The 1965 US reform unpredictably produced rapid growth and diversified immigrant origins

Evidence

The USA had restrictive immigration policies until 1965. About 250,000 persons per year were admitted in the 1950s - mainly Western Europeans and refugees. Cold War politics ensured a warm welcome for anyone from Eastern Europe and later from Cuba. However, US agricultural employers also recruited large numbers of temporary workers from Mexico and the Caribbean. At times this migration was regulated by temporary labor systems, while at other times it was illegal, but tacitly tolerated. The turning point in US policies came in 1965 with changes to the Immigration and Nationality Act, which abolished the discriminatory national-origins quota system. No one envisaged the consequences: rapid growth in intakes and a diversification of areas of origin. Immigration escalated, averaging 450,000 per year in the 1970s and 600,000 per year in the 1980s. From 1986 to 1995 about 12 million immigrants were legally admitted to the USA. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3868 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The fact that an earlier generation had cleared the paths they trod undoubtedly eased the immigrants’ reception, but the basic condition of their popularity was the appetite for material growth and achievement that dominated postwar America. … The headlong growth of business made the city, the machine, and the capitalist the controlling forces in American culture. … ‘The very real economic exploits of the age underwrote its booster spirit. … And business leaders, marveling that population growth kept pace with economic opportunities, saw in the flow of immigration the workings of one of the grand laws of nature.” — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 96 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The 1965 US immigration reform unintentionally triggered mass diversification of origin — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3868; The 1965 immigration act explains why most US Muslims are immigrants — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 114; Postwar geopolitics shifted US immigration policy toward selective inclusion — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 97 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• The 1965 US immigration reform unintentionally triggered mass diversification of origin #corroborates (0.98) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3868
• Economic appetite, not prior precedent, drove postwar America’s welcoming of immigrants #complicates (0.73) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 96