Interviewee: James Watson. Eugenic data, collected by Harry Laughlin, fed into racial prejudice, and provided the scientific rationale for restricting immigration from southern and eastern Europe. Here James Watson discusses how eugenicists reacted to the problem of mental illness and sought to lessen the threat of the "unfit" to the United States. (DNAi Location: Chronicle > Threat of the unfit > Threats > Immigration restriction)

Well, how did you avoid the unfit, and it fed into racial prejudice and one way to avoid the unfit was not to let them in the United States. So he decided the people from northern Europe were much more fit for, than those people from southern or eastern Europe. And his sidekick here, Harry Lawland was an advisor to the U.S. Congress, who in 1924 passed the infamous Immigration Act that greatly cut back immigration from southern and eastern Europe. So effectively no more Italians immigrated into the United States, likewise Jewish immigration was shut off.

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