ABSTRACT

The Immigration Restriction League (IRL) made literacy, and by extension education, a major aspect of immigration reform in United States in the early twentieth century. Appealing to an educated, conservative constituency, it promoted a literacy test aimed at systematically excluding “undesirable” immigrants. Literacy was initially treated as a learned skill, but eventually became linked to fixed, presumably heritable traits. The justification for requiring these tests was directly influenced by the growing Eugenics Movement. Literacy thus became intricately tied to an expanded conception of race and, consequently, the imagined worthiness of different ethnic and nationality groups. The 1917 Literacy Test Act, also referred to as the Immigration Act of 1917, limited migration to the United States and marked the IRL’s eventual success. By that time, however, such tests had become seen as a proxy for presumably rigid, racialised, national characteristics, and the IRL pushed for even more restrictive measures. IRL members remained active beyond the First World War and contributed to the extension of immigration restriction policies in 1921 and 1924.

摘要

移民限制联盟（IRL）将扫盲以及延伸教育作为二十世纪初美国移民改革的一个主要方面。为了吸引受过教育的保守派选民，它推行了一项旨在系统地排除“不受欢迎”移民的识字测试。识字最初被视为一种习得的技能，但最终与固定的、可能是可遗传的特征联系在一起。要求这些测试的理由直接受到不断发展的优生运动的影响。因此，识字率与扩大的种族概念以及不同种族和民族群体的想象价值密切相关。1917 年识字测试法案（也称为 1917 年移民法案）限制了移民到美国，标志着 IRL 最终的成功。到那个时候，然而，此类测试已被视为僵化的、种族化的、民族特征的代表，并且 IRL 推行了更加严格的限制措施。IRL 成员在第一次世界大战后仍然活跃，并为 1921 年和 1924 年移民限制政策的延长做出了贡献。