Yang, Jia Lynn

Confers a history of immigration laws in the United States, discussing how the 1924 Immigration Act was passed, sharply curtailing non-white immigration to the United States. Relates how lawmakers in the 1960s fought to establish greater equality and eventually passed the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act.

"A history of the legislative battle to reform American immigration laws that set the stage for the immigration debates roiling America today . . . [the author] recounts how a small number of lawmakers, activists, and presidents worked relentlessly for the next forty years to abolish the 1924 law and its quotas. Their efforts established the new mythology of the United States as "a nation of immigrants" that is so familiar to all of us now"--Provided by publisher.