Early US immigration law racialized South Asians more harshly than Arabs.

Evidence

The Immigration Act of 1924 created quotas for migration into the United States, barring individuals who did not hail from Western and Northern Europe. … Because there were so few South Asians in the United States at the time, only a small number were allowed entrance. Compared to Arabs, who were more likely to be treated like white ethnics such as Italians and Greeks, South Asians were residentially segregated due to their racialized status (Cainkar 2009). In cities like New York, many South Asian migrants, like Bengali peddlers, married Latinas and African American women in the late 1800s due to this residential racial segregation—they were in close proximity—as well as because South Asian women were denied entry into America due to the exclusionary immigration policies of the time (Prashad 2000; Bald 2015). — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 92

Categorization

• XREF: Sets up the historical baseline against which later chapters show Arabs becoming racialized as terrorists — relevant contrast for Selod’s core religion-vs-race distinction. — connects to: Non-white South Asian immigrants could obtain citizenship by passing as Black