Restricting immigration redirected eugenicists and energized assimilationist cultural work

Evidence

After passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, eugenicists quickly turned back to focusing on the segregation of non-Nordics in the United States. Ironically, the act’s side effects slowed the pace of the eugenic agenda. The act reduced Nordic fears of non-Nordics taking over the country, and it energized the intellectual struggle of the assimilationists to get non-Whites to comply with White ideals of American homogeneity. The Catholic, pro-immigrant Knights of Columbus Historical Commission even financed the publication of several books focusing on the contributions of different racial and ethnic groups. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 835

Categorization

• SEED: The Knights of Columbus financing pro-immigrant ethnic-contribution books as a counterweight to nativist eugenics is a rich angle for an essay on how marginalized groups fight racist ideas with assimilationist ‘contributions’ discourse.
• XREF: connects to: Native Americans restricted births to keep class standing, enabling biological replacement by immigrants — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 853; Elite restrictionists drove both the preparedness and anti-hyphenate movements — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 1177; Nativism’s core aim shifted from voting restriction to immigration restriction — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 583