Introduction to American Citizenship and Immigration Policies
There are two ways to become an American citizen: birth within the United States and its territories or naturalization. The naturalization process requires an individual to permanently reside in the United States for at least 5 years, pass the naturalization test on English and US Civics, have qualifying services in the US armed forces, and “meet all other eligibility requirements”. This vague requirement refers to the unspoken and implicit qualification the US Government creates that only certain categories of immigrants can prove to fulfill. Throughout history, what is required of American citizens has changed depending on the historical time period. In the 19th century, being white was a requirement to become a citizen, invoking African-Americans, or people of color, to convince why they deserve political rights in this country. During the Industrialization period, women protested the gender requirement by listing reasons for how the government would benefit women’s suffrage in America. The Immigration Restriction Act of 1924 barred “inferior” races and religious groups from immigrating to improve and rid America of social riddances. However, the question now is what has this requirement referred to in the last decades? My father, Jun Hua, was allowed into the US under the Immigration Act of 1990, an act outlining the US interest in skilled and professional working immigrants to benefit the country’s capitalist economy. My father’s immigration story, along with these incidences throughout history, has highlighted that the vague eligibility requirement to become an American citizen is to prove how an individual’s qualities and characteristics contribute to enriching America socially, politically, and economically.
The Cultural Revolution in China and the Desire for American Opportunities
My father’s struggle to immigrate to the United States started in 1966 when the Cultural Revolution in China left my father’s home country under violence and political party destruction at the hands of the Communist Party. The goal of the Cultural Revolution was to wipe out Chinese culture for the higher-class Communist party members and have lower-income individuals, like my father, have a career in assembly lines, farming in the countryside, working in hospitality and food service, or joining the military. This chaos was the moment he realized he wanted to leave the political instability, economic depression, damaged education system, and scarcity of resources in his country. He wanted to find another land with more opportunities, a land rumored to hold that dream: the United States of America.
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Challenges and Barriers to Immigration in the 20th Century
However, relative to this time and context, there was disapproval to allow immigrants into the United States. The country was still in recovery from the Great Depression, an economic disaster in the 1930s that devastated the US with a loss of jobs and a depression in the economy around the world. Thus, the general American public agreed there wasn’t enough room for foreigners when the country was struggling to provide enough jobs for its own citizens. In addition, America had distrusted foreigners after World War II ended in 1945, especially those who posed as a threat to the country: communists. Also known as the Cold War, there was geopolitical tension between America and the Soviet Union, and their respective allies, including China. With a rise of anti-communist suspicions, otherwise known as McCarthyism, the United States remained on edge for potential threats. Thus, my father as a foreigner who not only had the potential to steal an American’s job but also originated from a Communist country caused a great barrier between him and immigrating to the US. For most of the 20th century, many foreigners like my father were kept out of America, that is until George H. W. Bush was elected.
The Immigration Act of 1990: A New Era for Skilled Immigrants
Bush came into office in 1989 and helped soften the anti-communist tension in America to install his solution to the United States economy: the Immigration Act of 1990. This act opened the doors in America to increase immigration and welcome foreigners, like my father, to achieve the “American Dream”. With Bush’s signage of this act, America raised its cap on the number of immigrants worldwide from 270,000 to 675,000 annually and set a list of prioritized immigrants. One of those groups was the wealthy who would boost the nation’s economy by investing in new businesses and thus, providing more jobs for Americans. The second was the people who had family already present in America, a priority that remained present from the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. The last, and most important, group was skilled individuals which increased the allocation of 50,000 visas annually to 140,000 visas annually solely for this group. These “priority worker” individuals were offered employment-based immigration based on different skills and their potential economic contribution. The higher the skill, degree, or monetary standing of an individual, the more priority they would have. These prioritized individuals would be able to immigrate to the United States under newly instated visas, which allowed visiting scholars temporary access as students and foreign laborers, respectively known as the I-20 Form and the H-1B Visa. The reason behind Bush’s action of allowing foreign skilled immigrants is the belief that the result is an improvement in the economy. Those supporting the act, including Senator Edward Kennedy, a co-sponsor of the investor provision, “predicted that it would attract more than $8 billion in foreign investment in U.S. businesses and create up to one hundred thousand new jobs for Americans.” Not surprisingly Bush’s auction raised a lot of debate over the net-impact of immigration on the economy. It is a challenge to model immigrant impact on the economy when it itself is complex; the economy includes government services, labor participation, tax payments, health care, social security contributions, wage levels, and the overall gross domestic product (GDP). If we look at research on new immigrants in general, a majority of them are young workers who don’t draw extensively on public pensions or government services, pay medicare taxes and contribute to social security deposits. Because immigrants spend money on goods and services, they, without a doubt, generate considerable economic activity. The crowding-out effect or the idea that foreigners took American jobs, that prevented immigration earlier is not a major problem considering that not only do many immigrants perform entry-level jobs seen as undesirable by American citizens but that researchers found that “90 percent of native-born workers with at least a high school diploma experienced wage gains from immigration ranging from 0.7 percent to 3.4 percent.” Thus, raising the cap on immigrants was an overall benefit for the American economy. However, Bush targeted skilled working immigrants, especially scientists and engineers, to boost the economy at a faster rate. Foreign students were more highly motivated individuals who were likely to obtain jobs, launch businesses, and develop innovative ideas to better the country. Breaking down the entrepreneurial activities between immigrants and native-born for the years 1996 to 2008, “immigrants consistently demonstrate greater entrepreneurship than native-borns, as they are twice as likely to start new businesses.” Thus, with this research supporting the reasoning behind Bush’s Immigration Act, skilled workers can potentially rise as leaders to revolutionize America by elevating brain, talent, and special skills to advance the country’s innovation and competitiveness.
The Journey to American Citizenship: Academic and Financial Challenges
With the installment of the Immigration Act of 1990, my father had a chance towards better opportunities outside of his country by focusing on the one chance he had to immigrate to the United States: I-20 form, a visa that allows him to come to the country for academic purposes. To do so, my father had to prove himself academically worthy with an acceptance letter into an American University, which he did in the Petroleum Engineering Department in the Graduate School at Michigan University, and a certification from the worldwide written exam of foreign language (TOFLE). In addition, he had to prove his financial capabilities by working as a professor at his Chinese undergraduate university to afford plane tickets, school tuition, living expenses, and the fees for the I-20 form. Obtaining a visa was implicitly a test of academic and financial skills to make sure those immigrating to America are qualified and educated. Jun’s excellence in education and skills granted him to immigrate to the United States with the purpose to drive economic growth in the United States. However, this was just to get into the country, not to be naturalized. It was his persistence, determination, and work ethic, all of which are qualities of a skilled worker, that enabled Jun Hua to become an American citizen. His student visa only lasted him his school years and one additional year to find a job with a company to sign off for a working visa, also known as an H-1B Visa. This visa allowed him to work and stay in the United States as long as he was hired by a company that vouched for him to prove that he and only he can perform the job and no US Citizen can. The requirement to stay in the country is a job that ensures Jun continues to contribute to the economy. Even after the H1 Visa, there was still one step before my father could apply for citizenship: a Permanent Residency Card. This final step was to allow my father to meet the naturalization requirement of residing in the United States for at least 5 years while allowing the government to reap his economic benefits without having to allocate any government services or public pensions. Jun’s immigration was a contributor to Bush’s solution to bring the most qualified foreigners to improve America’s economy, education, and reformation, while the elongated process of naturalization maximized benefits and lowered the country’s costs.
Historical Perspectives on Citizenship: African-Americans, Women, and Immigration Acts
Jun’s skills were an eligibility requirement to enrich the country economically, but the “other eligibility requirement” to be a citizen was not always the same. Prior to the Civil War, African-Americans were split into two: the freed and the enslaved. The freed had civil rights with the ability to own property, pay taxes, and move wherever they please, but the one thing that separated them from white men was political rights or citizenship. Many freedmen, as well as white abolitionists, vouched to the government and their community to grant citizenship to African-Americans, including William Yates. In 1838, he published a book about the citizenship of persons of color, arguing that “free persons of color are human beings, native of the country — for of such we speak — and owe the same obligations to the State, and to its government as white citizens.” Argued in a slave’s litigation for his citizenship in the court case Dred Scott v. Sanford, African-Americans argued their right to US Citizenship with the evidence of their military service for the country, the fact that the constitution didn’t specify color, the natural law that grants citizenship to the native-born, and their allegiance to and protection from the United States. But why did he and other advocates have to vouch for African-American citizenship? They had to prove their worth and how equally respectable they are in points of property, abilities, and character to be equally deserving of the equality maintained between white men. In other words, to be considered American citizens, African-Americans needed to show how they benefit this nation whether it’s how they helped American citizens win the American Revolution, or how their low-level labor collectively makes a significant contribution to the economy. Just like how my father and many immigrants had to demonstrate how they can be an economic asset to the United States post-1990, African-Americans needed to appeal to the government the proof that they enrich the country and thus deserve their birthright to citizenship.
African-Americans weren’t the only ones fighting for their citizenship rights during the 19th century; women in the United States began fighting for women's suffrage during the Industrialization Period. In Lowell, Massachusetts during the 1980s, women were working wages as ancillary workers at textile factories. When corporate leaders of many factories voted to lower wages and lengthen working hours, women in Lowell stood up against the city’s corporate interests with protests, walkouts, and petitions. However, how far could they take their social movement without the right to cast ballots, without the right to vote? They needed to gain citizenship and thus political rights in order to make a difference for their gender, starting with proving why they deserve to be a citizen. Prior to women working jobs, it was argued that because they were economically dependent on their husbands, they didn’t deserve voting rights. However, if the idea is that economic independence means citizenship rights, now that women were working for wages, women then now deserve citizenship rights. The fact that they benefit the country economically, especially during the demand for workers in industries, was proof that they too deserve citizenship rights, relatively similar to how my father needed to prove why he deserved to progress in the steps to become an American citizen by working a job that boosted the economy. In addition, a well-known women's suffrage activist, Alice Stone Blackwell, wrote a publication in the National American Woman Suffrage Association outlining why women deserve political rights and more importantly, how America would benefit from women’s suffrage. Blackwell writes, “equal suffrage would increase the proportion of educated voters… increase the proportion of native-born voters… increase the moral and law-abiding vote very much while increasing the vicious and criminal vote very little.” Women needed to show gaining the right to vote and thus citizenship would benefit the country by swaying the ballots in America in favor of the American natives, morality, and the educated upper class. While my father’s immigration story outlined how in today’s century, the way to become an American citizen was to improve the US economy, women in the 1980s became American citizens by benefitting the country’s nationalism and integrity; both cases argue their citizenship with different reasons but both gain their entitlement to citizenship by proving how they enrich the nation.
While the previous groups gained citizenship by proving themselves an asset to the country’s government and economy, America barred groups of immigrants from citizenship for the same purpose: enriching the nation. For the first century of American history, there were no qualitative immigration restriction laws. After World War I, war mobilized many populations to migrate and with America’s open gate, countries from around the world came to this new land of opportunities like the Irish, German, Italians, Jews, Polish and Chinese. However, Americans were concerned with the quality of these immigrants migrating to their country, believing they were prostitutes, criminals, the diseased, lunatics, or “undesirables” based on stereotypes associated with their race, religion, and politics. Many of those Americans were descendants of the original immigrants of America from England who believed that they needed to weed the country of bad genes of the new incoming disapproved immigrants and improve the world by breeding better humans with good genes. This idea of “self-direction of human evolution”, also termed eugenics, was a reason behind the restrictionism movement during the early 20th century to deal with the influx of immigrants. Eugenics believe that to restrict those who weren’t seen as “fit” to be American citizens is to help social engineering and encourage the breeding of the human race for optimal traits. The restrictionists were also made up of the labor union which wanted to have less immigration to have less competition for jobs. With many advocates to restrict immigration in the US, legislation passed the Immigration Act of 1924 limited the overall number of immigrations and established quotas based on nationality. The basis of immigration quotas was based on the racial composition in 1890 to increase English stock, setting aside 70% of the immigration quota for English descent, and leaving little to no percentage for unwanted groups. In essence, according to the state department history page, “In all of its parts, the most basic purpose of the 1924 Immigration Act was to preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity.” Confirming how America geared its intentions towards the homogeneity of its citizens helps establish how eugenics played a major role in the country’s actions to better itself in a social aspect. In relation to the Immigration Act of 1990, both acts were ways in which the country wanted to tune itself to become a “better” nation, where America geared towards a socialistic appearance in 1924 and an economic condition in 1990 through choosing who was allowed to be naturalized as American citizens.
Conclusion: The Evolving Criteria for American Citizenship
American history has proven that the country always keeps its self-interests in mind by deciding who is eligible to become a United States citizen. After the American Revolution, African-Americans were looked down upon for their skin color, deterring the American government to give them citizenship to keep only whites as citizens. Prior to the Industrialization Period, when sexism was more prevalent, women were seen solely as a man’s wives and being economically dependent on their husbands, citizenship was strict to those who contributed to society: men only. With the enactment of the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, the higher class Americans believed eugenics and controlled breeding was the solution to improve the country socially of inferior races and religious groups, validating the government’s restrictionism to allow specific white immigrants into the country. In contrast more recently, the Immigration Act of 1990 outlined an interest in accepting skilled and professional working immigrants, including my father, in its requirements for work visas with the goal of using the capitalist economy to benefit the wealthy. Thus, my father’s immigration story highlights that becoming an American citizen has one common theme: having the qualities to enrich the nation.
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