Naturalization and the courts February 25, 2016

History of Whiteness in United States 1790-1840 “Free White Persons” Republican Ideal 1840-1920 Mass immigration from Europe Fracturing of whiteness into a hierarchy of plural and scientifically determined races 1920-Present Immigration restriction & Great Migration of African Americans leads to consolidation of Whiteness WWII

The House I live in (1945) https://youtu.be/vhPwtnGviyg

Consolidation of Whiteness Critique of racial science Movement of African Americans to the North and West due to the Great Migration Geopolitical context of WWII

Legal Challenges to Naturalization Law “In defending both the border of national belonging and the border of certifiable racial whiteness, the courts gave legal, codified form to a complex of popular street-level prejudices on the one hand and learned, scientific judgments on the other. These rulings drew upon a number of different sources in wildly inconsistent fashion, but the power of the courts’ decisions-like the power of race generally—resided in their withholding or extending favor seemingly by a fixed logic of natural, biological fact. … (Jacobson, p. 226)

Courts consolidated and defended the idea “Caucasian” in their naturalization decisions just as popular and congressional debate over immigration was producing a contrary notion of Anglo-Saxon supremacy and Celtic, Hebrew, Slavic, and Mediterranean degeneracy. …these cases shored up the whiteness of Europe’s probationary white races by inflating the difference between the insiders and the outsiders of 1790… The bids for citizenship on the part of Chinese, Indian, Armenian, Syrian, or Filipino petitioners, in other words, were part of what kept the probationary white races from Europe white. Jacobson 225

In re Ah Yup (1878) Reified the Caucasian race” not simply as a schematic convention but as a meaningful legal and scientific concept that clarified the phrase “free white persons.” Established Caucasian peoplehood as a self-evident and natural fact.

Takao Ozawa Vs. United States (1922) Argument—Japanese are free people, they are not black and often have lighter skin than many whites. He spoke English and had white associates. U.S. counterargument—not European, not what founders meant by white. Whites are clearly of different hues, but they are all part of the Caucasian race. You may be white, but you are not Caucasian

U.S. vs. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923) Granted citizenship in 1920, but the United States sued to reverse this decision. Argument—although Hindu is considered Caucasian by some scientific standards, anyone can look at you and see that you are not white.