1980s

United States Immigration Policy: A Decades-Old Conundrum
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United States Immigration Policy: A Decades-Old Conundrum

Authored by Casey L. Stiller

This scanned excerpt, written by Charles B. Keely and included in Mary M. Kritz’s U.S. Immigration and Refugee Policy, describes the challenges faced in changing United States immigration policy. Keely gives a brief overview of the current immigration climate within the United States in the early 1980’s.

There have been three major migration periods in the United States in the last century: a largely laissez faire outlook in the 1930s; the Bracero Program, in effect during and after World War II; and, following the elimination of the Bracero Program, passage of major immigration laws in 1965 (Rosenblum and Brick 2011, 1). The Bracero Program was a formal agreement signed between the United States and Mexico in 1942, establishing “a migrant guest worker program,” which had favorable conditions for Mexican immigrants (Rosenblum and Brick 2011, 4). The Bracero Program experienced significant pushback, and upon its expiration in 1964, was followed instead by the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1965, which established per-country caps and a tiered preference system for rationing visas within a country (Rosenblum and Brick 2011, 5). 

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Of Poetry and Plutonium: The Cold War in Bergen County

Authored by Jessica Santulli

This is a poem typed on a faded typewriter during the 1980s. The title is "A Prayer in Time of Need" by Marjorie Medary.
This poem, which reads like a prayer, was penned by Marjorie Medary, a patron of the Oakland Public library in Oakland, New Jersey. It is part of a collection of poetry that was on display at the library during the 1980s, reflecting the effects of the Cold War on New Jersey and the United States.

The Cold War is defined as a period of hostility and political tension between the Soviet Union and the United States of America from after World War II in 1945 through 1990, when the Berlin Wall fell (Halperin and Woods 1990). This era was certainly a trying time for world leaders, diplomats, politicians, and the military. But how did ordinary people in Bergen County, New Jersey handle the looming threat of Nuclear War?

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