Legalizing Whiteness: What Asian American Legal History Tells Us About Citizenship in the Early 20th Century

Item set

• 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution (1865)
  The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States except for as punishment for a crime. This exception has become a source of debate and controversy regarding the escalation of incarceration rates and the exploitation of incarcerated people for the benefit of corporate profits. The amendment was passed by Congress January 31, 1865, and ratified December 6, 1865.
• 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution (1868)
  The Fourteenth Amendment gave citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States. The Equal Protection clause drastically amended the Constitution and has been used by the Supreme Court to justify expansion of rights. The amendment was passed by Congress June 13, 1866, and ratified July 9, 1868.
• Alien Naturalization Act of 1918
  This act incentivized enlistment in the U.S. armed forces to immigrants in exchange for naturalization and citizenship without the declaration of intent or proof of five years' residence requirements.
• Executive Order 9066 - Authorizing the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas (1942)
  This executive order by President Franklin D. Roosevelt was a federal law that forcefully removed persons deemed a national security threat to relocation centers in the western United States. While the act did not include racialized language, it was created with the intent to target Japanese Americans.
• Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952
  Also known as the McCarran–Walter Act, this act of Congress retained the national origins quotas for controlling immigration, but granted immigration quotas to all countries and removed racial restrictions for naturalization. The Act introduced immigration preferences for skilled and educated workers, still in place today.
• Korematsu v. United States (1944)
  In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that war-time exclusion against Japanese-Americans was valid.
• Legalizing Whiteness: What Asian American Legal History Tells Us About Citizenship in the Early 20th Century
  This teaching module explains how the Supreme Court determined Asian American legal standings in the early 20th century through the lens of and priority toward whiteness.
• Naturalization Act of 1790
  The Naturalization Act of 1790 had important legal and political implications in the Early Republic. An emerging racial hierarchy was reflected in the determinations of who was allowed to become a citizen. The act specified that any free white person who had resided in the U.S. for two years could be admitted to become a citizen, provided they were a "person of good character" according to a court of law.
• Naturalization Act of 1870
  The 1870 Naturalization Act extended paths to United States citizenship for people of African descent while excluding Chinese immigrants.
• Ozawa v. United States (1922)
  The Supreme Court found in Ozawa v. United States that Japanese immigrants were not eligible for naturalization, based on a contested category of whiteness. The case considered the meaning of "free white persons" from the 1906 Naturalization Act and whether factors like assimilability should be considered. While the court determined in Ozawa that the words "white person" were meant to indicate a person of the "caucasian race," the decision in U.S. v. Thind just months later stated that the word "caucasian" was meant to refer to the "common understanding" of race and not a scientific one.
• United States v. Thind (1923)
  The Supreme Court found in U.S. v. Thind that Indian immigrants were not eligible for naturalization, based on a contested category of whiteness. Contradicting their 1922 ruling in Ozawa naming caucasian identity as a requirement for naturalization, as a South Asian immigrant, Thind was deemed ineligible for citizenship because, despite being racially caucasian, he did not appear white.
• United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898)
  In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court solidified the principle of birthright citizenship, affirming that anyone born in the U.S., regardless of their parents' citizenship, is a U.S. citizen.