gwern comments on Rationality Quotes November 2012 - Less Wrong
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Weren't severe restrictions on immigration, practically closed borders, instituted during the early 1900s?
It depends a bit on ethnicity. Quotas were in place that favored Northern and Western Europeans over Eastern and Southern (Mediterranean) Europeans. And anyone from Europe was favored over Japanese or Chinese - thus things like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1880.
Those favored ethnicities were also those closest to the existing elites' desired American culture, which kinda makes the point: they felt the more dissimilar ethnicities couldn't be absorbed at their existing immigration rate.