Microforms Collections: Directory by Call Number

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Call Number:

JV6455 .R44 1992

Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Series A, Subject correspondence files   

University Publications of America

Format:

MICROFILM

Subject Category:

Ethnic Studies, History US, History World, Law & Legal History

Collection Dates:

01/01/1898 - 12/31/1941

Location:

UNLV Microforms

Summary:

The library owns three items of this collection. Part 1, Asian Immigration and Exclusion, 1906 - 1913. This collection documents the numerous avenues through which Asian immigrants evaded federal inspectors to settle in America, as well as federal efforts to uphold the law. Included are analyses of employment opportunities for Asians (especially in Hawaii, which was exempted from the exclusionary law); the transfer of Asians from Hawaii to the mainland, the widespread smuggling of Asian laborers across the Mexican and Canadian borders; and the use of strategic marriages of Asian immigrants to naturalized Asians, especially in California. Many files also document the State Department's relations with China and Japan regarding the immigration problem. Supplement to part 1: Asia Immigration and Exclusion covers the years 1898 - 1941. During this period, American Immigration laws were under almost constant revision (especially before 1924). Revisions brought new policies in the administration of the law, and these files reflect those changes. Other highlights of the collection include responses to "tong wars" in Chinatowns across the United States, efforts by western and southern agribusiness to import Chinese laborers during World War I, surveillance of liquor and narcotics, smuggling, and crackdowns on prostitution. Part 2: Mexican Immigration, 1906 - 1930, documents the economic and political incentives behind the cross-border movement between Mexico and the United States. This collection documents not only the influx of Mexican aliens across the borders of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, but also the efforts to European and Middle Eastern emigrants an Chinese and Japanese immigrants to cross the Mexican border into the United States. Highlights of the collection include: U.S. - Mexican immigration negotiations; correspondence in the activities of the Immigration Service's Mexican Border District office in El Paso and its satellite offices and ports of entry; the issue of admission of Mexican peon labor; Border Officers' reports on the Mexican Civil War and its influence on the immigration and the refugee problem; smuggling of both human and liquid cargo; and general implementation of U.S. immigration laws and customs activities along the length of the U.S. - Mexican border.

Finding Aids:

A guide to the microfilm edition of Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Series A, Subject correspondence files (MICRO JV 6455 .R44 1993 pt 1 Supp. Guide, pt 2 Guide) These guides have a reel and subject index.




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