The Spire

Owen Garvey ’27

Staff Writer

This last Thursday, Daniel Okrent came to Holy Cross to deliver a speech in the Rehm Library. Daniel  Okrent is an American Historical Writer who won prestigious awards such as the American Historical  Association’s prize for the year’s best book of American History. In his recent book, he spoke about the  history of immigration laws and how those apply to the longevity of the Eugenics tradition and belief.  During his speech he spoke about the fascinating and sometimes sad truths mentioned in his book. One of  the saddest was the mentioning of a national figure, Eleanor Rosevelt, having been racist towards Jews in  her early life. The speech as a whole was a look into the history of the United States and how we felt  about immigrants at the time. Okrent mentioned the levels of limits congress created in order to try and  limit the “Outsiders” coming in the United States. Okrent said that the first barrier created was the use of  Literacy Tests. Literacy tests for new immigrants (from Eastern Europeans and Italians) were put in place  with the knowledge that they were not too literate in English. Later came the Chinese Exclusion Act, which  limited the number of Chinese immigrants allowed and their rights because of the fear they would steal  American jobs. Once all of this was instated, the United States was still unhappy and decided to enforce  strict quotas on countries to restrict the number of incoming individuals. All of these immigration  restrictions played a large part in the continuity of the Eugenics tradition and belief in the United States.  The scariest quote from the entire speech was that the United States won Hitler’s respect for the way they  limited individuals entering their country. 

The Okrent speech was remarkably interesting, but how did the students of Holy Cross enjoy it? When  speaking to the students about the speech many said they just enjoyed the ability to attend such an event  given by a scholarly author. Before coming to Holy Cross, the ability to attend an event of this caliber  was not easy or even possible, So the ability to watch a speech by a scholarly person every week is  amazing. As for the speech, a few students felt the content knowledge was interesting but a bit depressing  for a Thursday night. On the other hand, a majority of students felt that the speech was interesting and provided an insight into the original beliefs of the United States and how that applies to the nation today. 

“Okrent’s insight into the history of eugenics has helped me understand the system  of immigration in the United States better, and why our country’s population is the way it is”, said Patrick Ryan ‘27.

Overall, the  Okrent speech was a look into the past of this country in a topic many of us choose to look over. Okrent  gave an amazing speech, and it is true to say that we all look forward to whenever he will come back to  deliver another insightful speech.