“the past” to better understand and navigate the present
In her epilogue to the special issue of the Journal of American History (September 2022) that sought to commemorate the legacies of the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924 a century after their passage, Erika Lee, one of the nation’s leading scholars of U.S. Immigration history, argues that “the past is not past” (399).
As she notes in her conclusion: “It is not the 1920s all over again, but so much of the racism, xenophobia, and white nationalism that characterized the United States one hundred years ago remains and has even been expanded and normalized. As the essays in this volume make clear, we must simultaneously look backward and forward to actively work toward their demise” (407).
What are some of the ways that historians of U.S. immigration history have studied “the past” to better understand and navigate the present and, to some extent, the future? Identify some of the methods, lenses, topics, or themes that they have utilized to make their arguments and broader contributions to this field.
Sample Solution