Disabled Upon Arrival

“Disabled Upon Arrival is methodologically innovative with ambitious aims. From its comparative approach to its visual analysis, this book will be beneficial in classes on rhetorical method. It also makes significant contributions to rhetorical studies of immigration and will likely find its place on many such syllabi.” —Karma R. Chávez, Rhetoric Review

“Disabled Upon Arrival reaches into new territory, bringing in detailed and pathbreaking discussions of the connections between photography, race, disability, representation, nationality, im/migration, contagion, and movement. It is beautiful, original, relevant, and needed.” —Margaret Price, author of Mad at School: Rhetorics of Mental Disability and Academic Life

“Beautifully written, sometimes almost poetic, and yet strongly argumentative. This is by far the best work on the subject of eugenics and immigration.” —Susan Schweik, author of The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public

In North America, immigration has never been about immigration. That was true in the early twentieth century when anti-immigrant rhetoric led to draconian crackdowns on the movement of bodies, and it is true today as new measures seek to construct migrants as dangerous and undesirable. This premise forms the crux of Jay Timothy Dolmage’s new book Disabled Upon Arrival: Eugenics, Immigration, and the Construction of Race and Disability, a compelling examination of the spaces, technologies, and discourses of immigration restriction during the peak period of North American immigration in the early twentieth century.

Through careful archival research and consideration of the larger ideologies of racialization and xenophobia, Disabled Upon Arrival links anti-immigration rhetoric to eugenics—the flawed “science” of controlling human population based on racist and ableist ideas about bodily values. Dolmage casts an enlightening perspective on immigration restriction, showing how eugenic ideas about the value of bodies have never really gone away and revealing how such ideas and attitudes continue to cast groups and individuals as disabled upon arrival.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction
Immigration Has Never Been about Immigration

ISLAND
Ellis Island and the inventions of race and disability

PIER
Canada’s Pier 21 and the memorialization of immigration

EXPLOSION
Technologies of immigration restriction

ARCHIVE
Affective spaces of eugenics

Conclusion
Responsibility for Tomorrow

Bibliography

Index

There are four black and white images of faces tiled and spaced evenly on a page. Gender has not been assigned to any of these images. In the top left image, there is an eleven-year-old with close-cropped hair, wearing a striped short, labeled a "low-grade imbecile," a hand reaching from out of the frame to hold up the chin, with eyes directed to our right; in the top right image, there is a twenty-year-old with a dark mustache, wearing a suit jacket, labeled "low moron"; in the bottom right image, a teenager wearing a heavy coat is pictured, labeled "a constitutional inferior"; in the bottom left image there is a seventeen-year-old with blond hair, labeled a "high-grade imbecile."

Image One. “Figures 2-5.” “Examples of Faces of Feeble-Minded Immigrants.” Manual of the Mental Examination of Aliens. Treasury Department of the United States Public Health Service, Miscellaneous Publication #18, 1918. Owned by: Department of Health and Human Services (Public Domain).

This image is labeled "North African Immigrant," and the picture shows a seemingly middle-aged, dark-skinned person with a beard, a knit or woven hat, and a large hooded jacket, frayed at the bottom and closed with buttons at the front. The subject's legs are bare. The subject also has a tag affixed to his jacket with the number "2" printed on it.

Image Two. “North African Immigrant.” National Park Service, Statue of Liberty National Monument, Pub Dom, Sher 24.4A-6.

This image is labeled "Eastern European Immigrant," and the picture shows a young person with a beard, a woven hat with a wide brim angled to the side of the head. The subject wears a sort of cape, a vest, and a white shirt tied at the neck. The subject plays a flute that is held out in front of the subject. The subject seems quite tanned but not particularly dark-skinned.

Image Three. “Eastern European Immigrant.” National Park Service, Statue of Liberty National Monument, Pub Dom, Sher 23.1A-8.

This image pictures three people on the roof of a building (a common backdrop for Sherman's photos). On the left, seated on a bench, there is a dark-skinned person with their head turned to our right, wearing a knee-length jacket. Beside him another dark-skinned person stands on the bench, so as to draw attention to the subject's comparatively smaller stature-the subject stands at about the same head-level as the seated person. This middle subject is wearing an ankle-length jacket with fur trim, and their chin is raised in the air. On the far right, there is a third subject, also dark-skinned and standing on the bench and just slightly taller than the person in the middle of the picture. This final subject wears a turban, and their head is larger than those of the other two subjects. This final subject also wears an ankle-length coat and holds their hands on their waist. "The image is labeled Subramaino Pillay (Right) and Two Microcephalics."

Image Four. “Subramaino Pillay (Right) and Two Microcephalics” (Mesenholler and Sherman 96).

Image Five. “Perumall Sammy, Hindoo, ex SS Adriatica April 14, 1911, certified for congenital deformity of the abdomen, two arms and legs being joined at the abdomen . . .” (Mesenholler and Sherman 97).

This image shows a young person (the title genders the subject as female) wearing a white headscarf, a vest, a blouse with floral stitching down the sleeves and front, and many beaded necklaces. The subject gazes directly at the camera. Though the photo is black and white, the eyes have an unusual, light color that has a striking effect. The subject's skin is tanned.

Image Six. “Ruthenian Girl.” National Geographic (1907), page 324.

Image Seven. “Russian Giant” (Mesenholler and Sherman 99).

Image Eight. “Burmese” (Mesenholler and Sherman 98).

Image Nine. “Gen. Tom Thumb, Miss Lavinia Warren, Commodore Nutt and the Giant.” Brady-Handy Photograph Collection (Library of Congress), Portrait photographs 1850–1870.

Image Ten. “Lived 15 years as a man: woman wore disguise until halted at Ellis Island,” New York Daily Tribune (October 5, 1908), page 14.

Image Eleven. “Deformed Idiot to Be Deported” (Library and Archives Canada).

Image Twelve. “Immigrants to Be Deported” (Library and Archives Canada).

Disabled Upon Arrival

Jay Timothy Dolmage

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