The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move

by Sonia Shah

These anomalous results simply hardened race scientists’ resolve to gather yet more data and devise yet more standards to pin down the biological border between peoples that they felt certain existed. They didn’t force a course correction. Neither did the counterarguments of the scientist who would ultimately revolutionize biology.

At Ellis Island, officials administered34 the culturally biased test to newcomers who spoke little English, faced a frightening and confusing entry process, and had just endured arduous, days-long journeys under harsh conditions. All were exhausted, which would have impaired their capacity to ace any kind of test, even if it hadn’t been biased against them. Similarly, the study on immigrants in insane asylums hadn’t corrected for age distribution. The fact that the immigrant population, as a whole, skewed younger than the native-born one, explained their disproportionate representation entirely.