This week, the readings highlight the importance of intersectionality while they grapple with ideas of citizenship. Last week, we focused more on culture than the social and medical model binary. The readings this week incorporate culture into the social model mindset.
I would like to start with the Allison Carey article. She is quick to point out that hierarchies are formed around disability, creating dependency and “second-class citizenship” (38). Carey claims that the interaction of citizenship and ability is focused on rights and who gets what. She points out three concepts that are central to the theorization of citizenship in disability studies: practice, relationality, and embodiment” (38). Practice is “a…set of practices, including, constructing, and claiming rights” (38). Carey points out the ADA as an example; it was meant to allow people with disabilities to exercise their rights in the real world. Relationality is an examination of how citizens interact with one another to form social context. Embodiment examines how disability exists beyond how society constructs it while still not denying that society and citizenship create ablest structures such as the notion of the “normal body” (39). In total, Carey gives a decent overview on how disability studies interact with citizenship and broader structures of inclusion and social markings.
John Carson’s essay highlights the difference in reception of intelligence tests between the French and the Americans. While both sides were concerned with having egalitarian government, they made opposite conclusions due to a number of factors Carson highlights. Among these are control over education and societal perceptions in France and the US Army testing and creation of a modified Binet-Simon scale that added the IQ in the US.
Carson’s article raises questions about construction of intelligence tests. He argues that the need to scientifically define merit and equality in 1900s America lead to the creation of standardized testing. The goal was “that each person be afforded educational opportunities commensurate with their abilities” (183). While Carson’s article may not be fully directed towards disability studies, the problem of trying to create equality based off of some definition of ability and intelligence is clearly problematic. He argues that these tests were particularly troubling because they used a supposedly “objective and neutral criteria” that created a “social technology” (202). These tests were often tied to achieving a hierarchy in which the economy and society could run with established positions based off of a type of merit.
Douglas Baynton’s article focuses on intersectionality as well as the underlying ableism in other forms of discrimination. Baynton highlights three main debates over citizenship: “Women’s suffrage, African American Freedom and civil rights, and the restriction of immigration” (33). Baynton points out a similarity between African American and Women’s rights movements in construction of ability. In justifications for both hierarchies, two basic arguments were made. First, the group was disabled and thus not fit to gain more power or legitimacy. Second, a change in the status quo to give the group more rights would lead to increased disability.
However, perhaps the most troubling theme found in Baynton’s essay is the fact that ablest accusations and assumptions were not challenged but evaded. In the case of women’s suffragists, Baynton notes that they would argue that “one, women were not disabled… two, women were being erroneously and slanderously classed with disabled people… legitimately denied suffrage; and three, women were not naturally or inherently disabled but made disabled” (43). The African American movements paralleled this problematic evasion. Perhaps most shocking is Fredrick Douglas’s basing of rights upon perceived ability (44). Thus, African American and Feminist movements for equality ran the possibility of cementing and further legitimizing ablest notions that disability was “monstrous” or “abnormal.”
Baynton also focuses on immigration and ethnicity. He notes that societal fears and eugenics aided a movement to classify all immigrants and deny access to those deemed “undesirable.” Anybody of appearance of non-Nordic lineage ran the risk of being deemed impaired and unwanted. Baynton points out that these notions were often connected to concerns of the rich: concerns over ability were often justified over fear that those people would become “public charge” and that they presented “bad economic risks” (49). The questions over reproduction not only intersect class theory but also queer theory. Baynton argues that historians have done a poor job interrogating the use of ablest rhetoric to exclude immigrants, which has resulted in “disability [being] present but rendered invisible or insignificant” (50).
Baynton and, to some extent, Carson, both produce an incredibly compelling argument for intersectionality. The importance of intersectionality has been a strong theme in this class, and Baynton only furthers this importance. Without intersectionality, movements to combat problems like sexism and racism will be grounded in the need to simply distance from accusations of disability that makes “discrimination against people with disabilities so persistent and the struggle for disability rights so difficult” (51).
Other interesting Things:
This chart displays the markings immigrants could receive at Ellis Island. Note that mental health issues are not marked with an M but with a big X.
Here is an interesting (or disturbing) article that’s not too long about the immigration process at Ellis Island: http://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/2008/04/mhst1-0804.html
Questions for the Week:
Class interactions occur in the articles in many different ways: commercials, labor force creation and distinction, class criticism, etc. Overall, how does the intersection of class and disability most substantially interact with American citizenship?
Baynton argues that scholars should be concerned with ablest notions in other identity struggles. In the Carson article, people like Bagley, Lippman, and Dewey criticized the new education system. While they may not be identity activists, are their any ways in which their criticisms harbor ablest notions?
Were there any downsides to the French conception of a republic in the lens of disability history?
Baynton focuses on ablism in immigration policy in the last third of his article while Carson claims that intelligence tests were never applied to determine immigration status (Carson 201). To what extent did policies governing ability influence immigration into the United States?
In what ways does a sole focus on intersectionality and/or the social model detract from analysis of policies regarding American citizenship during the early 1900s?
Looking forward to your blog posts
-Will
Hello all. This week, in response to Will’s interesting comments concerning the readings, I will be discussing the class conflict/interaction question. Will made an interesting point that class and disability share many of the same frameworks. I wish to both discuss that point and extend it to a modern day example.
ReplyDeleteFirst, one can see class conflict in the immigration process in the early 20th century. The discriminatory processes of the Ellis Island officers both contradict the “opportunity for all” American ideal and affirm the growing eugenics and racial superiority movements of the era. Keep in mind that only a couple decades later, there will be a giant KKK resurgence and many different ethnicities will fall victim to vigilante killings. The notions of disability and discriminatory practices (such as those in the immigration process) lead to an overall disabled ethnicity. By describing an entire ethnicity as disabled, it becomes easier to dehumanize and ultimately hurt members of that ethnicity. Douglas Baynton points out that “Ethnicity also had been defined by disability” in his article (45). In this case, popular stereotypes become actual disabilities. For example, the lazy Italian stereotype may have been the grounds for a deportation due to “’frail frame, flat chest, and…deficient in muscular development’” (49).
Likewise, in terms of the intelligence tests of the era, disability may be dependent on the time period itself. For example, when looking at the intelligence tests in the post WWI “red scare,” one may conclude that mentally disable people could unknowingly become vehicles for communism. In this context, a low score on an intelligence test becomes a disability endangering the entire American society. “Many psychologists …returned…to carry the gospel of science and mental testing to the public at large,” says John Carson in his article (192). In the context of the first Red Scare, the many intelligence tests and psychologists in the public could illuminate who would be susceptible to communist propaganda. In this case, the intelligence tests reveal a disability that is possibly political—not medical.
Finally, an extension of the Carson argument about intelligence tests may be seen through the modern SAT/ACT tests. Many of the students in this class have either taken or will take these tests. While the tests have been designed to test reasoning ability, there are clear methods of “working the test” to get a better score. These different techniques (such as eliminating answers, reading the passages multiple times, or double-checking answers) may actually give an unrepresentative curve of intelligence. Thus, the tests may actually determine either a greater or lesser percentage of the scores to be good or bad. Put simply, the tests may classify someone as a genius or mentally lacking without due process.
This is just some food for thought. See you all on Wednesday.
Because of the close ties of intelligence tests to conceptions of race and immigration during a period of panic over confrontation with difference, critics of these methods for testing also served to challenge “images of primitive savagery, social Darwinist renderings of evolution” (Carson 195). Defenders of testing used these justifications as a mask for controlling difference through a defense of the objective nature of the testing. Yet, Carson points out that though many of these critics of the educational system such as Lippmann, Dewey, and Bagley represented progressive intellectuals of the time, they ultimately aimed to reform democratic institutions and use empirical fact (194). They felt troubled by the new educational system and thus engaged in debates about psychological findings. Though controversial in nature, these tests rarely faced outright rejection, even amongst Dewey, Lippmann, and Bagley who still found value in mental testing and conceded its usefulness in certain situations (200). The Carson article reveals the complexity of the interaction with science, politics and society that produced different responses to intellectual tests based on location and time period, aligning with the Baynton article’s comments on how disability functioned historically.
ReplyDeleteBoth articles focus on how historically disability became a justification for exclusion of minorities that threatened the stability of American life. Carson focuses on how intelligence tests provided a rationale for excluding immigrants and people of different races by labeling them as less intelligent whereas Baynton extends that argument to apply to all categories of citizenship such as women’s suffrage, African American freedom, and restriction of immigration (33). Baynton connects all of these forms of exclusion to “western notion of progress” (36). The social model of disability enhances an understanding about how women and people of different races were constructed as both inherently disabled by their condition of inferiority and at risk for becoming disabled by society to stigmatize them and exclude them. Yet, the social model of disability runs the risk of missing the medical justifications that located disability as a disease within these supposedly less capable populations and pathologized it (38). Baynton ultimately argues that we must understand disability as a “cultural construct to be questioned and explored” (52). Baynton’s views solidify the importance of disability as a cultural lens through which to view history and answer critical questions about society.
Within the Baynton article, much of the discourse revolves around perceptions of evolutionary progress with an implicit association between disability and evolutionary regression. Baynton presents a key instance of this association when discussing a show that places disabled people with an ostensibly different physical composition as the missing link between humans and animals (40). Not only is evolution transformed to apply to disability, but as Baynton notes, this transformed understanding was used to apply to race interaction as in the case of “Down syndrome…[which] was called Mongolism by the doctor who first identified it in 1866 because he believed the syndrome to be the result of a biological reversion by caucasians to the Mongol racial type” (36). Here, common identifiers, disability and race, which are used to separate parts of the population into subordinate positions are conflated. However, what is most important within this interaction is how evolution, an objective scientific theory, has been co-opted to justify subjective standards of value, racism and ablism, attempting to render objectivity.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, John Carson describes the rise of intelligence and IQ tests in student evaluation, following many psychologists’ hope for a system where “No longer need students of varying abilities be grouped in the same classroom…be subjected to the same curriculum; and no longer need all students be prepared for the same future” (192). Again, an objective system that serves only to provide data points is given a subjective value, deemed legitimate by psychologists to represent the entirety of a student’s merit and segment the population. Unlike before, however, IQ tests are used to proscribe and justify strategies that control directly the exact placement and future of members of society.
This issue of assigning merit reaches greater complexity as psychologists used scores on intelligence tests to legitimize racist perceptions of the gradations of society as in the case of Mcdougall who used “data on white/ “colored” differences in IQ and other racial characteristics…[which served] as the touchstone for his arguments about the inferiority of non-Nordic Europeans” (195). While much of his conclusions relied upon inaccurate interpretations of the data, it is still important to note that these claims still held the fundamental support of “objective science.” All of these examples demonstrate the complex interaction between objective, scientific systems and the subjective needs of dominant institutions. And while neither Evolutionary theory nor statistical data are themselves nefarious in nature, interpretations that begin to create standards of right begin to be more suspect. The potential dangers displayed here also provide insight into possible ways to analyze current structures reliant upon factual bases that disadvantage certain members of society.
Hierarchies are present everywhere in society from mental to physical rankings. By doing so, people are deemed superior to other allowing for social discrimination. However, these hierarchies are not by accident but are actually constructed by society. As Baynton argues, the status quo has justified “[treating] disabled people unequally, but the concept of disability has been used to justify discrimination against other groups by attributing disability to them” (33). He makes an interesting claim that being deemed “disabled” has been the common factor among many marginalized groups – African Americans, women, immigrants, and physical disabled people. Baynton’s intersectionality claim essentially argues that disability has been historically seen as the cause of inferiority regardless of other factors. Disability is the epicenter of hierarchies, which has been heavily ignored by historians (34).
ReplyDeleteOnce again following suit with previous readings, Baynton agrees that the dichotomy between normal and disabled has resulted in a negative outlook on disabilities. During a time when progression was desirable, normalcy was seen as fundamental to progress while, on the contrary, disability was seen as a hindrance and looked down upon; it was going in the opposite direction of human evolution; disability was backwardness (36). Therefore, society’s designation of disability as inferior allowed them to label other groups as permanently disabled, which enabled the suppression of multiple groups.
As already proven with past readings, slavery was justifiable under many conditions claiming African Americans were medically inferior. Baynton extends this claim to include women suffrage and immigrant migration. In essence, he claims society grouped them into one category and deemed all of them disabled as a “result of lesser evolutionary development” (41). Using disability as a inferior marker, society justified the usage and belief in a hierarchy – in turn also political, social, and economic discrimination– as the disabled categories were lesser than those deemed physically and medically “normal.”
As Baynton intersects the idea of disability inferiority with historically marginalized groups, Carson promotes the idea of an intellectual hierarchy based on standardized tests. Once again society classifies groups of people into a single, unified ranking system. Carson argues, “IQ tests were mechanisms for classifying not instruments for measuring” (196). Therefore, supporting Baynton claim, Carson accurately claims society groups people based on perceived ability intellectual or physically. Regardless, disabilities have historically been deemed as hindrances making one inferior to others.
While historians have consistently highlighted the inequalities in history, they have failed to locate the common trend among all of them: the marginalized group was deemed inferior based off of perceived physical or mental disabilities.
For this blog post I will focus on Will’s question regarding ableism in immigration policies. An important distinction between the two articles is that Baynton focuses on perceived disabilities during immigration processes whereas Carson focuses on disabilities that people attempted to quantify. Baynton thus primarily focuses on physical disabilities whereas Carson focuses more so on mental disabilities.
ReplyDeleteBaynton highlights the perception of disability in the immigration processes to argue that disability strongly contributed to perceptions of immigrant populations. Baynton recognizes the common conception that “Most new immigrants were physically inadequate in some way” (48), followed by citing numerous stereotypical physical descriptions of various ethnicities. Baynton also explicitly notes that “The initial screening of immigrants was mostly a matter of detecting visible abnormality” (48). Many arguments against accepting people with perceived disabilities into the US related to their capability to work or their employability (50). Thus cultural representations of disability largely shaped immigration practices through representations of different ethnicities and physical disabilities as inferior. Further, these cultural perceptions shaped the immigration processes in which medical examiners would target different ethnicities based on perceived physical abnormalities. These cultural constructions of disability created xenophobia and prejudice towards numerous immigrant populations and eventually shaped policy implementation, particularly the 1924 Immigration Act.
Although Carson correctly indicates that “Public officials never turned to intelligence tests as important gate keepers even for immigration” (201), Baynton still acknowledges arguments regarding intelligence in the construction of the 1924 Immigration Act. Baynton acknowledges that one of the goals of the Act was to limit the amount of mentally disabled immigrants as many argued “that immigrants were disproportionately prone to be mentally defective - up to half the immigrants from southern and eastern Europe were feebleminded” (47). The fear of mental disability further justified discrimination against groups who were already depicted as physically aberrant and deficient in some manner. For example, Baynton acknowledges both descriptions of mental disability in “the ‘neurotic condition of our Jewish immigrants’” (47), as well as descriptions of physical disability, citing, “The Hebrew immigrants are very poor in physique … the polar opposite of our pioneer breed’” (48). Carson’s argument fundamentally differs from these characterizations of mental disability in the direct quantifiable definition of disability that came from intelligence tests. These tests were not administered to immigrants, most likely, as they were costly and took a long time, but also because there was a more prevalent fear of physical disability.
The actual policies related to ability influenced immigration practices to a lesser extent than the cultural views of disability. I would argue that cultural conceptions of immigrants coupled with conceptions of disabled people shaped US immigration policies, not the other way around. Discussed above, perceptions of disability and physical abnormality shaped cultural conceptions and stereotypical views of different ethnicities. Thus “The belief that discriminating on the basis of disability was justifiable in turn helped justify the creation of immigration quotas based on ethnic origin” (Baynton 47). Baynton clearly indicates that the cultural conceptions of disability lead to policies that in turn influenced immigration practices. Cultural justifications of oppression and discrimination based on perceptions of physical and mental disability thus justified policies that aggressively targeted immigrant populations, particularly immigrants from areas seen as racially inferior such as Southern Europe and Asia.
Citizenship Blog
ReplyDeleteI want to begin by discussing something no one has really addressed: the notion that both calls for inequality and calls for social justice are rooted in an ableist mindset. The Baynton article begins by describing how “Disability has functioned historically to justify inequality for disabled people themselves, but it has also done so for women and minority groups” (33). Here, Baynton provides the initial description of his argument that the construction of disability has created discrimination against people we would not traditionally conceive of as disabled. Disability was a way to strengthen conceptions of citizenship. Baynton writes, “When categories of citizenship were questioned…disability was called on to clarify and define who deserved, and who was deservedly excluded from, citizenship. It is important to note that here, citizenship does not just refer to one’s national status, but engagement and legitimacy within political organizations and acceptance into society.
Baynton begins by revealing how disability referred to perceived flaws of “irrationality, excessive emotionality, physical weakness” were equated with “physical disabilities” (33). This trend was reified through the constructed of normalcy, and disability represented a way to define the “normal” and the “abnormal,” which is what created these social hierarchies in the first place. He elaborates, “The natural and the normal both are ways of establishing the universal, unquestionable good and right. Both are also ways of establishing social hierarchies that justify the denial of legitimacy and certain rights to individuals or groups” (35). Here, the definition of normal becomes more clearly defined along lines of disability, and groups could be conceived of in accordance with or in opposition to this new norm. Carson’s essay supplements this argument by claiming intelligence constituted this new normal. Carson explains, “[Intelligence] was quickly seized upon and promoted by psychologists as a major constituent of merit” (187). Thus, the new normal came into existence along lines of intellect, which constructed perceived “mental deficiencies” in opposition to the ideal citizen. Carson, quoting Sheila Jasanoff, elucidates, “The ways in which we know and represent the world (both nature and society) are inseparable from the ways in which we chose to live in it” (181). Here, Carson makes the claim that representations shape reality, and thus the belief that intellect was the new idealized norm created the physical manifestation of this social sorting.
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Baynton explains, “normality was intimately connected to the western notion of progress” (36), and continues by revealing that the first doctor to diagnose Down’s syndrome called it “Mongolism” because he believed that it was an evolutionary regression of Caucasians back to the Mongol racial type. Baynton furthers his argument by explaining how African Americans were seen to be disadvantaged by freedom because of their “lack of sufficient intelligence.” Baynton expertly describes how “race and disability intersected in the concept of the normal” (39).
ReplyDeleteHowever, the primary argument Baynton makes is that even if disability was used to justify inequality, it was also used to justify equality in the sense that no minority group challenged that disability justified exclusion from society or the polity, but rather they simply argued that they themselves were not disabled. Baynton illustrates, “Suffragists rarely challenged the notion that disability justified political inequality and instead disputed the claim that women suffered from these disabilities” (43). Thus, in conjunction with Carson’s argument that representations shape reality, this orientation toward disabled people as justifiably excluded from society constituted a social sorting that placed disability as the group that could never be included. Baynton concludes, “This common strategy for attaining equal rights, which seeks to distance one’s own group from imputations of disability and therefore tacitly accepts the idea that disability is a legitimate reason for inequality” (51). Thus, Baynton calls for historians to analyze this notion that disability was a justification for exclusion.
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I would like to address Will's last question about how intersectionality detracts from analysis of American policies during the early 1900s. First, I am troubled with the basis of Will's question. I do not think that any of the authors suggest that intersectionality detracts from analysis of American social policies. Rather, I think that they both conclude the exact opposite. Specifically, I think Braynton's entire article outlines the need to discuss disability in the context of race and/or gender based movements because it is critical to understand the tools and strategies used to continue subordination of these groups. By challenging the notion that disability mandates less rights, one discredits the logic that underpins the oppressive policies that are in place.
ReplyDeleteFirst, refusal to analyze American policies via an intersectional approach only re-entrenches ableist ideologies. As Braynton notes, the attempt "to distance one’s own group from imputations of disability ... tacitly accepts the idea that disability is a legitimate reason for inequality" and is "one of the factors responsible for making discrimination against people with disabilities so persistent " (51). When gender or racial equality movements attempt to argue that they are not disabled and thus deserve rights assumes that being disabled justifies having less rights. By trying to separate oneself from attributions of disability, one accepts the stigma associated with being disabled. This only reinforces the belief that disabled people deserve to have less rights and thus only allows for oppression to continue. Furthermore, Harlan Hahn claims that “unlike other disadvantaged groups, citizens with disabilities have not yet fully succeeded in refuting the presumption that their subordinate status can be ascribed to an innate biological inferiority" (Braynton 51). This argument addresses Will's claim that the social model might detract from analysis of American policies. By challenging the medical model of disability, one is able to suggest that biology cannot detract from a person's status or rights. The social model instead challenges medicalized justifications for oppression, and thus spills over to a more effective analysis of not only ableist policies, but also policies that suggest racial minorities or gender minorities deserve less rights due to their biological inferiority. Thus, an intersectional analysis that also accounts for the social model of disability can only serve as a more effective tool to deconstruct oppressive structures.
Second, an intersectional approach is necessary for any historical analysis of American policies. As Braynton notes, disability " is a fundamental element in cultural signification and indispensable for any historian seeking to make sense of the past... all social hierarchies have drawn on culturally constructed and socially sanctioned notions of disability" (52). Due to the fact that many American policies have used disability as a marker and justification to oppress certain people, one must also analyze disability if they wish to challenge those oppressive policies. Society creates oppressive labels by drawing upon medicalized notions of disability. By adopting the social model when talking about issues such as race, the idea of eugenics or evolutionary superiority no longer make sense in terms of oppressing groups of people because on recognizes that there is no biological or innate justification for that oppression. Rather, one recognizes that these "disabilities" are merely social constructions. Therefore, an analysis of any historical oppression must also include an analysis of disability, for it shapes all social hierarchies. To suggest otherwise footnotes issues of disability history.
ReplyDeleteThus, an analysis of disability when discussing issues can only serve as an effective historical tool. Claims that an intersectional analysis detracts from historical understanding only furthers the oppression of minority groups and just doesn't make any sense. After all, we are in a disability studies class.
Something in the readings that really interested me this week was the different ways in which the United States and France chose to adopt intelligence testing. I think this best links into the question of how did French Republicanism impact their dependence on intelligence tests to determine merit. Carson quite ardently argues that intelligence tests were problematic because of the way they categorize intelligence. The intelligence tests created a system in which a specific group of disabled people who experience learning disabilities are put on the bottom of the social pyramid. The measurements of intelligence in the U.S. are popularized at a time when they needed a justification of the marginalization of the disabled within a democratic culture that was theoretically based upon equality (202). The criteria of intelligence tests were originally conceived as an objective standard to measure how a social hierarchy should function (202). This creates a "natural" justification for the exclusion of the mentally disabled from a society that mental testers could claim was not discriminatory.
ReplyDeleteIn the context of the French development of Republicanism, Carson argues that the way societies define intelligence was highly dependent on the contextualized needs of their social hierarchies. The way French republicanism worked was based upon a structured system of intelligence established by Napoleon that sorted society on its own. The French had a system which sorted the intelligent based upon where they fell within the structured system of education.
I will be focusing on Will’s question about the potential danger of focusing on intersectionality and/or the social model in terms of detracting from policies regarding American citizenship. I thought Sam did a wonderful job of arguing how this is not harmful but rather helpful when analyzing American citizenship in the early 1900s. I would like to speak to how the intelligence test added another layer to disability, especially for women and African Americans.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, it is important to consider that prior to the introduction of the intelligence test, the medical model of disability was based off of social constructs. All physicians’ diagnoses were based off their subjective opinion. The intelligence test became the first way to quantitatively measure disability, and therefore greatly changed the medical model of disability. The use of the intelligence test as tool for diagnosing “mental retardation” is vitally important when analyzing the intersectionality of disability and citizenship.
When analyzing the concept of social disability and policy during the 1900s, the fact cannot be forgotten that women and African Americans were (as a whole) less educated that white men. Although this overall trend was not due to a lack of intelligence but rather a lack of educational resources, it explains part of the argument for why all women and African American’s were considered disabled: women and African Americans would almost certainly not perform as well as white men on the intelligence test, therefore giving white men a quantitative argument for their superiority. Bayton brings up the important truth regarding this matter that “women were not naturally or inherently disabled but made disabled” (43). The same idea applies to African Americans. The social model of disability made them disabled, and the new medical/scientific model of disability manipulated this truth to “prove” their inferiority. Therefore it is impossible to analyze American citizenship policies without focusing on intersectionality and the social model. In the early 1900s, groups of oppressed people were not just considered to be inferior by white male leaders, but could be “scientifically proved” as disabled through the use of intelligence and reading tests. Additionally, the creation of reading and other intelligence tests that were administered to potential black voters at voting polls also manipulated the social model that made them disabled, which allowed white power to “objectively” justify political inequality.
Hello, this week I was interested and decided to answer Will’s question, “Baynton focuses on ableism in immigration policy in the last third of his article while Carson claims that intelligence tests were never applied to determine immigration status (Carson 201). To what extent did policies governing ability influence immigration into the United States?” Originally policies did not have much influence on immigration into the United States by those later to be considered disabled. These policies often used the likelihood of the public being responsible for taking care of a said disabled person to determine entry. However, policy changes from 1891 to 1907 led to the lowering of “how” disabled someone was to be excluded from immigrating into the U.S. and increasing the amount of officials that could deny entry. These changes were shown in the changes in language from being “unable” (1882) to “likely” (1891) in chance of the disabled requiring public help (Baynton, 45). These changes became even more drastic once a 1907 law changed the measurement of disability to whether it would affect a person’s ability to get a job. Also during this time the classification of people who were mandatorily rejected entrance was increased to include those who suffered from epilepsy and people who had suffered one attack of insanity (Baynton, 46). The exclusion of those who were insane is especially interesting due to the fact that Moran’s article, which we read earlier in the year, dealt with a period right before this, yet set the standard that insanity was a curable affliction and seemed quite common for the number of times it occurred in that small rural New Jersey community; however, even though it was commonly thought to be curable the standard that only suffering from one “attack” (Baynton, 46) would automatically prevent you from entering the country. This sets the precedent of how the government policies were trying to prevent any sort of disabilities from entering the U.S. even if they might have been cured. Another way that the policies had a larger effect on immigration is by putting the power of exclusion in the hands of immigration officers. These were men who could have been easily manipulated by common “rhetoric about ‘slow-witted slav’ ” and other ethnicity oriented stereotypes, which would lead him to unconsciously or consciously discriminate against these groups because this rhetoric had created a standard for him that some races were “more” disabled than others (Baynton, 47). Baynton presents an example of this in the officer who targeted Jews and denied them entry into the country (Baynton, 50).
ReplyDelete