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9781469697772 Academic Inspection Copy

Able to Be American

Disability in US Immigration Policy and the American Jewish Response
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Epilepsy. Heart disease. Varicose veins. "Feeble-mindedness." In 1891, Congress unambiguously codified the popular sentiment that "defects" like these should preclude admission to the United States. Expanding the eugenics-rooted restrictions of the 1882 Immigration Act, the new law conflated illness, poverty, and disability with criminality and "moral turpitude," starkly revealing Congress's vision of the "ideal" American. Simultaneously, American Jews sought security and acceptance in the United States. In confronting these fraught issues, they boldly asserted that they too had the right, knowledge, and ability to shape the meaning of American national belonging and, indeed, the fabric of the country itself. Able to be American explores this tension, revealing how eugenic theories about illness and disability fundamentally shaped American society, government, and everyday life. As Jewish communal leaders contested the thorny relationship between perceived able-bodiedness and the "ability" to become American, they strove to reform federal immigration law and its implementation according to their own visions for what the United States could become. Hannah Zaves-Greene's groundbreaking and richly sourced analysis weaves together archival documents, government records, and captivating case studies, exposing enduring truths about exclusion, belonging, democracy, and citizenship at this watershed moment in US history.
Hannah E. Zaves-Greene is currently a Bernard and Audre Rapoport research fellow at the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives.
"An important contribution to both Jewish immigration history and the history of immigration policy in the United States. Hannah Zaves-Greene provides rigorous policy analysis while not forgetting the humanity of the individuals who were caught up in the machinery of immigration control."-Douglas C. Baynton, author of Defectives in the Land: Disability and Immigration in the Age of Eugenics "Hannah Zaves-Greene tells the story of how American Jews fought against the idea that disability was a reason to exclude immigrants from the United States. The book's vibrant characters and careful historical description make it vital for understanding both the nation's history and our current times."-Sarah Imhoff, author of The Lives of Jessie Sampter: Queer, Disabled, Zionist
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