The 1790 Naturalization Act stipulated that only "free white people” could attain US citizenship. Since then, a thread of discrimination, especially against people from Asia, Africa and Latin America, has been threaded through US immigration policy.
A goal of keeping the country’s ethnic makeup as it was in 1900 dictates who fits in and who does not: Although even non-whites are welcome when needed as workers, legal residency and American citizenship are often unattainable for them.
Arts Unveiled traces the history of US immigration in conversation with policy analyst Michele Wucker and legal scholar Hiroshi Motomura, among others, and shows how discrimination continues to have an impact on who gets to stay in the country.
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