Defectives in the land : disability and immigration in the age of eugenics / Douglas C. Baynton.

9780226364339 (ebook) :

Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2017.

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Immigration history has largely focused on the restriction of immigrants by race and ethnicity, overlooking disability as a crucial factor in the crafting of the image of the 'undesirable immigrant.' In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Baynton explains, immigration restriction in the United States was primarily intended to keep people with disabilities - known as 'defectives' - out of the country. Not only were disabled individuals excluded, but particular races and nationalities were also identified as undesirable based on their supposed susceptibility to mental, moral, and physical defects. In this transformative book, Baynton argues that early immigration laws were a cohesive whole - a decades-long effort to find an effective method of excluding people considered to be defective.

Print version :

Books / Online

English

March 10, 2017

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Specialized.