Final answer:
Immigration from Italy and Eastern European countries like Poland and Russia was limited by the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, which set quotas based on the 1890 U.S. population.
Step-by-step explanation:
Immigration from Italy and Eastern Europe, countries like Poland and Russia, was limited due to fear of competition in the United States. The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 set a quota on the number of immigrants allowed from each country, basing the limit on only 2 percent of the number of people from that nationality who were already living in the United States in 1890. Consequently, this favored immigrants from northern and western Europe and discriminated against those from southern and eastern Europe and Asia. The law indirectly limited the number of Italian, Polish, and Russian Jewish immigrants, who started coming to the U.S. in large numbers in the 1890s, while it virtually barred immigration from Asia except for the Philippines, which was a U.S. territory at that time.