IMMIGRATION FROM LATIN AMERICA, THE WEST INDIES, AND CANADA COMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Tuesday, March 3, 1925. The committee this day met, Hon. Albert Johnson, chairman, presiding. The CHAIRMAN. I desire to call the committee's attention to certain articles which have come to me which I believe are worthy of incorporation in the permanent records of the committee. I have here an article entitled "The Racial Problems Involved in Immigration from Latin America and the West Indies to the United States," by Robert F. Foerster, professor of economics in Princeton University, which heretofore has been presented as a report to the Secretary of Labor, but has not been published. It contains some very illuminating matter which members probably will desire to study. I have also some statistical notes prepared by Mr. F. H. Kinnicutt, of New York City, relating to the movement of immigrants from British North America, the West Indies, and Mexico, same being digests of tables published in the annual reports of the Commissioner General of Immigration. These data are also of value. If the committee desires it, this article and these statistical memoranda may be published. Mr. HOLADAY. I believe they should be published, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, the clerk is directed to incorporate the matter in the series of hearings of the present Congress. (The articles referred to are published in full, as follows:) THE RACIAL PROBLEMS INVOLVED IN IMMIGRATION FROM LATIN AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES TO THE UNITED STATES [A report by Robert F. Foerster, professor of economics in Princeton University] I. INTRODUCTORY 1. OUTLINE OF THE PROBLEM In that part of continental America lying south of the United States or in islands adjacent thereto live some 90,000,000 of people, nearly as many people as live in the United States. Two-thirds or more of them either belong to what are commonly described as the colored races or they represent crosses between colored and white stocks. The colored stocks include principally the American Indians, brown or copper in hue, secondarily the African negroes or blacks; but some others also are present. 303 All of the countries where these people live are customarily regarded as lands of immigration, like the United States itself. They are not regarded as lands of emigration. The distinction is a customary one, which, however, has never had more than a limited value. Even in Europe there are countries whose immigrants from still other countries compare in numbers closely with their emigrants, and nearly every other country, not excepting the United States, is subject to extensive internal migration, the migration from one part of the same country to another part. The existence or nonexistence of a political boundary is not ordinarily a primary consideration in determining currents of migration. From time to time, in fact, and contrary to the common view, there have been impressively broad currents of migration within the Western Hemisphere. It is the recent rapidly rising tide of immigration into the United States from the southern lands of this hemisphere-Mexican immigrants alone during the past year reaching a total of approximately three-fifths the quota specifically established by law for all transoceanic countries-that has forced upon the attention of the people of the United States a new problem. Inquiry must be made whether this immigration can be regarded as the forerunner of a larger immigration and also whether the new additions to the race stock of the United States can be regarded as beneficial or as detrimental, and what main lines of policy should be laid down for dealing with this immigration. At the outset it will be useful to indicate the bearings of our current legislation on this problem and also to set forth briefly the present or recent numerical strength of the stock of immigrants born in other countries of America than the United States. Of the many sorts of selection or restriction of immigration which have been enacted into law by the Congress of the United States and which continue to have the force of law some are of universal application, others concern the peoples of stated origins only. The provisions respecting literacy, head tax, disease, and other matters apply universally, and therefore establish a means of selection among those persons who derive from the countries lying to the south of the United States. The provisions drastically limiting the immigration of oriental peoples prevent the immigration into the United States of Chinese, Japanese, and some other peoples possibly desiring to enter this country after residence in the other American countries; but no law has been enacted imposing any similar restriction upon the immigration of the races which constitute the dominant stocks in the Latin American countries. The law which bases the number of permissible immigrants from given countries on certain percentages (with an allowance for relatives), commonly called the quota law, already referred to above, bears primarily on the people of European countries and has not been extended to the peoples of the American countries. It follows that if a citizen of Mexico, the various islands of the West Indies, or the countries of South and Central America can meet the special tests regarding literacy, disease, and other matters imposed on all immigrants he is free to settle permanently in the United States. It is the special purpose of the present study to inquire whether LatinAmerican immigration is of a sort to warrant the continued extension to it of privileges denied to the peoples of trans-Atlantic countries. 2. AMERICAN FOREIGN BORN LIVING IN THE UNITED STATES In 1920, the last year for which census figures are available, the natives of other parts of the American hemisphere resident in the United States numbered 1,727,017. Of these about two-thirds originated north of the United States and one-third south. In the table which follows precise figures are given for the various regions of origin in 1920, and to facilitate comparison similar figures are reproduced for the year 1910. American foreign in the United States, 1920 and 1910, by country of birth [From Fourteenth Census, Vol. II, pp. 693 and 695, and Vol. III, p. 18] The figures show that while the number of American immigrants born north of the United States was still, in 1920, materially larger than that of immigrants born south of the United States, there had been in the previous 10 years an appreciable decline in the number of those born in the north, but there had also been, on the other hand, a substantial increase, approximately a doubling, of those born in the south. In the case of Mexico, by far the principal source of this southern immigration, there had been substantially more than a doubling. It is possible to present some figures reflecting the movement of peoples during the last few years, beginning with the fiscal year 1919-20, before the end of which the census of 1920 was taken. Aliens of various stocks admitted and departed 1920–1924 |