The Geopolitics of Eugenics and the Exclusion of Philippine Immigrants from the United States

Abstract

From 1898 to 1936, Philippine immigrants were routinely excluded from the United States, where incipient practices of eugenic “science” and geopolitics were informing social policy. Concomitant with emergent theories of evolution, a geopolitically informed eugenics forewarned of possible racial competition and societal degeneration. Immigration legislation emerged as an effective social policy to exclude perceived undesirable, and racially distinct, immigrant groups, ostensibly to protect race and state.

• eugenics
• geopolitics
• immigration
• Philippines
• racism

Additional information

Notes on contributors

James A. Tyner

Dr. Tyner is an assistant professor of geography at Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242.