provided the vast majority of Italian immigration, still were poor and will immigrate.

By the 1950s they can emigrate to Milan instead.

Immigration limitations like I said might come about for economic, not racial reasons.

Like I said, this is not actually observed anywhere. Immigration policies follow racist anxieties, by various names, and not economics. Why would economics even be relevant? Immigration has a tiny impact on wages. This is why the timing of Operation Wetback and such is relevant: it was never about economics.

Of course, and it continued with the GI bill and tons of immigrants working their butts of and making sure their kids get schooled. However, this changes with tons of poor immigrants still coming in from Europe during the interwar years.

Why? In 1946, those immigrants are in the exact same position as people from rural America.

LOL, he is running for President in 2016, you take that seriously?

Yes, which is why I brought him up and not Rubio. Rubio pretends to be anti-immigration for the primary, but pundit consensus is that he's pro-immigration. But with Cruz, most pundits think he really is against more immigration.

Again, I was not making the categorical statement that non-European immigrants are never against immigration. I was merely making the observation that Europeans tend to be more vehemently anti-immigrant than other ethnicities in the US, something that even can be seen in 1800s political cartoons like the one I posted.

You were using second-generation immigrants' nativism as a way of showing that here, they assimilate to American values rapidly. I was countering that it's true not just of second-generation European immigrants. Don't backtrack.

1. Hollywood
2. Music
3. Texting...hard to text when phones don't have letters in your native language. In Cambodia, all the young people know enough English merely to text.

Hollywood and music existed in the 1920s (P.S. there are Spanish dubs), and texting is a lot less universal than you think it is, and was rare in the US before the 2000s anyway.
 
A little bit of the background of the 1921 and 1924 Acts, which will show why they would have been very difficult to defeat:

"Slowed to a trickle by the war, the stream of immigration became a swollen torrent after the Armistice. From June, 1920 to June, 1921, more than 800,000 persons poured into the country, 65 percent of them from southern and eastern Europe, and consuls in Europe reported that millions more were planning to leave. By February, 1921, Ellis Island was so jammed that immigration authorities had to divert ships to Boston. Alarmed almost to the point of panic, Congress rushed through an emergency act to restrict immigration; it passed the House in a few hours without a record vote and was adopted by the Senate soon after by 78-1." William Leuchtenberg, *The Perils of Prosperity, 1914-32*, p. 206. https://books.google.com/books?id=t5iJ7_DTAPAC&pg=PA206

Leuchtenberg notes that for some time after the passage of the Act, industrialists continued to oppose restriction. For example, Judge Gary denounced the law as "one of the worst things this country has ever done for itself economically." However, "[w]ith the new prosperity of 1923 and increased mechanical efficiency, which reduced the need for mass labor, the chief obstacle to permanent immigration restriction was removed at the same time that industrialists, agitated by the Red Scare, grew increasingly nativist. In 1924, Congress passed, *over scant opposition* [my emphasis: DT], the National Origins Act..." (p. 206)

I suppose theoretically it might have been possible to have a militantly pro-immigration president in 1921 and 1924 (though it's hard for me to think of a plausible one) but if there had been one, Congress would have passed restrictions over his veto. As early as February 1917--before US entrance into the war, before the Red Scare, and with the president's party controlling Congress--it overrode Wilson's veto of a literacy test for immigrants. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/immigration-act-passed-over-wilsons-veto

In short, a US without strong immigration restrictions in the 1920's and 1930's is politically almost inconceivable without major changes in prior history.
 

TinyTartar

Banned
Quotas were extremely popular with almost all segments of American society, even among former immigrants, and from both business and labor, Republicans and Democrats.

To change this, you'd need something like a way more deadly Spanish influenza that causes labor shortages, or some kind of event that causes widespread emigration FROM the US, something I don't see as likely. Perhaps the Great Migration north does not happen at all, or instead, they all go to Canada instead of the industrial North. You'd have at least business on the side of no quotas.
 
There are generalizations...

There are generalizations for which I can not get to have explanation ......

First, the real motivations of the political attitudes of politicians in campaigning to become presidential candidates, except in extreme cases, is subject to interpretation until it achieved its goal and whether to assume the presidency and much less if it happens be the candidate, descendant of Cuban, with its well-known among immigrant / exiled from the first wave of Hispanic immigration that particular nation and their descendants, social attitudes and support for ultra conservative policies.



Second: If the difference between the flows are recognized within a country like Italy ... like trying to generalize about a multi-causal phenomena such as the migration of Hispanics to the US ... or you can assume that label all of them as if they shared identical motivations to migrate, to reside, their respective speeds of assimilation into American society in the first and second generations; nor the various national groups of Hispanics share any difficulties or their respective facilities acculturation process and fluency in the English language for themselves, their children and do not share the decision to preserve and transmit their mother tongue to their children and grandchildren ; it's a process highly varying, even within groups with the same national origin but similar or different educational levels, before they have immigrated to the US.

This migration comes from 1) From the various nations of Latin America, including Brazil, with their respective and different reasons motivating for immigrants from different nations of Hispanic America.

Within this, we must include to Mexico and its extensive land border with the US, not conducive to stop the Hispanic migration flow, at least that particular nationality.

Finally do not forget two special cases in relation to the migration of Hispanics:

1) A large part initially came from Puerto Rico and the extensive migration of Puerto Ricans, would not be affected because they were already US citizens, even though the difficulties of integration are still present.

2) Assuming that the Castro revolution, still would happen, so as you can imagine that therefore it can be assumed that they would remain unchanged the US policy towards the Cuban Government generally hostile and the US migration policy towards Cuba in particular and their continue implementing of migration policies that have facilitated and encouraged the migration flow of Hispanics of that nationality to the United States.
 
I know this was touched upon a bit but this would have huge repercussions on the Holocaust or if it even happens correct?

Would Hitler try to attempt to stop jews from immigrating to the US? or would it be the opposite and he giving them no other alternative?

Would this affect Hitler's worldwide perception in the end?
 
IIRC before the war started Nazis Germany allowed Jews to emigrate however they limited the amount of money that could be transferred abroad and introduced steep exit taxes that effectively deprived them of their possessions and left them with just what they could carry and a very small amount of cash to start their new lives with.
 
I know this was touched upon a bit but this would have huge repercussions on the Holocaust or if it even happens correct?

Not huge, but noticeable. A large majority of Holocaust victims were never German Jews: about half were in Poland, with Hungary, Lithuania, and the USSR proper all contributing significant numbers. Of those, some would've emigrated in the 1920s, but most wouldn't have.

Would Hitler try to attempt to stop jews from immigrating to the US? or would it be the opposite and he giving them no other alternative?

In the 1930s, Hitler encouraged Jews to emigrate, provided they left nearly all property behind. There was even an unholy alliance with the Zionists at one point - Germany would help Jews emigrate to Mandatory Palestine against British restrictions on Jewish immigration.
 
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