Clash of Cultures & the Discovery of Gold      123456

Public Image During the Cold War

The Cold War impacted international immigration to every state in the U.S., including California. On the one hand, the 1950 Internal Security Act barred foreign communists or subversives from entering the country. On the other hand, the United States accepted hundreds of thousands of political refugees from communist countries during this period. Aware of the U.S. image abroad and its ability to influence opinion in a world divided between communist and capitalist, American politicians wanted to show a more friendly face to people around the globe. Overturning restrictive immigration policies was one way that American leaders tried to bolster the image of the nation.

1965 – An End to Ethnic and Race-based Quotas

Undoubtedly the major piece of legislation to pass during this period was the Immigration Act of 1965. A broad law that many historians place in the context of the civil rights movement, the Act removed the country-based quota system first enacted in 1924. The Act provided for residency for 170,000 immigrants from the eastern hemisphere and 120,000 from the western hemisphere. No more than 20,000 were allowed to emigrate from a single country.

The Act also contained a generous provision for family reunification, thus encouraging chain migration. Nearly 30 million immigrants have arrived in the United States since the Act became law in 1968. Currently, a little more than 10 percent, or 35 of 300 million, of U.S. citizens are legal resident immigrants.

For the first time, California began to welcome large numbers of immigrants such as Mandarin-speaking Chinese, Koreans, Central Americans, Vietnamese, Ethiopians, Armenians, and Thais. As in earlier periods, immigrants came to California for a number of different reasons – some were pushed and others were pulled. Sometimes the reasons for immigration were deeply personal, such as the desire to reunite with a loved one. In other cases the reasons were broad and impersonal, such as being displaced by war or economic conditions.