Katherine Benton-Cohen. Inventing the Problem: The Dillingham Commission and Its Legacy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018. 342 pp. $29.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-674-97644-3.

Reviewed by Yuki Oda

Published on H-Diplo (April, 2019)

Commissioned by Seth Ofenbach (Bronx Community College, The City University of New York)

The belief that migration of people can or the belief that the US government, above all, the should be managed is deeply rooted in current federal government, was both responsible for and political and popular discourse. Few argue today capable of providing solutions. for a laissez-faire approach and instead speak of The Dillingham Commission should be famil‐ the “designing” of immigration policy or “selec‐ iar to scholars of US immigration history. The tion” of immigrants. Critics often explain diver‐ commission’s invention and distinction of “old im‐ gence from their ideal as policy failure either in migration” from “new immigration” has shaped its design or in its application or enforcement, how historians talk about the histories of immi‐ and more important as a problem of governance. gration. In terms of policy outcomes, the commis‐ How did these ideas take shape? What do people sion had enormous success, as many of its policy expect of the government, which branch and level recommendations listed in its frst volume, such of the government, and in what aspects of immi‐ as the literacy test, became law. Its forty-one-vol‐ gration and immigrant lives? By defnition, inter‐ ume report has been a rich source for both con‐ national migration transcends the nation-state, temporaries and later scholars of various disci‐ but why is it mostly considered in the context of plines. Scholars today still refer to the reports to domestic politics? study immigrant lives in the early twentieth cen‐ Katherine Benton-Cohen’s Inventing the Im‐ tury. migration Problem: The Dillingham Commission Yet Benton-Cohen’s book makes us realize and Its Legacy looks into the crucial turning peri‐ how little we know about the commission. Sur‐ od at the early twentieth century when immigra‐ prisingly, with the exception of Robert Zeidel’s Im‐ tion regulation and restriction was about to be‐ migrants, Progressives, and Exclusion Politics: come the norm in the . The book ex‐ The Dillingham Commission, 1900-1927 (2004), amines the role that the Dillingham Commission this is only the second book on the commission. played in decisively pushing this dynamic by con‐ Scholars of immigration have written about how structing immigration as a “problem” in several the commission’s conclusions led to a restrictive ways. First, the view that immigration was a prob‐ immigration policy and what became of the fnd‐ lem that needed to be fxed was prevalent. The ings. Benton-Cohen’s examination of the internal second related idea was that there were actual so‐ workings of the commission is diferent and sig‐ lutions to this problem. And most important was nifcant in that the book tells us about the little- H-Net Reviews known aspect of how the commission produced University professor. Finding information about its fndings in the frst place. The commission was these individuals demonstrates the depth of Ben‐ a product of the , and it was novel ton-Cohen’s research, which deserves recognition. for Congress to conduct social-science-based re‐ The federal archives do not hold the organization‐ search rather than hold hearings. Thus, at one lev‐ al records of the commission. Benton-Cohen has el, the book tells a story of the rise of immigration created a database of all the staf, many of whom experts and their use of the federal government’s were previously unknown, and through exploring power to pursue their research interests, to en‐ some thirty manuscript collections, she has recon‐ hance the status of their discipline, to promote structed the stories of people surrounding the what they believed was a just social cause, and to commission. build their own careers. At the same time, it is The book begins with two chapters on the Pa‐ also about the failure of experts, the clash of al‐ cifc and the Pacifc coastal states and ends with a legedly scientifc and objective knowledge, and chapter on southern plantations along the Missis‐ the infuence of political interests. The commis‐ sippi delta. This geographical framework ofers sioners’ fnal recommendations contradicted and historians a new view of the commission, which simplifed many of the published fndings. Ben‐ previous literature has most associated with re‐ ton-Cohen illustrates how political pressure sup‐ strictions placed on transatlantic immigration pressed some of the important fndings from even from southern and eastern Europe. In fact, aside making it onto the pages. More important, immi‐ from a volume on the Greek padrones system, the grants themselves often resisted encroachment of Japanese were the only people who were singled the “experts” and the government into their daily out as a “race” in the title of the reports (volumes lives and negotiated in their own ways to have 22 to 25). The commission was established in their voices heard. 1907, the same year as the United States and In addition to an introduction and a brief epi‐ Japan reached the Gentlemen’s Agreement to cur‐ logue, the book consists of seven chapters. Adding tail Japanese immigration. The two opening chap‐ color to the narrative, each chapter revolves ters are signifcant not only because they point to around a few individuals, chosen from among the another origin of the commission but also be‐ nine commissioners and over three hundred staf. cause they place the commission in a transitional Benton-Cohen’s selection of the protagonists is period from a bilateral framework or diplomatic balanced and provides a more wholesome picture approach to a unilateral approach to immigration of the commission while drawing our attention to policy. its diversity and internal contradictions. Some The frst chapter centers on Jeremiah Jenks, a members were powerful and prominent, such as economics professor, who en‐ the Jeremiah Jenks (chapter 1), Senator tered the feld of immigration through his early LeRoy Percy (chapter 7), or the famed anthropolo‐ interests in colonialism in the Pacifc. Jenks be‐ gist Franz Boas (chapter 6). Others exercised infu‐ lieved that “the federal government had a right— ence disproportionate to their academic standing, even an obligation”—to regulate and restrict im‐ as in the case of W. Jett Lauck, the agent in charge migration (p. 35). Chapter 2 proceeds to discuss in of the industrial series (chapter 4). Others partici‐ detail the commission’s studies on Japanese immi‐ pated in an essential but less recognized role, grants and Ichihashi, a frst-generation Japanese such as Anna Herkner and Mary Mark (chapter 5), immigrant who served as a research assistant and who investigated the “white slave” trade as un‐ interpreter. When US-Japan relations were rapid‐ dercover agents, or Yamato Ichihashi (chapter 2), ly deteriorating, with Japanese immigrants in‐ an undergraduate assistant and a future Stanford

2 H-Net Reviews creasingly being problematized, Ichihashi and the their children’s bodies changed in the US. The au‐ Japanese workers he interviewed ofered an alter‐ thor clarifes how Boas both difered from and re‐ native view of Japanese immigrants as good citi‐ sembled the eugenicists. Although he refuted the zens. By focusing on Jenks, a top commissioner, eugenicist argument that racial characteristics and Ichihashi, a student interpreter, the two chap‐ were immutable, Boas and the eugenicists shared ters shed light on opposing visions of Asian immi‐ the methodology of measuring bodies and more gration within the commission, with the former fundamentally the conviction that scientists and eventually suppressing the latter. the government were entitled to intrude the most Throughout the book, Benton-Cohen makes intimate sphere. But measuring bodies, especially the point that scholarship on the Dillingham Com‐ those of children, was met with strong opposition mission has overemphasized the infuence of eu‐ from parents and immigrant communities. Ben‐ genics, and one of her purposes of focusing on ton-Cohen is attentive to how ordinary immi‐ Jenks in the frst chapter is to point to the central grants suspected and detested intrusion of experts role of . But this is not to say that the and the federal government. book discounts race. In fact, racial categorization While most of the forty-one volumes credit was central to the commission’s study. As Lauck such men as Boas, Benton-Cohen also calls atten‐ wrote, the main purpose of the industry series he tion to the neglected fact that more than half of administered was to determine “the races which the staf who undertook actual research were and the races which do not lower the standard of women. The commission provided one of the lim‐ living” (p. 125). In addition, as Benton-Cohen ited opportunities for college-educated and gradu‐ points out, the commission measured its data pri‐ ate school-trained women to bring their expertise marily by race. What the book reveals is how ex‐ to the service of the federal government. Benton- tensively race permeated a wide range of academ‐ Cohen illustrates how these women combined ic disciplines, including economics, and Benton- their class and gender values with social science Cohen seeks to carefully sort out biological deter‐ in their investigation and deployed the power of minism of eugenics from other forms of racial the federal government for their causes. Chapters thinking that were so prevalent. While the com‐ 5 and 7 describe contrasting outcomes of women’s mission borrowed its racial classifcation from the involvement in the federal investigation of immi‐ bureau of immigration, neither simply refected grant conditions. Chapter 5 sheds light on women racial thinking. Chapter 3 discusses the controver‐ who worked, sometimes anonymously, for the sy over the classifcation of “Hebrew” as “race” commission, such as Anna Herkner, Mary Mark, that cut across nationalities, protests by Jewish or‐ and Mary Philbrook, on a campaign against ganizations, such prominent Jewish leaders as Si‐ “white slavery,” which successfully paved the way mon Wolfe and Max Kohler, and divisions among for the . Chapter 7 tells a diferent story Jews. Research design determines the framework of Mary Grace Quackenbos, a lawyer at the De‐ by which data gathered is interpreted, and the partment of Justice, and her investigation of peon‐ book shows the contested process of constructing age conditions of Italian immigrants on a south‐ race as a framework of understanding. ern plantation. Peonage investigation largely fal‐ Organized lobbying was just one of the vari‐ tered in the face of strong local and political oppo‐ ous responses to expanding power of the federal sition. In fact, commissioners from the South pres‐ government, and Benton-Cohen describes daily sured the Dillingham Commission to produce a resistance of ordinary immigrants. An example is study that would discredit the Department of Jus‐ chapter 6 on Boas’s study of how immigrants’ and tice’s version. The two chapters show how federal

3 H-Net Reviews agencies ofered competing versions of “objective Making of Modern America (2004) to be published fact.” by Hakusuisha Press in 2020 and a co-edited col‐ Ultimately, the Dillingham Commission’s lection of essays Introduction to History and Cul‐ study of immigrants boiled down to the question ture of the United States (forthcoming in 2021). of Americanness. The most extensive and infuen‐ tial sixteen-volume industrial series called for the protection of the “American worker” defned as “old immigration.” The industrial series marked a sharp contrast with reports on the South advocat‐ ing for more immigrants, which placed African Americans outside the sphere of “American work‐ ers.” Focusing on Lauck, now a little-known fg‐ ure, Benton-Cohen explains the commission’s de‐ velopment of an economic argument for immi‐ grant restriction in order to protect the “American standard of living.” At one level, as Benton-Cohen emphasizes, Lauck’s reasoning signifcantly dif‐ fered from more essentialist grounds for restric‐ tion in the 1920s, with its emphasis on innate bio‐ logical diference. At another level, the overarch‐ ing emphasis on the American worker signaled transition to immigration policy that prioritized domestic interests over international relations, a unilateral over a multilateral framework of ap‐ proaching immigration. With thorough research and compelling evi‐ dence, Benton-Cohen’s book is not only an essen‐ tial read for immigration historians but also an in‐ valuable addition to a growing literature on the Progressive Era. As questions about the “immigra‐ tion problem” are intensely debated in the US to‐ day, this book will help us refect on its origins. Yuki Oda is an associate professor at the Fac‐ ulty of Commerce, Chuo University, Tokyo, Japan. He specializes in immigration history, particular‐ ly the development of US immigration policy in the twentieth century. He has contributed chap‐ ters to Nicholas Syrett and Corinne T. Fields’s Age in America: Colonial Era to the Present (2015) and Richard Marback’s Generations: Rethinking Age and Citizenship (2015). Some of his current projects include a Japanese translation of 's Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and

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Citation: Yuki Oda. Review of Benton-Cohen, Katherine. Inventing the Immigration Problem: The Dillingham Commission and Its Legacy. H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews. April, 2019.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=53247

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