Abstract
The 1965 Immigration Reform Act dramatically changed the pattern of immigration into the United States and particularly into the western states that bordered the Pacific or Mexico. These post-1965 flows significantly altered the national origins of the region's population. Along with the twentieth-century transformations wrought by global wars and globalized commerce, the new immigration amplified the connections between the West and the world. ‘The worldly West’ explains that like the growing import of the national government in the West's affairs, the international presence generated resentments and efforts at restriction of immigration. Yet, in the second and third quarters of the twentieth century, the region's fate was increasingly defined by federal interventions and entwined with international developments.
