The Immigration and Nationality Act 60 Years Later: The Making of Modern New York City

Please join us as Roosevelt House and the Tenement Museum host a discussion to mark the 60th anniversary of the Immigration and Nationality Act, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on October 3, 1965. Lifting the restrictive 41-year-old national origins quotas, the law—also known as The Hart-Celler Act—ushered in a new era of immigration, and laid the groundwork for the formation of modern New York City.

Moderated by Hunter College professor of sociology Margaret Chin, this discussion will feature sociologist and Hunter College professor emerita Nancy Foner, history professor Mae Ngai, and former New York City demographer Joe Salvo. The panel will consider both how the new law impacted the city and the nation at the time of its signing, and how it continues to impact the national conversation on immigration to this day.

Margaret M. Chin is Professor and former Chair of the Sociology Department at Hunter College and a Faculty Associate of both Roosevelt House and the Asian American Studies Center. She is the author of Sewing Women: Immigrants and the New York City Garment Industry; Stuck: Why Asian Americans Don’t Reach the Top of the Corporate Ladder; and, with Syed Ali, The Peer Effect: How Your Peers Shape Who You Are and Who You Will Become, which she appeared at Roosevelt House to discuss.

Nancy Foner is a Distinguished Emerita Professor in the Hunter College Department of Sociology, and former Roosevelt House Faculty Associate. She is the author of One Quarter of the Nation: Immigration and the Transformation of America, which she discussed in 2022 Roosevelt House program; Strangers No More: Immigration and the Challenges of Integration in North America and Western Europe; From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration; and One Out of Three: Immigrant New York in the Twenty-First Century.

Mae M. Ngai is Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies and professor of history at Columbia University. She is the author of Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America; The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America; The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics; and the forthcoming Nation of Immigrants: A Short History of an Idea.

Joe Salvo is a former chief demographer at the New York City Department of City Planning. He is also a former director of the department’s population division, which provides population estimates and projections for infrastructure, capital, and policy planning. He has served as president of the Association of Public Data Users, and as an advisor to the Census Bureau and the National Academy of Sciences.