54 pages • 1 hour read
Mae M. NgaiImpossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Foreword-IntroductionChapter Summaries & Analyses
Foreword Summary: “Foreword to the New Paperback Edition”
Since the mid-1990s, academic studies of US immigration history have undergone a “sea change” (xxi). This book was influenced by that sea change and contributed to it. By demonstrating that national boundaries have always been porous and migration patterns diverse, the interdisciplinary field of migration studies has led to changes in academic approaches. Historians have replaced the old studies of one-way migration, permanent settlement, inclusion, and assimilation with studies of transnationalism, diasporas, borderlands, and colonialism. Transnational studies emphasize the political and cultural influences on sending and receiving nations, while studies of diasporas compare migrant experiences across the world.
While the old assimilationist paradigm minimized racial questions, new studies have emphasized the importance of racialized identities for Asians, Latino/as, and Europeans. These new trends are apparent in this book via “its analysis of the production of racial knowledge and national identity, the construction of the border, and the influence of colonialism on migration policy” (xxiii). However, the book focuses on US law and enforcement and migrant experiences within the country.
Illegal immigrants are excluded from the national community, yet are a part of communities and work forces in the US. As such, they are “impossible subjects” (xxiv)—a social reality but legal impossibility. Such impossibility can be resolved only via expulsion or legalization. The presence of illegal immigrants is a necessary consequence of immigration restrictions. The Hart-Celler Act of 1965 abolished biased quotas based on national origins but nonetheless continued numerical restrictions on immigrants. Ngai points to this continuation as the most important cause of unauthorized migration.
Since the book was first published in 2004, three trends have emerged. First, there has been significant growth in the population and electoral power of Latino/as. Second, immigrant workers have formed a social movement and been receptive to unionization. Finally, the Dreamers, or those who came to the US as children and are undocumented, have elicited sympathy and have highlighted the injustice of their position. These trends of demography, electoral politics, and social activism were foretold by the general historical patterns the book identified: unauthorized entry resulting from restrictive policy, racial dynamics defining some immigrants as not full persons, and the role of immigrants themselves as activists (xxvii).
Introduction Summary: “Illegal Aliens: A Problem of Law and History”
Ngai chronicles the historical origins of illegal aliens in US law and society and explains how illegal immigration became the central problem in immigration policy in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Analyzing statutory law, judicial rulings, and administrative enforcement, Ngai focuses on the period between 1924 and 1965. The Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924 was the first comprehensive law in US history, creating numerical limitations on immigrations and a “global racial and national hierarchy favoring some immigrants over others” (3).
Restrictions on immigration created illegal aliens or “impossible subjects.” Even when the law was changed in 1965, numerical restrictions were retained and therefore contributed to creating the problem of illegal immigration. Immigration policy reflects Americans’ understanding of belonging. Illegal aliens, who are defined by laws, challenge the ideals of an inclusive liberal and democratic society. In the 1920s, immigration policy additionally incorporated racial categories into law. Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and other Asian nationals were deemed ineligible for citizenship racially. While Mexicans were not deemed ineligible in law, the enforcement of laws, such as fee requirements and literacy tests, rendered most illegal. This categorization caused Asian Americans and Mexican Americans, even those born in the country, to remain alien.
Placing immigration restrictions into a global framework, Ngai notes that inflexible boundaries took hold after World War I, with multiple countries requiring passports for entry. Given the large number of refugees from that war, countries, such as the US, were motivated to reduce their entry. Courts similarly viewed migrants as spies or agents of home nations when that was rarely true. In general, courts placed sovereignty at the center of US immigration policy. As a result, Congress was able to impose rules on immigrants that would be unacceptable for citizens. It is difficult to reconcile nationalism’s right to exclude with the liberal ideal of equality. Ngai argues that the sovereign right to determine membership in the polity need not be unconditional, but subject to judicial oversight.
As a work of sociolegal history, the book assumes that “law not only reflects society but constitutes it as well” (12). Ngai examines the law on three levels: legislative and political restrictions; judicial decisions; and practical enforcement or bureaucratic interaction with migrants. She maintains that the “interactions, conflicts, and negotiations between migrants, the state, and society […] are integral to the historical processes that define and redefine the nation” (14).
Foreword-Introduction Analysis
This book contributed to a monumental change in the academic approach to the study of migration. Prior to the 1990s, the focus of studies was on the receiving countries, with emphasis placed on how immigrants were assimilated. That approach has been replaced with studies that consider the global context, the role of borderlands and colonialism, and the study of diasporas.
Ngai introduces the theme of Racial Hierarchies in US Immigration Law. Focusing on the period between 1924 and 1965, Ngai highlights the impact of quota allocations on immigrants. Southern and eastern Europeans were disadvantaged, while immigration from northern Europe was encouraged in the 1924 law. Asian immigrants were excluded from citizenship on the grounds that they were “unassimilable.” The first law to exclude an ethnic group from citizenship was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Although Mexican immigrants were not excluded from winning citizenship by the 1924 law, the administration of the border effectively prevented them from gaining lawful entry. As a result, these racial groups were considered foreign and even children born in the US, who had citizenship, were not included in the polity.
Ngai provides a comprehensive analysis of immigration policy in the US. Studying all of the relevant statutes, judicial rulings, and administrative enforcement, Ngai highlights the discrepancies between the formality of legal processes and the reality of immigrant experiences. She explains how interest groups and public opinion helped to shape both laws and enforcement. In doing so, she emphasizes how the nation’s interactions with migrants and treatment of them define the values of said nation. Indeed, the inclusion or exclusion of immigrant groups defines the identity of the American nation.
Although Ngai focuses on the 1924 Johnson-Reed Immigration Act, she stresses The Continuities in US Immigration Policy. For the first time in 1924, the US placed numerical restrictions on the number of immigrants from each country. The allocation of these numbers was openly racist. The 1965 Hart-Celler Immigration Act ended the openly racist plan of allocation. However, it retained numerical restrictions on immigrants, including those from the Western Hemisphere for the first time. The law thus retained the emphasis on border control and territorial integrity that was established in the 1920s. More importantly, the law, like the 1924 law, was responsible for the creation of Illegal Aliens in Law and the American Imagination.
The numerical restrictions were woefully inadequate and, thus, immigrants came to the US illegally. The image of these illegal aliens was a racialized one, with Mexican Americans associated in the public mind with criminal entry. That taint, per Ngai, impacts all ethnic Mexicans, whether citizens or not. It also produces what she calls “impossible subjects,” as illegal aliens are real and enmeshed in communities but are a legal impossibility. Legally, the only choices are to deport them or make them citizens: Their numbers make the former impossible and there is not the political will for the latter. In effect, US immigration policies have created the problem of illegal immigration with which the country is obsessed.
