The Ambivalent Geopolitics of Inclusion: The Case of Colonial Asian American Groups

This paper examines the political struggles of Indian and Korean Americans for immigration and naturalization rights during the mid-1940s. Geopolitical pressures associated with the Sino-American alliance facilitated Chinese Exclusion’s repeal during World War II, but colonial Asian American activists negotiated thornier questions related to Asian decolonization. Enacted in July 1946, the Luce-Celler Act granted immigration and naturalization rights to Indians (and Filipinos) upon the independence of their homeland. While the act has been described as a “sequel” to Chinese Exclusion repeal, the problem of colonialism made the legislation fundamentally different in kind from the Chinese measure that preceded it.

Advocates argued that the passage of repeal measures would invite the support of the soon-to-be independent peoples of India and Korea for the United States by upholding Washington’s claims to support the self-determination of all peoples. But the specter of Asian independence proved a precarious basis for reform. Never simply a matter of negotiations with a sovereign state, repeal legislation for Asian colonial groups became embedded in their anti-colonial struggles for homeland independence. Their experiences unsettle an understanding of Asian American activism for repeal as a fight about domestic inclusion alone, suggesting how, for many Asian colonial advocates in America, the effort to secure legal recognition from the U.S. government became entwined with transnational political projects.

In the lobby for rights, colonial status could alternately help or hinder legislative progress. In this paper, I suggest how the success of an Indian immigration bill in 1946 and the failure of a concurrent Korean measure tracked the divergent paths of India and Korea from colony to sovereignty.