Although the Dillingham Commission remained unpopular to many American nowadays, it was perhaps the committee that produced one of the most intensive and influential immigration reports in the recent history of the U.S. The overarching goal of the Commission was to consider the proponents and components of immigration and migrant workers to the U.S. economy. Despite its good intention, the comments and recommendations reflected the nativist mindset which was popular among the U.S. policymakers at the time.
The report is of interest to the project because it provides insightful details on how U.S policy-makers at the time viewed immigration and foreign workers. On that note, the report described the Mexicans as “notoriously indolent and unprogressive in all matters of education and culture” and that they were only fit for “the lowest grade of non-assimilable native-born races.”
U.S. Immigration Commission, Immigrants in Industries: Part 25: Japanese and Other Immigrant Races in the Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain States: Agriculture (Washington, D.C., USA: Government Printing Office, 1911), pp. 50, 59, 94