WEBNotes - Day 8 - 2014 - Immigration and Refugies - WWII

Title: US Policies on Immigration and Refugees

Date: November 18, 2014

Write down the Topical Essential Question.

(1.2.h) SWBAT identify and analyze US policies on immigration (and refugees) during World War II. Given an exit card & document, SWBAT: (80% accuracy) 1. Answer 3 MC questions 2. Write a SEEC paragraph for the following: Compare and contrast the Bracero program with the voyage of the St Louis. T-EQ: What caused the tensions between immigrants and native-born Americans during World War II? O-EQ: How does war impact the thoughts and actions of people beyond the battlefield?

M.S. St. Louis (1939) - German ocean liner known for attempting to take 937 German Jewish refugees to the US and Canada Denied entry by both nations

Forced to return to Europe

25% are believed to have ended up in Nazi camps


Quotas established in the US Immigration and Nationality Act of 1924 strictly limited the number of immigrants who could be admitted to the United States each year. In 1939, the annual

combined German-Austrian immigration quota was 27,370 and was quickly filled.


TWS - Critique: Complete the stem- • The U.S. was/was not

justified in these policies because______.

• President Roosevelt could have issued an executive order to admit the St. Louis refugees, but elected to not do so. Why do you think he said no? Explain!

1941 Wartime Measure June, 1941 - authorized the

refusal of visas to aliens whose admission into the United States would endanger the public safety

TWS – Why do you think the United States would create a ‘wartime measure’ act during a time when they were not at war? (Pearl Harbor would not happen

until December of the same year). Explain!


The bracero program was a series of laws and diplomatic agreements, initiated by an August 1942 exchange of diplomatic notes between the United States and Mexico, for the importation of temporary contract laborers from Mexico to the United States.

TWS – Why do you think the bracero program was initiated when it was (August 1942)? Explain! CHALLENGE! - What complications do you think Mexican immigrants faced when they were in the United States during this period of time? Explain!


In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, over 500,000 Mexican Americans were deported or pressured to leave, during the Mexican Repatriation. There were thus fewer Mexican Americans available when labor demand returned with World War II (initiating the bracero program).

Analyze the above policies (Repatriation in the 1930s and the bracero program of the 1940s). What does this tell you about United States policy towards

Mexico during the 30s and 40s? Explain!

What parallels, if any, do you see between this period in American history and current relations with Mexico

(2014)? Explain!


The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of riots in 1943 during World War II that broke out in Los Angeles, California, between Anglo American sailors and Marines stationed in the city, and Latino youths, who were recognizable by the zoot suits they favored.


A witness to the attacks, journalist Carey McWilliams wrote, "Marching through the streets of downtown Los Angeles, a mob of several thousand soldiers, sailors, and civilians, proceeded to beat up every zoot suiter they could find. Pushing its way into the important motion picture theaters, the mob ordered the management to turn on the house lights and then ran up and down the aisles dragging Mexicans out of their seats. Streetcars were halted while Mexicans, and some Filipinos and Negroes, were jerked from their seats, pushed into the streets and beaten with a sadistic frenzy."

Analyze the primary source excerpts above. What does this tell you about race relations in the United States during the war years? Challenge!!! – Do you think this was an isolated event (something that occurred by pure happenstance), or the symptom of a much bigger problem in America?


When he was killed at war (1945), he wasn't returned to his family for a long time (1949). Finally his body was returned but the local funeral home denied him wake services at the home because he was Mexican American. In Texas during the 1940s, as in other parts of the

country, Mexican Americans were considered non-white.

The Felix Longoria affair became an early example of a unifying event in the Mexican American civil rights movement.


WEBNotes - Day 8 - 2014 - Immigration and Refugies - WWII

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