DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: Hart-Celler Act:
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Description of Pictures: Hart-Celler Act
October 2, 2015 – January 20, 2016
The Hart-Celler Act had far-reaching effects upon immigration to the United States by opening the possibility of coming to this nation for many people from around the world. Passage of the Act in 1965 was a water-shed event in configuring contemporary America--through the significant demographic shifts and cultural changes that resulted from it. The display marks the 50th anniversary of the Act and among the selection of Latino-related artifacts are a child’s purse brought from Cuba in the early 1960s by a girl who immigrated with her parents and a child’s shirt worn by a Cuban boy who was part of the Operation Pedro Pan that brought minors to the U.S. after Fidel Castro came to power; a United Farm Workers pin; and a 1960s record album by the first meringue band, “Primitivo y Su Combo” to release a U.S. record marketed to immigrants from the Dominican Republic .
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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
SIAHHC_151203_018.JPG: Hart-Celler, The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965:
For most of American history, even though large numbers of immigrants came to America, the laws strictly limited who could come. The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, also known as Hart-Celler, was different. Incubated in civil rights, it favored family reunification and set out to right what was understood at the time as the biggest wrong -- discrimination against people from southern and eastern European and non-European countries. As a civil rights bill, the act has had far-reaching consequences -- both intended and unforeseen -- over the last fifty years.
SIAHHC_151203_022.JPG: President Lyndon Johnson signed the act at the Statue of Liberty in New York City with Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Senator Philip Hart (D-MI), Lady Bird Johnson, Representative John Lindsay (R-NY), Representative Emanuel Celler (D-NY), Ambassador Averell Harriman, Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY), and others.
SIAHHC_151203_027.JPG: Immigration Laws Before 1965
SIAHHC_151203_031.JPG: Rally by the Ku Klux Klan, Washington DC, 1925
The Ku Klux Klan strongly and sometimes violently opposed immigration from eastern and southern Europe and Asia.
SIAHHC_151203_035.JPG: Immigration laws before 1965 were directed at social problems such as poverty, rapid urbanization, labor shortages, and the need for isolation from world events. These laws fostered an American identity that was predominantly white and northern European.
The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act barred Chinese workers. The 1924 National Origins Act set quotas based upon the ethnicity of those who were here in 1890, when there were fewer Jewish and Catholic people from eastern and southern Europe. African Americans and their descendants were not considered in the discussions. The 1952 McCarran-Walter Act further adjusted existing quotas.
SIAHHC_151203_038.JPG: Anti-immigration political cartoon, 1890
"The Proposed Emigrant Dumping Site," Judge magazine
SIAHHC_151203_046.JPG: Coaching book, Chinese American, 1938
The information in coaching books such as this helped immigrants get through customs.
SIAHHC_151203_052.JPG: Prayer book and box, Sicilian American, around 1900
SIAHHC_151203_057.JPG: Family portrait, Hungarian American, early 1900s
The clothing worn by this family of immigrants illustrates how American identity could vary across generations.
SIAHHC_151203_061.JPG: Doll, purse and passport brought to Miami by refugee children under Operation Pedro Pan (Peter Pan), which saw over 14,000 youths sent out of Cuba by their parents to prevent them from growing up under communism.
SIAHHC_151203_069.JPG: Flyer for United Klan rally, North Carolina
SIAHHC_151203_073.JPG: Record album, 1965
Phil Ochs, I Ain't Marching Anymore
SIAHHC_151203_076.JPG: Buttons
SIAHHC_151203_079.JPG: Philip Hart (1912-1976) was an Irish Catholic World War II veteran and lawyer and a Democratic senator from Michigan.
Hart believed America's immigration policy was linked to both civil rights and enlightened foreign policy. Hart turned management of the bill over to young Senator Edward Kennedy.
SIAHHC_151203_082.JPG: Signing the Law:
In the 1960s the United States was growing, prospering, and responding to global events with a strong sense of international responsibility to promote justice and fairness. Exclusionary migration laws seemed hypocritical. Cold War-era policymakers saw the welcoming of immigrants as a psychological weapon against the Soviet Union -- the triumph of open democracy over closed authoritarianism.
The act is often overshadowed by more dramatic events of the 1960s, such as the war in Vietnam, race struggles, and women's rights, but it was an essential part of the evolving national understanding of race, equality, and justice.
Senator Philip Hart and Representative Emanuel Celler crafted and sponsored the legislation.
SIAHHC_151203_089.JPG: Emanuel Celler (1888-1981) was a Jewish lawyer from Brooklyn and a Democratic member of Congress for nearly fifty years. During his second year in Congress, he spoke in opposition to the restrictive 1924 quota act. In the 1940s Celler sought to lift quotas and allow Jews fleeing the Holocaust to enter the United States. Celler, who was active in passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, understood immigration reform as a blow to discrimination.
SIAHHC_151203_092.JPG: How the Hart-Celler Act Shaped Today
SIAHHC_151203_098.JPG: In lifting the restrictions that favored certain Europeans, people from around the world gained a more equal opportunity to come here. Migration from Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean increased. An emphasis upon family unification allowed Vietnamese, Chinese, South Asian, Filipino, and other Asian Americans to bring family members over. Hart-Celler also placed the first numerical quotas on countries in the Western Hemisphere, leading to tensions over Latin American immigration.
The unexpectedly large numbers of migrants entering the United States accelerated the "internationalizing" of music, food, culture, and commerce. New arrivals influenced both the areas in which they settled and the ethnic communities into which they moved.
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2015 photos: Equipment this year: I mostly used my Fuji XS-1 camera but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000.
I retired from the US Census Bureau in god-forsaken Suitland, Maryland on my 58th birthday in May. Yee ha!
Trips this year:
a quick trip to Florida.
two Civil War Trust conferences (Raleigh, NC and Richmond, VA), and
my 10th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including Los Angeles).
Ego Strokes: Carolyn Cerbin used a Kevin Costner photo in her USA Today article. Miss DC pictures were used a few times in the Washington Post.
Number of photos taken this year: just over 550,000.
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