Response Paper on Immigration Act Of 1965

Response Paper on Immigration Act Of 1965
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Response Paper on Immigration Act Of 1965
The Immigration Act of 1965 was especially implemented to ensure reunification of the families of immigrants in the USA. This Act eventually would change the demographic makeup of the American population as most of the immigrants moving to the USA under the new legislation had equal rights and were not discriminated upon especially from war-torn Asian nations such as Vietnam, Africa and the Latin America. Therefore, Act resulted in the abolition of the quota system that was base on the national origin as well as encouraged the family reunification of immigrants. Based on the asserted points the response paper herein presents an elaboration of the Immigration Act of 1965 with reference to how the law is portrayed in both Hester Street and Stranger than Paradise films.
The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 came into effect due to the constant calls for immigration reforms due to the discrimination and the quota systems that were brought about by the former Immigration Acts (Keely, 1971). This act was heightened due to the constant unrest of the civil rights movements that advocated for equal rights for all immigrants in the USA. Initially, before the act was signed into law, the USA Immigration laws were based on the national-origins quota system that was established in the 1920s. Under such circumstances, a nationality was to be assigned under the quota based on the representation in the past U.S census figures. This law discriminated some immigrants from Greek, Poland, Portugal, Italy, Africa, Asia and other nations compared to those who migrated from Northern Europe (Keely, 1971). Consequently, the civil rights movement advocated for the equal treatment of all the immigrants irrespective of race or nationality. Therefore, the main purpose of the Immigration Act of 1965 was to ensure family reunification of the immigrants, enhance diversity, eliminate the national origin quotas and for the American benefit from the skilled workforce from other nations (Keely, 1971).
The law mainly differed from the previous laws on immigration since it abandoned the national origin quota system and replaced it with preferences being made according to different categories of immigrants such as relatives of the US citizens, permanent residents, the immigrants who are skilled and would be useful in the US or consideration of refugees of civil unrest or wars. However, this act even though it abolished the quota system, it still had numerous caps on the per-country and total immigration, and caps on each category considered. Conversely, it led to a whole family of immigrants to relocate and reestablishment in the USA (Keely, 1971).
Based on the Hester Street film, the immigration episode is portrayed in the life of Jews who live in America. For example, Jake the protagonist migrated to the USA leaving his family behind in Russia. He finds his shy friend Bernstein who is also an immigrant from Russia in the USA and works in a sweatshop. Jake upon realizing that his father has passed on, his whole family wife Gitl and son Yossele join him in the USA. Even though this family faces problems that lead to d...