Page 28 - Cultural Competence in Health Education

6 Cultural Competence in Health Education and Health Promotion

restricted the racial and ethnic composition of that immigration. U.S. immigration
policy can be examined in terms of four distinct periods.
During the open - door era (1776 to 1882), the United States opened its doors
without any restrictions to immigrants from all over the world (Yang, 1995). The era
of selective exclusions (1882 to 1921) that followed was characterized by legislation
such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of May 6, 1882, which contributed to the selectiv-
ity in the ethnic and racial composition of the U.S. population. This legislation was
repealed in 1943, when China became an ally of the United States in the war with
Japan (Briggs, 1984). Other laws that restricted immigration into the United States
were the Immigration Act of August 3, 1882, which established a head tax of 50 cents
and excluded individuals who could become a charge to the state; the Immigration
Act of February 26, 1885, the first contract labor law, which prevented employers

from importing “ cheap foreign labor ” ; the Immigration Act of February 20, 1907,
which severely restricted Japanese immigration; and the Immigration Act of Febru-
ary 5, 1917, which required individuals over 16 years of age to pass a literacy test
before they could be considered for any type of employment (Briggs, 1984; Gomez -
Quinones, 1981).
The next era severely limited the number of immigrants to the United States. On
March 4, 1929, Congress passed a law that made it a felony for anyone to enter the
country illegally. This law also provided severe sanctions against people who returned
to the United States after being deported (Briggs, 1984; Gomez - Quinones, 1981).
Thus the concept of the illegal worker was introduced.
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Immigration and Nationality Act
Amendments of October 3, 1965, also known as the Hart - Cellar Act (Briggs, 1984),
which attempted to eliminate national origin quotas yet strengthened numerical con-
trols on immigration (Yang, 1995). The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA)

of November 6, 1986, contained the first major change in U.S. immigration policy
since the 1960s (Lowell & Suro, 2002). One of the major IRCA provisions gave
migrants who had lived in the United States since 1982 without proper documentation
or who had been working in the United States in agriculture for at least six months the
opportunity to legalize their migration status (Bean & Stevens, 2003). Sanctions were
imposed on those employing individuals not authorized to work in the United States,
in an effort to deter future illegal immigration.

Language
Nineteen percent of the people in the United States speak a language other than Eng-
lish at home (see Table 1.4 ). A closer look at this figure reveals that 9.5 percent of the

native - born U.S. population report speaking a language other than English at home.
Less surprisingly, 84.1 percent of the foreign - born population report speaking a lan-
guage other than English at home. Similarly, 52 percent of the foreign - born population
report speaking English “ less than well, ” compared to 2 percent of native - born indi-
viduals (U.S. Census Bureau, 2006).

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