Immigration and Naturalization Act raises Asian American quotas on July 1, 1968.

  • By Walt Crowley
  • Posted 2/01/2001
  • HistoryLink.org Essay 2966
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On July 1, 1968, the federal Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 takes effect and immediately spurs an influx of Asian American immigrants.

The law essentially erases the last vestiges of Anti-Chinese "exclusion laws" dating from the 1880s. It sets annual quotas of 20,000 immigrants for each nation outside the Western Hemisphere, and opens doors to relatives of Asian American citizens. U.S. Senator Warren G. Magnuson (1905-1989) of Washington state was a key leader in winning passage of the new law.


Sources:

Gail M. Nomura, "Washington's Asian/Pacific American Communities" in Peoples of Washington: Perspectives in Cultural Diversity ed. by Sid White and S. E. Solberg (Pullman: WSU Press, 1989).


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