Changing Demographics in Cold War America

FAIN: FA-58673-15

Wendy L. Wall
SUNY Research Foundation, Binghamton (Binghamton, NY 13902-4400)

This book project sheds light on one of the most controversial issues of our day—U.S. immigration policy—by exploring the Cold War politics that ultimately produced and shaped the Immigration Act of 1965. That act forever changed the nation’s demographic makeup and transformed vast arenas of American life, but the two-decade campaign that led to its passage and shaped its provisions has received remarkably little attention from historians. Most portray the act as the inevitable product of a liberal consensus, overlooking the extended struggle by ethnic, religious, civic, labor and other groups to advance, shape or forestall immigration reform. This project recovers those lost voices, while restoring a sense of drama and contingency to the story of postwar immigration reform. It places the struggle for immigration reform in the broader context of Cold War politics, and focuses on the role of religious organizations and language, as well as gender and family issues.