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ABSTRACT
US policies of immigrant exclusion evolved from the so-called Asiatic barred zone of 1917 to the Asian ‘triangle’, but also included people of the Island Pacific. In the latter case, the test for eligibility to enter the United States (US) as a potential citizen was race based. World War II induced pressures by US citizens in the occupying armed forces for marriage to both Asian and Pacific Island women. Internal lobbying in the US plus diplomatic expediency resulted in some post-war relaxation of the ban on Asian immigration via marriage. In New Zealand there was at least one challenge to the extent of the Pacific boundary of the Western Hemisphere wherein greater mobility of migrants was acceptable to the US government. Political Cold War pressure, more than geographic boundaries, proved eventually more potent for potential immigration via marriage but this was too late for most Pacific partners of US servicemen.
Acknowledgements
The author thanks the readers who commented helpfully on an earlier version of this paper. This work was supported by the Marsden Fund of New Zealand (Award Contract UOO0925).
Notes
1 Judith A. Bennett and Angela Wanhalla, eds, Mothers’ Darlings of the South Pacific: The Children of Indigenous Women and US Servicemen, World War II (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2016).
2 Mae M. Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 33‒7.
3 C.A. Price, The Great White Walls are Built: Restrictive Immigration to North America and Australasia, 1836‒1888 (Canberra: Australian Institute of International Affairs in association with Australian National University Press, 1974).
4 In the eastern United States there had been often more acceptance of the Chinese and some racial intermarriage, at least until the 1880s. Emma Jinhua Teng, Eurasian: Mixed Identities in the United States, China, and Hong Kong (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), 32.
5 Gary Gerstle, American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001), 59‒61; Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (Boston: Little, Brown, 1989), 27‒9, 88‒93; Teng, Eurasian, 4.
6 Marian L. Smith, ‘Race, Nationality, and Reality: INS Administration of Racial Provisions in US Immigration and Nationality Law Since 1898’, Part 2, Prologue Magazine 34:2 (2002): n.p. Available online at http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2002/summer/immigration‒law-2.html (accessed 14 November 2017); Ngai, Impossible Subjects, 38‒42; Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore, 200‒9; Gerstle, American Crucible, 60‒61; J. Kehaulani Kauanui, Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2008), 94‒5.
7 Ngai, Impossible Subjects, 37, 285 fn 51. Ngai confused western Melanesia with Polynesia, the latter in fact being outside this ‘barred zone’ along with eastern Micronesia.
8 Immigration Act 1917, Public Law 301, 39 Statute 874 (US).
9 Ngai, Impossible Subjects, 97‒126; Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore, 313‒16, 331‒35; Ariela Gross, What Blood Won’t Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 220‒22.
10 Smith, ‘Race, Nationality, and Reality’, Part 2.
11 Also known as the Johnson-Reed Act.
12 This preference was apparent in the 1917 Act but the literacy requirement was not particularly demanding and the numbers remained high because there were no limits on the total entering the US, especially on the heels of World War I. In 1921 a precursor of the 1924 Act came into effect, based on the 1910 census. Gerstle, American Crucible, 97, 103‒4.
13 Gerstle, American Crucible, 99‒103.
14 Ngai, Impossible Subjects, 93‒5.
15 Ibid., 21‒26, 29‒37.
16 Ibid., 25‒27.
17 David Chappell, Double Ghosts: Oceanian Voyagers on EuroAmerican Ships (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1997), 131‒6; Jean Barman and Bruce McIntyre Watson, Leaving Paradise: Indigenous Hawaiians in the Pacific Northwest, 1787‒1898 (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2006); Peni Tagoai, ‘The Polynesian Colony of Utah’. Available online at https://utahcommhistory.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/iosepa-the-polynesian-colony-of-utah/ (accessed 14 November 2017); Debby Burnett Safranski, Angel of Andersonville, Prince of Tahiti: The Extraordinary Life of Dorence Atwater (Holland, MI: Alling-Porterfield, 2008).
18 Haney López, White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race (New York: NYU Press, 2006), 203‒8.
19 Ibid., 68‒71.
20 Gross, What Blood Won’t Tell, 240‒46. The US Department of Justice applied this to all Syrians in the same year. See ‘Dept. of Justice Affirms in 1909 Whether Syrians, Turks, and Arabs are of White or Yellow Race’ (Los Angeles: Arab American Historical Foundation). Available online at: http://www.arabamericanhistory.org/archives/dept-of-justice-affirms-arab-race-in-1909/ (accessed 20 August 2017).
21 J. Kehaulani Kauanui, ‘“A blood mixture which experience has shown furnishes the very highest grade of citizen-material”: Selective Assimilation in a Polynesian Case of Naturalization to US Citizenship’, American Studies 45 (2004): 33‒48.
22 Immigration Act 1924, 43 Statute 168 (1924) (US).
23 Patrick Vinton Kirch, On the Road of the Winds: An Archaeological History of the Pacific Islands before European Contact (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 328‒9, fn 14; J.B. Condliffe, Te Rangi Hiroa: The Life of Sir Peter Buck (Christchurch: Whitcombe and Tombs, 1971), 196‒8; Immigration Act 1924, 43 Statute 168 (1924).
24 López, White by Law, 203‒8.
25 Ibid., 59‒60, 160; Teng, Eurasian, 172.
26 Peggy Pascoe, What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 24‒7, 168; Orlando Patterson, Rituals of Blood: Consequences of Slavery in Two American Centuries (New York: Civitas 1999), 173‒81.
27 Pascoe, What Comes Naturally, 1‒46, 142‒3.
28 Ibid., 80‒103, 118, 140‒43, 145, 148.
29 Ibid., 119. Parenthesis inserted.
30 Ibid., 116, 119, 121‒2, 129, 134, 139, 140‒41.
31 Ibid., 194‒9.
32 Smith, ‘Race, Nationality, and Reality’, Part 2.
33 Military attachment, however, provided an exception. Filipino men, along with others from different ethnicities who had served in the US military for three years or more, could apply for naturalization and thus immigration, but their ability to marry after arrival still depended on their state of residence. Pascoe, What Comes Naturally, 196‒8; Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore, 341‒2.
34 Rose Cuison Villazor, ‘The Other Loving: Uncovering the Federal Government’s Racial Regulation of Marriage’, New York University Law Review 86:5 (2011): 1368‒9. The Supreme Court did not strike down these state racial laws until 1967 in the case of Loving v. Virginia, although California had allowed such marriages after 1948. Susan Zeiger, Entangling Alliances: Foreign War Brides and American Soldiers in the Twentieth Century (New York and London: NYU Press, 2010), 166‒7.
35 This first appeared in the 1941 supplement of the Code of Federal Regulations. CFR 1938 Cum. Supp. 2780, Part 350.2 (1943). Available online at: http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.cfr/cfr1943001&id=90&collection=cfr (accessed 14 November 2017).
36 Bennett and Wanhalla, Mothers’ Darlings, 2, and passim.
37 Lyle W. Dorsett, Serving God and Country: U.S. Military Chaplains in World War Two (New York: Berkley Books, 2012), 87‒8; Fuess, Memo: Permission to Marry, 2 May 1944, Auckland consulate, National Archives and Records Administration of the United States of America (hereinafter NA), College Park, MD, Vols 9‒10, RG 84; Smith, Report, 17 February 1944, and enclosure, Records of American Red Cross, NA, 900.11/6161, RG 200.
38 Marston to Under-Secretary of Justice, New Zealand, 19 December 1942, Dallard to Olding, 11 June 1943, NA, Entry P 90-A2, RG 313; Ostrander to Commanding General, 6 July 1943, NA, General Correspondence 1942‒1945, Box 271, Entry AI 339, RG 388; McMahon, Marriage policy, 31 Aug. 1944, encl., New Hebrides British Series, Western Pacific Archives, University of Auckland Library, Auckland, MP 26/43.
39 Horn, Memo, 6 September 1944, Suva consulate, 1944, Foreign Service posts of Department of State, NA, Vol. 3, RG 84.
40 Ellis, Munro, Warren and Leys, 13 December 1944, Suva consulate, 1944, Foreign Service posts of Department of State, NA, Vol. 3, RG 84.
41 Judith A Bennett, ‘War Surplus? New Zealand and American Children of Indigenous Women in Sāmoa, the Cook Islands, and Tokelau’, in New Zealand’s Empire, ed. Katie Pickles and Catherine Colebourne (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016), 179‒94; Judith A. Bennett and Angela Wanhalla, ‘A New Net Goes Fishing’, in Mothers’ Darlings of the South Pacific: The Children of Indigenous Women and US Servicemen, World War Two, ed. Judith A. Bennett and Angela Wanhalla (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2016), 4, 17, 21, 25.
42 Secretary of State to Governor, 27 January 1941, National Archives of Fiji (NAF), Suva, CSO F76/5; Notice, Consular Appointment, New Zealand, 17 August 1939, NAF, CSO F76/1 Part 1; Sydney Morning Herald, 17 July 1940, 11; Pacific Islands Monthly, March 1941, 8; ‘US Minister General Hurley: Arrival in New Zealand’, Evening Post, 12 March 1942, 8.
43 Dallard to Olding, 11 June 1942; Marston to Undersecretary to the Justice Department, Wellington, 19 December 1942, NA, Entry P 90-A2, Restricted Confidential Administrative files, 1942‒1945, RG 313.
44 This name, Patricia Smith, and her husband’s (Green) remain pseudonyms, out of respect for the living relatives.
45 Boucher to Secretary of State, 24 November 1944, Auckland Consulate, NA, RG 84.
46 The date given of the police statement was October 1943, which appears to be a typographical error. If not, then the laxity of the consulate was extreme as this date was both before the marriage and before the application for a visa. Boucher to Secretary of State, 24 November 1944, Auckland Consulate, NA, RG 84.
47 Declaration of I. P. Green, 12 December 1944, Auckland Consulate, NA, RG 84.
48 Boucher to Secretary of State, 24 November 1944, Auckland Consulate, NA, RG 84.
49 This first appeared in the 1941 supplement of the Code of Federal Regulations. CFR 1938 Cum. Supp. 2780, Part 350.2 (1943) (US).
50 Notes on letter of Berle to American diplomatic and consular officers, 1 December 1944, Suva consulate, 1944, Foreign Service posts of Department of State, NA, Vol. 3, RG 84. Immigration officials from the late 1890s had constructed such lists of races and peoples for statistical purposes. Over time several racial groups were added or subtracted. By the 1930s these lists were often used as a guide as to who was eligible for entry to the United States and remained in use until the 1950s. Smith, Parts 1, 2; Marian L. Smith, ‘Race, Nationality, and Reality: INS Administration of Racial Provisions in US Immigration and Nationality Law Since 1898’, Part 3, Prologue Magazine 34:2 (2002): n.p. Available online at: http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2002/summer/immigration-law-3.html (accessed 14 November 2017).
51 Saui‘a Louise T. Mataia-Milo, ‘“There Are No Commoners in Sāmoa”’, in Mothers’ Darlings of the South Pacific: The Children of Indigenous Women and US Servicemen, World War Two, ed. Judith A Bennett and Angela Wanhalla (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2016), 56.
52 ‘War Marriages’, Auckland Star, 16 July 1943, 4; ‘Bishop’s Ban’, Evening Post, 22 July 1943, 4.
53 Marston to Undersecretary to the Justice Department, Wellington, 19 December 1942, NA, Entry P 90-A2, Confidential Administrative files, 1942‒1945, RG 313. In all criminal matters, the US military governed and policed its own, an arrangement that proved successful particularly in terms of clashes with New Zealanders. Graeme Dunstall, A Policeman’s Paradise: Policing a Stable Society, 1918‒1945 (Palmerston North, New Zealand: Dunmore Press in association with the Historical Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1999), 332‒6.
54 US authorities faced a similar challenge in occupied Japan when civil or religious celebrants carried out marriages between US servicemen and Japanese women. Zeiger, Entangling Alliances, 182.
55 Marriage, Statistics New Zealand, Datainfo. Available online at: http://datainfoplus.stats.govt.nz/Item/nz.govt.stats/d6a624f0-82b4-4257-ae27-bbc6948657a5# (accessed 14 November 2017). The Native Land Act became the Māori Land Act in 1947 (NZ). Māori Purposes Act of 1947 (NZ). Available online at: www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1947/0059/latest/096be8ed8133e73d.pdf (accessed 14 November 2017).
56 Ostrander to Commanding General, Sixth Army, 6 July 1943, Ostrander, Circular 7, 19 January 1944, Adjutant General Section, 1942‒45, Entry A1 339, Records of US Army, General Correspondence, NA, RG 338.
57 Bennett and Wanhalla, ‘A New Net Goes Fishing’, 25.
58 Rosemary Anderson, ‘Marike koe: The American Children of the Cook Islands’, in Mother’s Darlings, eds Bennett and Wanhalla (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2016), 243‒69; Judith A. Bennett, ‘No Bali Ha‘i’, in Mothers’ Darlings of the South Pacific: The Children of Indigenous Women and US Servicemen, World War Two, ed. Judith A. Bennett and Angela Wanhalla (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2016), 143.
59 Angela Wanhalla and Erica Buxton, ‘Pacific Brides: US Forces and Interracial Marriage During the Pacific War’, Journal of New Zealand Studies 14 (2013): 138‒51.
60 Fuess, Memo, 6 October 1944, Boucher to Patton, 6 October 1944, Auckland consulate, 1944, Vols 9‒10, NA, RG 84.
61 James to France, 8 October 1942, Confidential Administrative files, 1942‒1945, NA, RG 313.
62 Pacific Islands Monthly, March 1941, 8.
63 New Zealand Official Yearbook, 1943, 11.
64 Notes on letter of Berle to American diplomatic and consular officers, 1 December 1944, Suva consulate, 1944, Foreign Service posts of Department of State, Vol. 3, NA, RG 84.
65 [J. P. Kavanagh], ‘Nationality: New Zealand Women Married to United States Citizens’, New Zealand Law Journal, 30:2, 1 February 1944, 14–16; Childs to Secretary of State, 1 May 1944, Suva consulate, 1944, Vol. 3, RG 84, Foreign Service posts of Department of State, NA.
66 Kavanagh, ‘Nationality’, 16.
67 Boucher to Childs, 14 August 1944, Auckland consulate, 1944: Vol. 9–10, RG 84, NA. For discussion of nationality see, [Anonymous], ‘Some Nationality Problems’, New Zealand Journal of Law, 18 April 1944, 76–78.
68 Boucher to Childs, 8 July 1944, Auckland consulate, 1944: Vol. 9–10, RG 84, NA.
69 Smith, Part 3, n.p. Available online at: http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2002/summer/immigration-law-3.html (accessed 28 November 2017).
70 Judy M. Olson, ‘Projecting the Hemisphere’, in Matching the Map Projection to the Need, ed. Arthur H. Robinson and John P. Snyder (Bethesda: American Congress on Surveying and Mapping, 1997). Available online at: https://courseware.e-education.psu.edu/projection/ (accessed 14 November 2017).
71 Lawrence Martin, ‘The Geography of the Monroe Doctrine and the Limits of the Western Hemisphere’, Geographical Review 30:3 (1949): 525‒8.
72 Holmes to Patton, 9 February 1945, Auckland consulate, 1945, Foreign Service Posts of the Department of State, NA, RG 84.
73 Smith, ‘Race, Nationality, and Reality’, Part 3.
74 Childs to Feuss, 13 June 1945, Auckland consulate, 1945, Foreign Service Posts of the Department of State, NA, RG 84.
75 See for example, Horn to Secretary of State, 20 March 1944; Horn, Memo, 6 September 1944, Suva consulate, 1944, Vol. 3, Foreign Service posts of Department of State, NA, RG 84; Ellis, Munro, Warren and Leys, 13 December 1944, Suva consulate, 1944, Vol. 3, Foreign Service posts of Department of State, NA, RG 84; Kennady (New Caledonia) to Commander South Pacific Area and Force, 15 October 1944 and enclosures, Entry P90-A2, Confidential General Administrative files, 1942‒1944, NA, RG 313.
76 Close to Commander South Pacific Area, 4 March 1944, Administrative files, 1942‒1945, Entry P 96, NA, RG 313.
77 Childs to Feuss, 13 June 1945, Auckland consulate, 1945, Foreign Service Posts of the Department of State, NA, RG 84.
78 Ngai, Impossible Subjects, 201‒04; Villazor, ‘The Other Loving’, fn 354, 1414; Teng, Eurasian, 5, 250.
79 Nancy K. Ota, ‘Flying Buttresses’, DePaul Law Review 49 (2000): 693‒728; Nancy K. Ota, ‘Private Matters: Family and Race and the Post-World War II Translation of “American”’, International Review of Social History 46 (2001): 209‒34; Zeiger, Entangling Alliances, 181. Two part-Polynesian women who had managed to get to Hawai‘i were allowed to stay under this regulation. One part-Māori wife also gained entry via a private petition to congress. See Wanhalla and Buxton, ‘Pacific Brides,’ 144‒6.
80 Obituary, Richmond Review, 31 December 2006.
81 Ota, ‘Private Matters’, 209‒34; Zeiger, Entangling Alliances, 181‒2. Even though Filipinos who had served in US military were eligible for US citizenship this was declined to American Sāmoans in the military despite appeals from 1945 to 1950, although they were permitted to migrate to Hawai‘i in 1951 when the naval base on Tutuila closed. Joseph Kennedy, The Tropical Frontier: America’s South Seas Colony (Mangilao, Guam: University of Guam, 2009), 222‒3.
82 So called because, when projected on sphere with the North Pole as the point of origin and the longitude markers spreading out to the equator, the segment appears almost triangular.
83 Philip E. Wolgin and Irene Bloemraad, ‘“Our Gratitude to Our Soldiers”: Military Spouses, Family Re-unification, and Postwar Immigration Reform’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 41:1 (2010): 27‒60.
84 The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (Pub. L. 82–414, 66 Stat. 163, enacted June 27, 1952) (US); The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (Pub. L. 89–236, 79 Stat. 911, enacted June 30, 1968) (US).
85 Edward Said, ‘Orientalism Reconsidered’, Cultural Critique 1 (1985): 90.
86 Bennett and Wanhalla, eds, Mothers’ Darlings.