Test Your Knowledge of Immigration History

Glenn Ickler republished this quiz from the St. Paul Pioneer Press a while back.  See how well you know the history of immigration policy in the U.S.

(1) When your ancestors immigrated before the turn of the 20th century, which document was required for them to enter legally?

A) Valid passport

B) U.S. work permit

C) Certified identification card

D) None of the above

(2) Immigrants were accused of sapping government welfare benefits - in fact one in three patients at government health care facilities were immigrants - during what period?

A) Early 1800s

B) Early 1900s

C) Early 2000s

(3) Immigrants historically have picked up English much faster than they do today.

True or false?

(4) From the founding of this country until 1965, there were no limits on the number of immigrants who could squeeze through the border from:

A) Canada

B) Mexico

C) Bolivia

D) All of the above

(5) Benjamin Franklin wrote that these immigrants were "excessively fertile, reluctant to assimilate, lazy and unwilling to learn English."

A) Irish

B) Italians

C) Germans

D) Transylvanians

(6) Until 1924, how many immigrants could come to the United States each year?

A) As many as could cram in

B) 10,000 per permitted nation

C) Numbers differed by country

(7) Which of the following immigrant groups were not considered "white" by many mainstream Americans at the turn of the century?

A) Swedes

B) Finns

C) Italians

D) Irish

E) All of the above

Answers below the fold:

(1) D. Only around World War I did the U.S. and other nations establish formal systems for documenting immigrants.

(2) B. One in three people using public hospitals was foreign born at the start of the 20th century.

(3) False. A century ago, there were 10,000 foreign-language newspapers in the country. In the 1900s, 90 percent of immigrants were farmers and laborers. Today, a third are multilingual professionals.

(4) D. Until 1965, the U.S. imposed no limits on the number of immigrants allowed from North and South America. Nearly all these immigrants were legal.

(5) C. Franklin wrote in 1751: "Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglicizing them?"

(6) A. The 1924 National Origins Act for the first time imposed broad immigration quotas.

(7) E. "There were 15 white men for every Swede" wrote a Yankee worker to his parents in 1901. Immigrants without a British complexion were not considered white by some well-established Yankee settlers.

I'd quibble in response to Question #6 that Chinese Exclusion was in place prior to 1924, so no ethnic Chinese immigration was allowed between 1882 and 1943.

It's interesting, but not surprising, that so many descendants of yesteryear's immigrants are keen to change the rules now that they and their families are comfortably settled.  Nativism has been a constant in American public life for centuries now.  Whatever the outcome of this year's proposed immigration legislation, one thing we can be sure of is that today's immigrants will become tomorrow's nativists.

(Via Chuck Kuck of AILA.)