What explains racial and national origin preferences in immigration and citizenship policy in the Americas over the last 150 years? Many scholars have argued that the end of discrimination against particular groups was caused by the global triumph of political liberalism and that powerful exemplars of liberal democracy shaped the policies of countries in their sphere of influence. And yet, if liberalism is incompatible with racism, why were the United States and Canada leaders in the spread of racialized policy restrictions in the Americas during the early twentieth century? Why did authoritarian Latin American regimes remove negative racial discrimination from their immigration laws around World War II, a generation before liberal-democratic states like the United States and Canada did the same in the 1960s? This study will answer those questions by creating an original database of racial and national origin preferences in the immigration and citizenship laws of 22 major countries of the Americas since 1850. A statistical analysis of time series data will test the extent to which specific political, demographic, and economic conditions explain levels of racialization in those policies. The quantitative analysis will be complemented by case studies based on archival materials and the secondary literature of the five primary countries of immigration ? the United States, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, and Cuba ? and Mexico as a negative instance of a country that sought, but failed to attract mass immigration.
The intellectual merit of this project lies in (a) its cross-country comparisons and long time frame, and (b) a research strategy of using case-studies to address the puzzles and gaps that emerge from quantitative analyses. The systemic long-view proposed is potentially transformative because it shows how the internal inclusiveness of liberal democracy often rests on categorical exclusions of outsiders. The study?s broader impacts will include (1) lessons for contemporary immigration policy (whether the current stance against racist exclusion is historically contingent and thus reversible, how egalitarian laws may in practice discriminate by race, and if racialist exclusions may be giving way to more politically palatable, but still discriminatory categorical distinctions); (2) using an inquiry-based approach to train underrepresented students in a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies; (3) the integration of project data into the undergraduate curriculum and research mentorship, and the provision of research apprenticeships for graduate students. In addition, (4) findings will be disseminated to a wide audience of academics, policymakers, and other stakeholders through workshops, conference presentations, and publication of original data and results in high-profile Internet sites and academic publications. Finally, (5) it fosters collaboration across disciplines (sociology and economics) and types of research and teaching institutions (UC San Diego and Grinnell College) by, among other things, developing appropriate sharing technologies.
