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| Introduction xvi quotas based on two percent of a countryÊs citizens as enumerated in the 1890 U.S. census, before the wave of Eastern and Southern Europeans had arrived. The lawÊs results were once again to give preference to Northern and Western Europe and to further restrict Jewish and Italian immigration. Asians were virtually excluded, while Western Hemisphere immigrants had no numerical cap. For example, Great Britain received a large percentage of the immigration total, while Italian immi- gration was cut by about 150,000 (Barkan 1996). The law as it was fully enacted in 1929 set quotas based on a convoluted knowledge of the ethnic origins of the American people and used the 1920 census as the guide. The United States stood in the 1920s as a country that wished to have only those who reflected the original settlers. In an environment that was anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic and considered Asians as excludable inferiors, the country was not immigrant-friendly. These attitudes were borne out further in the 1930s Depression years, as the nation closed its doors to refugees fleeing Nazism and Fascism and re- patriated/deported more than 500,000 Mexicans Americans, both those born in the United States and in Mexico (Barkan 1996). For a nation of immigrants, these were sorry days, and for a nation that was soon to be the worldÊs leader, the immigration laws became more and more a relic of a discriminatory past. Interestingly, many of the anti-immigration fears and arguments heard in contemporary times were evident in the 1920s and before. Immigrants as disease carriers, as criminals, tak- ing jobs away from native-born Americans, changing the countryÊs ethnic and ra- cial make-up, bringing radicalism (terrorism) to the United States, and introducing people who could not be assimilated were all aspects of nativism then and now. As the United States became more cognizant of the rest of the world and Amer- icaÊs allies, features of the immigration laws underwent change. The first indica- tion of new thinking related to China, fighting alongside the United States against Japan in World War II. In 1943, the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed, although the quota for China (105 immigrants) was very low. However, Chinese-born indi- viduals could now become naturalized citizens, a goal that had been denied to them earlier. A few years later, Filipinos and East Indians, also allies, were allowed small quotas (Barkan 1996). While the Chinese-related changes indicated an attempt to foster unity among the allies and among the American people and minimize eth- nic hostility, other events showed another American attitude. The incarceration of about 110,000 West Coast Japanese Americans during the war, citizens and non- citizens, demonstrated the prejudices still evident. Also the Zoot-suit riots in Los Angeles, in which U.S. servicemen attacked Mexican American youth, illustrated negative attitudes toward this group. Yet, this was also a time when the United States was in desperate need of work- ers, due to the shortage caused by the entry of many Americans into the armed forces and by the Japanese American imprisonment. As a result, the Bracero pro- gram was started in 1943 and lasted in various forms until 1964. The Bracero plan