Able to Be American: Disability in US Immigration Policy and the American Jewish Response

Epilepsy. Heart disease. Varicose veins. “Feeble-mindedness.” In 1891, Congress unambiguously codified the popular sentiment that “defects” like these should preclude admission to the United States.Expanding the eugenics-rooted restrictions of the 1882 Immigration Act, the new law conflated illness, poverty, and disability with criminality and “moral turpitude,” starkly revealing Congress’s vision of the “ideal” American.Simultaneously, American Jews sought security and acceptance in the United States.In confronting these fraught issues, they boldly asserted that they too had the right, knowledge, and ability to shape the meaning of American national belonging and, indeed, the fabric of the country itself. Able to be American explores this tension, revealing how eugenic theories about illness and disability fundamentally shaped American society, government, and everyday life.As Jewish communal leaders contested the thorny relationship between perceived able-bodiedness and the “ability”