This Month in History: McCarran-Walter Immigration Nationality Act, June 27th, 1952
On June 27th, 1952, Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act, also known as the McCarran-Walter Act. Before 1952, a number of acts had prevented most members of certain Asian ethnic groups from entering the country, including the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, the 1907 Gentlemen’s Agreement (Japan and Korea), the 1917 Asiatic Barred Zone Act (India), the 1924 Immigration Act (any alien ineligible for citizenship), and the 1934 Tydings-McDuffie Act (Philippines). The McCarran-Walter Act maintained the race-based quotas of previous immigration acts by creating the “Asia-Pacific Triangle,” which limited immigration from this region to 2,000 per year, and 100 per country. At the same time, this act effectively ended the 1924 Immigration Act by making aliens eligible for citizenship. So while this act did not dramatically increase Asian immigration to the U.S., it did alter the demographic makeup of Asian American communities previously barred from citizenship.
Source: Chan, Sucheng. Asian Americans: An Interpretive History. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991.
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