In the 19th century, Irish immigrants were called many of the things you hear hurled at Central American immigrants today: a scourge on public health, a drain on the economy, a threat to American culture. One thing they weren’t called, though, was “illegal,” because that term hadn’t been conceived yet. “People are shocked when I say before World War I, there were no green cards, no visas, no quotas, no passports, even. Really, you just showed up. And if you could walk without a limp, and you had $30 in your pocket, you walked right in,” said Mae Ngai, a legal and political historian at Columbia University, whose studies focus on immigration.
Posted on: Fri, 25 Jul 2014 14:42:29 +0000
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