Bringing the Marginalized into Conversations about American Raciality - Erin Kane - Keely Gaeta - Emily Norris

MILITARIZED MIGRATIONS BY CRYSTAL MUN-HYE BAIK

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, when taken at face value, is deemed as a much more progressive immigration law than those prior to its enactment. However, when looking at immigration law, going beyond face value is crucial to understanding the ramifications of such law. For example, the law is seen as the "[opening of] immigration to populations around the world ... to generate aa more racially and ethnically inclusive melting pot". Nevertheless, this act was still extremely harmful to many nationalities. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 had a huge impact in the systematization of racialized and gendered policies that were labeled as temporary. For example, the prioritization of family unification based on heteronormativity. The act additionally codified the prioritization of those who were deemed as having the potential to be a hardworking American. While family reunification and attracting qualified laborers sound like positive consequences, these policies were extremely exclusionary and were highly based off of American ideals. The danger of this practice is that it demands assimilation before immigrants even enter America, as well as assuming other countries conform to American practices, when they indeed did not. Essentially, this act formulated a physical representation of what qualifies as the ideal immigrant.

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