20세기 초 미국의 정신이상 외국인(alien insane)과 이주장치 ― 증기선 회사와 사회복지단체를 통해 “삶의 복잡다단한 면” 살펴보기 ―

This essay examines steamship companies and social service agencies as the two main migration apparatuses of the U.S. government and discusses the ways in which the “alien insane” were forced to navigate the complex web of immigration to and deportation from the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. Steamship companies and social service agencies intervened in every step of the immigrant’s journey and were involved in the transportation and care of those deported from the United States for insanity and other mental defects. From the outside, both seem to have served the interests of the immigrants. Steamship companies fought the federal government and the Immigration Bureau to provide humane care for the “alien insane,” and, of course, to reduce their costs. Social service agencies also communicated with deportable immigrants, relatives and friends, and fellow social workers stationed in foreign ports, to find a more lenient means of deportation and to bring the deportees home safely. Intentionally or not, however, they functioned as the government’s migration apparatus as well as an instrument of disease control that aided and abetted the exclusion of “undesirable” immigrants from the United States.