Anglo-Saxon America

The 1924 act supplanted earlier acts to effectively ban all immigration from Asia and set a total immigration quota of 165,000 for countries outside the Western Hemisphere, an 80% reduction from the pre-World War I average.  Quotas for specific countries were based on 2% of the U.S. population from that country as recorded in 1890. As a result, populations poorly represented in 1890 were prevented from immigrating in proportionate numbers—especially affecting Italians, Jews, Greeks, Poles and other Slavs.

When Italians Were “Blacks”: The Dark-Skinned Sicilians were subjected to the Jim Crow laws of segregation. They weren’t allowed to marry “whites.” They were designated as “black” on census forms if they lived in the South and that is because the majority of them were dark-skinned Sicilians. 

 According to the U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian, the purpose of the act was "to preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity."[2] Congressional opposition was minimal.