미국 내 백인성(Whiteness)에 대한 재고: 1917년 문맹테스트 이민법을 중심으로 = Rethinking Whiteness in America: With a Focus on The Literacy Test Act of 1917

국문 초록 (Abstract)

본 논문은 1917년 문맹테스트 이민법(Literacy Test Act of 1917)과 그 행정적 실행과정을 면밀히 검토함으로써 문맹테스트 이민법이 19세기 말 20세기 초 미국 내 백인성(Whiteness)에 대한 인식의 변화를 어떻게 응축적으로 반영하고 있는가를 설명하고자 한 것이다. 미국 내 백인성에 대한 인식과 해석은 이민자의 구성 변화와 밀접한 관계 속에서 변화되어 왔다. 식민지 초기부터 개방적 자유 이민정책으로 일관했던 미국은 미국 시민이 될 수 있는 유일한 조건으로 ‘자유 백인(free white person)’이어야 함을 요구하였고 19세기 내내 미국인들의 백인성에 관한 인식은 매우 관용적이고 포괄적이었다. 그러나 19세기 후반에 시작된 ‘원하지 않은(undesirable)’ 그렇지만 같은 백인인 남동부 유럽인들의 대량 이민현상은 미국 내 백인성에 관한 인식의 변화를 요구하였다. 즉, 미국의 토착주의자들(nativists)은 이들이 앵글로-색슨 공화국의 전통에 부합될 수 있는지에 관한 강한 의구심을 품게 되었고 이에 백인 내부의 인종적 차별성을 강조하기 시작했다. 이제 기존의 단일했던 백인에 대한 인식은 차별화되고 계서화되었고, 백인은 이른바 앵글로-색슨(WASP: White Anglo-Saxon Protestant)과 앵글로-색슨이 아닌 그래서 흑인도 백인도 아닌 백인 타자(others 혹은 Inbetween peoples)로 차등 구분되었다. 이렇게 변화된 백인성에 대한 인식을 최초로 연방차원에서 제도적으로 뒷받침했던 것이 1917년의 문맹테스트 이민법(Literacy Test Act of 1917)이다.
본 논문은 의회에서 이민법이 제정되는 입법과정에 대한 연구에 집중해왔던 기존의 연구와는 다르게 1917년 제정된 문맹테스트 이민법이 실제로 어떤 법이었는지, 이 법이 실행됨에 따라 이민국(Bureau of Immigration)은 어떤 의도로 행정에 임했으며 그래서 어떻게 시행되었는지, 또 이민자들은 어떤 영향을 받았으며 어떻게 대응했는지에 초점을 맞추고자 했다. 이를 통해 본 연구는 1917년의 문맹테스트 이민법이 연방차원에서 유색인종들뿐만 아니라 지금껏 미국의 개방적 이민정책의 혜택을 아무런 장애물 없이 누려왔던 유럽인들을 차별적으로 제한하려했던 최초의 원형적 제도였음을 주장한다.
1917년 문맹테스트 이민법은 신체적으로 장애가 없는 16세 이상의 모든 외국인은 반드시 영어나 혹은 이디시어(Yiddish)와 히브리어(Hebrew)를 포함한 다른 언어를 읽을 수 있어야 미국에 입국할 수 있다는 것이다. 그러나 너무나 일반적인 법률조항의 규정으로 인해 이민법의 실질적 행정을 담당해야했던 이민국의 행정관리들은 법의 효율적 시행을 위해 그들의 입장에서 법을 편의적으로 해석하고 독단적 재량권을 행사하였다. 그 결과 수많은 이민자들은 불공정하고 부당한 테스트를 통해 불이익을 감수할 수밖에 없었다.
문맹테스트 이민법을 실행함에 있어서 이민자들에게 가장 차별적으로 다가온 문제점은 테스트 내용이 당시 거의 모든 프로테스탄트들이 사용했던 성서 번역본인 킹 제임스 버전(the King James Bible)의 성경에서 발췌되었다는 점이다. 이는 성경과의 친밀도를 강조하는 프로테스탄티즘의 입장에 근거하여 유대인을 포함한 모든 기독교인들이 똑같이 성경에 익숙할 것이라는 억측에 입각한 것이었다. 더구나 수많이 다양한 성경 번역판이 존재했음에도 불구하고 유대교, 로마가톨릭, 그리고 그리스정교 등의 성경과는 판이하게 구별되는 킹 제임스 판을 사용했다는 것은 당연히 반(反)가톨 ...

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study is to explore how the conception of whiteness had been changed in America during the turn of the century, focusing on the Literacy Test Act of 1917. America, indeed, has had a long history of different mass migrations and has struggled to develop immigration policies to accommodate various ethnicities. Ever since the immigration control was placed under federal authority, however, one of the features of the immigration policy in the first two decades of the twentieth century was an enforcement of a “literacy test.” The Literacy Act in 1917 was the first formal stage of a linguistic restriction as an essential component of national loyalty and American identity. This was adopted with the explicit purpose of limiting the entrance of southern and eastern Europeans into the United States, rethinking whiteness in America. Even though it was rapidly overshadowed by the most restrictive immigration policy, the national origins quota system in 1924, the Literacy Act was still practiced with the new law, and is still an important facet of American immigration history in that it played the role of the prototype for nativists’ restrictive immigration movement toward European whites who hitherto enjoyed the open immigration policies.
Unlike the previous studies that mainly focused on behind the scenes in the making of a policy, this study examines: what exactly the immigration law was; how the immigration law was construed and applied by immigration officers and by the immigrants. Keeping those points in mind, it will mainly deal with how that restrictive literacy test act actually worked at each port in everyday practice, what it meant to immigrants, and how immigrants challenged the law and its administration.
The Literacy Test Act of 1917 excluded “all aliens over sixteen years of age, physically capable of reading, who cannot read the English language, or some other language or dialect, including Hebrew or Yiddish.” Yet, from its establishment, the literacy test law experienced problems in its administration. Due to the ambiguity of the law, the Bureau of Immigration and immigration officers at each immigration station not only implemented the law, but did informal law making based on their own understanding of the law. Using their discretion and the extensive power granted by Congress, immigration officers expediently, and often unfairly, applied the literacy test to immigrants.
The most serious problems of literacy test administration came from the use of the Bible as a source for the exams. The Bureau, lacking the means, money, and expertise turned to the Bible Society to provide texts for the literacy tests. Beyond that, using the Bible for the reading test revealed a deep religious antagonism toward Catholics and Jews because it presumed that all Christians and Jews would be familiar with Biblical texts. For its convenience and lack of its own staff’s expertise, moreover, the Bureau chose the King James Version, which was the most widespread Bible translation until the middle of the twentieth century among Protestants, although it was obviously different from other Bibles that Jews, Roman Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox adherents used. The choice of the King James became a major cause of immigrants’ challenge to make the literacy test fair since the Bible test cards contained words not “in ordinary use,” but in symbolic Biblical terms that was even archaic and unnatural English. And despite problems, the Bureau refused to give up on the Bible texts. It obviously indicates a determination to discriminate against non-protestant immigrations from Southern and Eastern Europe in order to make WASP(White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) America.

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