Evaluation of The Views of Eithne Luibheid and Nayan Shah on Race and Sexual Identity Regulations in America

Introduction

Immigration has always been a point of contention throughout the history of the United States. Immigrants have been alienated and denied entry to the United States due to a number of reasons, including their race, country of origin, religious beliefs, and sexuality. Although policies are always changing, America has a long history of hostile treatment towards immigrants, specifically those that identify as homosexual. Additionally, the United States has a long history of ostracizing openly gay and lesbian individuals in society. Analyzing the immigration policy of the United States and how it relates to opinions and attitudes about sexuality during the 19th and early 20th centuries is important to the overall study of sexuality and allows for in-depth discussion on the correlation of the two.

Evaluation of The Views of Eithne Luibheid and Nayan Shah on Race and Sexual Identity Regulations in America

In her book Entry Denied, Eithne Luibhéid discusses a specific case about one woman's experience in trying to enter the United States. To broadly demonstrate the unfair ways in which immigration officials excluded people, Luibhéid states: "The use of visual appearance to monitor the border against possible entry by lesbians connects to a complex history” (Luibhéid, 2002, p. 81). Throughout her writing, Luibhéid refers to the intersection of race and sexuality, specifically how certain nationalities are more likely to be presumed as homosexual than others. This assumption comes from the idea that different cultures have varying definitions of what is considered feminine and what is considered masculine. In the quote from Luibhéid above, a woman by the name of Sara Quiroz was denied entry to the United States based solely on the fact that she “seemed like a lesbian” (Luibhéid, 2002, p. 77). A comment made about Quiroz declared "the respondent usually wore trousers and a shirt when she came to work and that her hair was cut shorter than some women’s” (Luibhéid, 2002, p. 81). Due to the fact that she was not dressed like a typical American woman at the time of her entry, she was labeled as a lesbian. This stray from gender norms in 19th/20th century America is what caught immigration officials' attention and led them to label someone as sexually deviant or homosexual. Furthermore, according to Luibhéid, being or looking like a lesbian meant you would be issued a “Class A Medical Exclusion” (Luibhéid, 2002, p. 85). This meant an individual would be denied entry to the United States because they were considered a sexual deviate, which, as stated above, was labeled as a medical issue. Medical concerns were a driving force in denying immigrants entry to the United States, therefore this stretch of the label was used to further a social agenda without having to use terms such as “homosexual”, “gay”, or “lesbian”. Labeling someone as sexually devious was a way of keeping those who did not conform to gender norms out of the country. Not only did officials believe these people would disturb American values and morals, but they thought of them as psychological hazards to society. Medical discourses were key in creating the idea that homosexuality was a threat to American society. Once the American public saw that doctors were labeling homosexuality as a medically backed danger to society, their fears became justified—because who wouldn't trust a doctor?

During this controversial time in America, anything that did not adhere to the underlying Patriarchal standards of society was considered a threat. Not only were immigrants trying to come into the US perceived as a threat due to their cultural differences from the American public, but citizens of the United States that perpetuated these differences were considered hazardous to society. The reasons for this can be seen in the writings of many different scholars on the time period, one of them being Nayan Shah. In Shah’s essay “Perversity, Contamination, and the Dangers of Queer Domesticity,” he discusses the ways in which Chinese bodies were generated as racial and sexual threats to everyday white American family life. For example, white patriarchy made it seem as though Chinese men were out to rape white women, while white men were supposed to be the protectors of white women’s sexuality and purity. Shah referred to these men as “sensuous and depraved ‘Chinamen’ who lured unwitting white men and women into opium dens” (Shah, 2001, p. 122). Additionally, Chinese men provided cheap labor which white men could not compete with. They viewed this competition as a threat to their families and livelihood. As white men are supposed to be the protectors and providers of the family, for them, taking away jobs was an attack on the ideal that is the American family. These Chinese immigrants experienced similar cultural profiling as the lesbians and foreign women that Luibhéid described. It was feared that lesbians would seemingly convert straight white women and take women away from their husbands, disrupting the American family and imposing sexual deviancy and immoral values on society. The same was feared of Chinese men who were said to be taking white women and forcing them to do drugs, and then raping them. Both Shah and Luibhéid referred to these fears and how similarly lesbians and Chinese men were seen as threats to not only American women but America as a country.

Conclusion

The United States made it clear that anyone who didn't adhere to their standards and norms would not be welcome in the country. Due to the intersections of both race and sexuality, as well as other social constructions like class and religion, individuals experienced varied degrees of oppression. Although Shah and Luibhéid examined two different groups of people, they shared a similar experience where multiple individuals in power labeled them as a threat to American society. While prejudice still exists in the United States in the present, society can use historical policies and evidence of oppression to study both sexuality and immigration and pave a better path into the future where these maltreatments are few and far between.

References

• Luibhéid, E. (2002). Entry Denied: Controlling Sexuality at the Border. University of Minnesota Press.
• Shah, N. (2001). Perversity, Contamination, and the Dangers of Queer Domesticity. In Contagious Divides: Epidemics and Race in San Francisco’s Chinatown (pp. 121-150). University of California Press.