United States vs. Wong Kim Ark

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello, and Welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V.
Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. Last year, we did an
episode on artist Tyrus Wong, who was instrumental in developing

(00:23):
the look and feel for Disney's Bambi, along with creating
just a prolific amount of other really beautiful work across
multiple media. Wong had been brought to the United States
as a child at a time when the Chinese Exclusion
Act banned immigration to the United States from China, and
one of the things we talked about in that episode

(00:44):
was how a Supreme Court case called United States versus
Wong kim arc had affected how the US could enforce
the Chinese Exclusion Act because the court had found that
people who were born in the un to Chinese parents
were US citizens. When we did that previous episode, I

(01:06):
said that United States versus Wan kim Ark was another
topic that was on my episode list, and we got
a number of emails from listeners saying that they were
looking forward to getting that one. Obviously, this has become
newly relevant in light of the Executive Order on Birthright
citizenship issued by President Donald Trump on inauguration Day, so

(01:28):
I moved it to the top of the list. I
just want to note we are currently at a place
where we are writing and recording episodes a couple of
weeks before they come out. Honestly, I could not even
keep up with all the news and commentary about this
executive order as I was researching and writing the episode,

(01:49):
and we cannot predict what might happen with it between
writing and recording the episode and when it actually hits
your ears in a couple of weeks. This is not
going into any kind of detail about the executive order
or the constitutional arguments around the executive order. This is
about the historical Supreme Court case. So to talk about

(02:13):
the U. S. Supreme Court's decision in United States versus
wonkim Ark, we need to work our way back a
few steps. The Constitution is the supreme law of the
United States, and it forms the foundation of the federal government.
When it went into effect in seventeen eighty nine, it
didn't explicitly define what a citizen was or how a

(02:34):
person became a citizen. At the same time, it contained
language that made it clear that citizenship existed and was important.
Article two, Section one said that quote no person except
a natural born citizen or a citizen of the United
States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution
shall be eligible to the office of President. Article four

(02:59):
also included the clause quote, the citizens of each State
shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens
in the several states. The Constitution didn't define citizen or
natural born, but for the most part, the way citizenship
worked in the United States was following ideas from English

(03:21):
common law. Although there was some nuance around who was
considered a full citizen and who had the right to vote.
There was also a basic understanding in English common law
that people born in the monarch's realm were subjects of
the monarch. Of course, the United States is a republic.

(03:41):
It is not supposed to have monarchs or subjects, but
the basic idea carried over that people born in the
United States were citizens of the republic. In terms of
legal theory, this is known as use solely or the
right of the soil. The idea that citizenship is from
a person's parents is common in other systems, and it

(04:05):
is known as eusanguinous or the right of blood. Over
the decades that followed, various laws and court decisions related
to US citizenship in some way and to the idea
of who could be a citizen. One was Dread Scott
versus Sandford, which was decided in eighteen fifty seven. We
did a two part episode on this case that came

(04:27):
out on July sixteenth and eighteenth of twenty eighteen, but briefly,
Dred Scott and his wife Harriet had been enslaved, and
when their enslaver died, they were living in free territory.
The Scots sued for their freedom on the grounds that
since they were taken to free territory, they were free.
The US Supreme Court did not answer the question of

(04:49):
whether that was the case. Instead, it said that the
issue was outside its jurisdiction, writing quote, a free Negro
of the African race, whose ancestors were brought to this
country and sold as slaves, is not a citizen within
the meaning of the Constitution of the United States. That
meant that the Scots did not have the right to

(05:11):
sue in federal court. A few years later, multiple states
seceded from the Union over the issue of slavery, and
the United States Civil War began in eighteen sixty one.
After the war ended in eighteen sixty five, part of
the US government's focus was reuniting and rebuilding the country

(05:32):
that time known as reconstruction, which also involved trying to
address the harms of centuries of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment
to the Constitution, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude except
in punishment for a crime, was ratified in December of
eighteen sixty five. Early the following year, Congress passed the

(05:55):
Civil Rights Act of eighteen sixty six, or an Act
to protect all persons in the United States in their
civil rights and furnish the means of their vindication. This said,
in part quote, all persons born in the United States
and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians, not taxed,

(06:17):
are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States,
and such citizens of every race and color, without regard
to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except
as punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been
duly convicted, shall have the same right in every state

(06:38):
and territory in the United States to make an enforce
contracts to sue be parties and give evidence to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold,
and convey real and personal property, and to full an
equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security
of person and property as is enjoyed by white citizens,

(07:00):
and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties,
and to none other any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or
custom to the contrary. Notwithstanding, President Andrew Johnson vetoed this
bill and Congress overrode that veto on April ninth, eighteen
sixty six. This was the first US law to define citizenship,

(07:25):
and it overturned dread Scott versus Sandford. But legislators understood
that laws can be repealed, and if that happened with
this law, people would use the Supreme Court decision to
justify trying to bar people with African ancestry from citizenship.
Constitutional amendments are a lot harder to change than laws are.

(07:47):
They have to be passed by a two thirds majority
of Congress and then ratified by three fourths of the
states before they go into effect, and then they can
only be repealed if a new amendment goes through that
same process. So they were working on these constitutional amendments
after the Civil War, very similar language was added to

(08:07):
the first section of the fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution,
quote all persons born or naturalized in the United States,
and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the
United States and of the state wherein they resigned. Today,
that language is known as the Citizenship Clause. It explicitly

(08:31):
repudiated the dread Scott decision and added a clear definition
of who was a US citizen to the Constitution people
born in the United States or naturalized. There were, of course,
limited exceptions. It didn't spell out what was meant by
quote subject to the jurisdiction thereof, but this was generally

(08:55):
interpreted as referencing a few very specific groups. Diplomats from
other countries were not under US jurisdiction. They were under
the jurisdiction of the country they were serving, so any
children born to them in the United States were not
US citizens. Also, if a foreign army were to invade

(09:18):
the United States, or if foreign soldiers were in the
United States for some other reason, they also would not
be subject to US jurisdiction, so their children also would
not be considered citizens. A third group not considered to
be under US jurisdiction was Indigenous people, who were described

(09:39):
as Indians not taxed in the Civil Rights Act of
eighteen sixty six and in other language in the Fourteenth Amendment,
And there is some critically important context here. The Fourteenth
Amendment to the Constitution was passed by the Senate in
eighteen sixty six and ratified two years later. This was
near the end of what some historians described as the

(10:01):
treaty making era of federal Indian policy. At a very
basic level, a treaty is an agreement between two sovereign nations.
The treaties were talking about in this case were generally
skewed in favor of the United States, and they were
connected to ongoing violence and genocide against indigenous people, but

(10:21):
they still rested on the idea that the United States
was one sovereign nation and the indigenous nation was another.
So in the view of the authors of the Civil
Rights Act of eighteen sixty six and the Fourteenth Amendment,
indigenous people were first and foremost under the jurisdiction of
their own sovereign indigenous nation, not of the United States,

(10:44):
even though the United States had created and imposed systems
that kept those indigenous nations dependent on the United States
for their survival. Yeah, there's some really very memey and
in mine beIN an overly reductive discourse going around the
internet and social media about this right now. It was

(11:07):
primarily about tribal sovereignty, even in a limited sense of
tribal sovereignty that was actually existing when it was written.
The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was deeply controversial, but
it's clear that the people who drafted it understood that
it would grant citizenship to everyone born in the United

(11:29):
States without regard to race or color, with the exception
of the very specific groups we just mentioned. That is
what they intended for it to do. Part of the
whole point was that we were no longer going to
have classes of people who by their heredity were excluded
from citizenship. This had been addressed during congressional debates over

(11:51):
the Civil Rights Act of eighteen sixty six, which was
the origin point for this language in the Fourteenth Amendment.
I am going to read some of this heads up.
There's a term in here that is considered a slur today.
So Edward Cowan of Pennsylvania asked, quote whether it will
not have the effect of naturalizing the children of Chinese

(12:11):
and Gypsies born in this country. Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois,
who was chair of the committee that drafted the bill,
answered quote, undoubtedly, before continuing quote, is not the child
born in this country of German parents a citizen? Cowen answered, quote,
the children of German parents are citizens, but Germans are

(12:34):
not Chinese, and then Trumble answered this with quote, the
law makes no such distinction, and the child of an
Asiatic is just as much a citizen as the child
of a European. When Senator Jacob Howard of Michigan introduced
similar language as part of the fourteenth Amendment, he described
it as declaratory of what he saw as the law

(12:55):
of the land already. He described it as excluding quote
for mariners, aliens who belonged to the families of ambassadors
or foreign ministers accredited to the government of the United States,
And after some additional discussion, language was adjusted so that
it would be clear that it also excluded indigenous people
for the reasons that we already talked about. Then Cowan

(13:19):
brought up the same question he'd asked about the Civil
Rights Act of eighteen sixty six, talking about the subject
at length. This time, Cowen was answered by John Conness
of California, which was the state in which most of
the Chinese immigrants to the United States were actually living.
Connus said, quote, the proposition before us relates simply in

(13:41):
that respect to the children begotten of Chinese parents in California,
and it is proposed to declare that they shall be citizens.
We have declared that by law. Now it is proposed
to incorporate the same provision in the fundamental instrument of
the nation. I am in favor of doing so. I
voted for the proposition to declare that the children of

(14:03):
all parentage whatever, born in California should be regarded and
treated as citizens of the United States, entitled to equal
civil rights with other citizens of the United States. Connus
also went on at length the transcripts of both of
these comments are very long, before saying, quote, we are

(14:23):
entirely ready to accept the provision proposed in this constitutional
amendment that the children born here of Mongolian parents shall
be declared by the Constitution of the United States to
be entitled to civil rights and to equal protection before
the law with others. So, while it's clear that this
language was intentionally drafted in a way that would include

(14:45):
the children of Chinese immigrants as citizens. There were also
plenty of people, including lawmakers, who did not want a
law or amendment that would do that. The Civil Rights
Act of eighteen sixty six and the Fourteenth Amendment were
both passed and ratified over these objections. Under the Reconstruction
Act of eighteen sixty seven, the states that had seceded

(15:07):
from the US were required to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment
in order to rejoin the Union, and some people argued
that because of this, the Amendment itself was not valid,
but again, that was not about the meaning of the
citizenship clause. There were controversies around other provisions of the
Fourteenth Amendment as well, but those are outside the scope

(15:29):
of what we're talking about today. Almost immediately, people who
did not want this to be in the Constitution started
trying to find a way to get a legal interpretation
of subject to the jurisdiction thereof, that would exclude specific
groups of people from the citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Initially,
a big focus of that was the children of Chinese immigrants.

(15:53):
That led to the United States versus Wan kim ark
and we will get into that after a sponsor break.
Wangham Arc was born in San Francisco, California, probably sometime
between eighteen sixty nine and eighteen seventy three. Different documents

(16:17):
give different years. His mother's name was Wee Lee and
his father was Wangsi Ping. Wangsi Ping was a merchant
part of a firm called Quang Singing Company, and wankhim
Ark was born in his parents' home above his father's
shop on Sacramento Street. It's not clear exactly when the
Wang family first arrived in the US, although one document

(16:40):
describes it as quote a long time prior to his birth.
At the time, immigration between China and the United States
would have been governed by treaty. If it was after
July twenty eighth, eighteen sixty eight, that would have been
the one known in English as the Burlingame Treaty. Among
other things, this treaty removed restrictions on immigration to the

(17:02):
US from China and specified that such immigration did not
confer naturalization upon Chinese citizens in the US or vice versa.
Chinese people in the United States had always faced racism
and bigotry, and that escalated as more people came to
the US from China. This was also tied to things

(17:23):
like jobs and economic conditions. A lot of Chinese laborers
had come to the US during the California gold Rush,
and as long as the gold rush was booming, their
labor was really welcomed by employers, even if they as
people were being shunned and disparaged. When the gold rush ended, though,
they needed to find new work and were seen as

(17:45):
taking jobs from white workers. The same cycle happened again
with the Transatlantic Railroad. Chinese workers were an enormous part
of that effort, but then faced immense hostility after the
railroad was finished in eight ten teen sixty nine. Chinese
immigrants were also described as a quote unassimilable race, meaning

(18:08):
that they were not willing or able to assimilate with
white communities. Laws and unwritten rules forced Chinese immigrants to
live in small, isolated enclaves, and then they faced judgment
and bigotry for continuing to speak Chinese and observe Chinese
norms and social customs. There was also mob violence against

(18:28):
these communities, including a massacre in Los Angeles in eighteen
seventy one and a violent and deadly attack on San
Francisco's Chinatown on July twenty fourth, eighteen seventy seven. We
talk a lot more about that in the episode on
Chai Chong Ping versus the United States, which we just
ran as a Saturday Classic. We don't know for sure

(18:51):
why the Wongs decided to return to China, but it
was after this eighteen seventy seven attack. Living in the
United States also would have been incredibly isolating for Wee Lee.
There were only about five thousand Chinese women in the
entire country, and within the Chinese community, it wasn't considered

(19:12):
appropriate for women of her station to be out in
public amongst strangers. Wan Kimark was still a child when
his family left for China. A few years later, when
he was in his teens, he returned to the United
States with an uncle, and he started working as a
dishwasher and a cook in mining camps in the Sierra
Nevada Mountains. In eighteen eighty nine, when he was about nineteen,

(19:35):
he visited China again and he got married there. The
Chinese community in the United States was, as the statistic
Tracy just mentioned makes clear, overwhelmingly male, and an anti missagination.
Laws made it illegal for them to marry people of
other races. So if he wanted to get married and
have children, his only real option was to do so

(19:57):
in China. While his wife was pregnant with their first child,
Wang returned to the United States, where he could make
more money to support his family. Wang made another visit
to China in eighteen ninety four. He had prepared a
departure statement before leaving the United States, which read quote,
whereas Wang kim Ark, whose photograph is here too attached,

(20:21):
is about to depart for China, intending to return to
the United States, and is entitled to return there too.
Now Therefore, for the better identification of the said wankim Ark,
and in order to facilitate his landing upon his said return,
we the undersigned, do hereby certify that the said wankim

(20:42):
Ark is well known to us, that he was born
in the city and County of San Francisco, State of California,
that his father, Wang Si Ping, was a merchant and
a member of the firm of Quang Si in Company
number seven to fifty one Sacramento Street in the said
city and County of San Francisco, State of California. This

(21:04):
was signed by three white witnesses who also gave their addresses.
It was notarized, and it was signed and stamped by
the inspector on Wang kaim Mark's departure, it was not
enough when Wang returned to the US in August of
eighteen ninety five aboard the SS Coptic. John H. Wise,

(21:25):
described as a quote zealous opponent of Chinese immigration, was
the collector of customs for the Port of San Francisco,
and Wise refused to let Wog into the country, claiming
that he was not a citizen. Wong was detained aboard
the Coptic. By this point, the United States had banned
immigration from China under the Chinese Exclusion Act of eighteen

(21:48):
eighty two. In eighteen eighty eight, the Scott Act had
also made it illegal for Chinese immigrants who left the
United States to return. This again is stuff that we
talked about in our most recent Saturday Classic. In eighteen
ninety two, the Geary Act had also extended the Chinese
Exclusion Act for another ten years, and it had specified

(22:10):
that if a writ of habeas corpus was issued for
a Chinese person who was denied entry into the United States,
no bail would be allowed. For that person. The US
Supreme Court had upheld this as constitutional the following year. Legally,
Chinese immigrants also could not be naturalized as citizens, so

(22:34):
if Wang kim Ark had been an immigrant, wise would
have been legally justified in keeping him out of the US.
The Chinese Exclusion Act did contain exceptions for diplomats, travelers, merchants, teachers,
and students, and since Wang was a cook, this didn't
apply to him. But he wasn't an immigrant. He had

(22:55):
been born in the United States, so under the citizenship
clause of the fourteen the Amendment, he was a US citizen.
Some of Wang's friends filed a writ of habeas corpus
to try to get him released, and soon the Chinese
Consolidated Benevolent Association, also called the Chinese Six Companies, stepped in.

(23:15):
The Chinese Six Companies had started out as a charitable
and mutual aid organization focused on the needs of Chinese
immigrants to the US. By this point, their work had
expanded to include legal defense, including on immigration issues. They
had attorney Thomas D. Rordon on retainer, and Ryordan started
working with Wang's case. When the Coptic left Port, Wang

(23:40):
was moved to another ship, the Gaelic, and then moved
from the Gaelic to the pe King. Finally, on January third,
eighteen ninety six, after he had been forced to live
aboard these ships for almost six months, Judge William Morrow
ordered him released on two hundred and fifty dollars bond.
The United's States filed an appeal. And this wasn't just

(24:03):
about keeping Wang out of the country. Like we said earlier,
there had always been people who objected to the Fourteenth
Amendment citizenship clause. Officials like wise and the US Department
of Justice were looking for a test case that could
go all the way to the Supreme Court, with the
hope that the courts would define the phrase subject to

(24:24):
its jurisdiction as excluding the children of Chinese immigrants born
in the US. From the DOJ's perspective, Wan kim Ark
was the perfect test case for this for a number
of reasons. He had been born in the United States
to Chinese parents who had lawfully entered the country. Apart

(24:45):
from visits to China, he had been living in the
United States, almost all of it in the same neighborhood
of San Francisco for many years. His wife and children
were living in China, so there would be no dramatic
headlines about the federal government breaking up a family if
he was deported, and also no family left in the

(25:05):
United States without financial support. Wong had no criminal record,
and he paid taxes since he was working as a cook.
They also didn't expect him to have a lot of
money available to try to mount a legal defense. From
the perspective of Wong and his supporters, the idea of
winning a Supreme Court case probably seemed really doubtful. The

(25:27):
Chinese Six companies had very skilled attorneys, and they had
had some success with lower courts, but none of the
cases that had gotten all the way to the Supreme
Court had been found in their favor. The Supreme Court
had also issued a decision on a group of cases
known as the slaughter House Cases in eighteen seventy three.
That is a whole other topic, but part of the

(25:50):
decision was that the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth Amendments had
been written in the context of free and formerly enslaved
black people, and their protections did not necessarily apply to
people of other races. We will look at the case
as it went to the Supreme Court after a sponsor break.

(26:18):
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in United States
versus Wang kim Ark in early March of eighteen ninety seven.
Wong's representatives argued that the Constitution was established on the
principles of English common law that we mentioned earlier in
the episode. They also argued that interpreting the fourteenth Amendment

(26:40):
in a way that meant Wong was not a citizen
would also apply to a lot of other people who
had been born in the United States, to immigrants from
other countries, specifically a whole lot of other people who
were considered to be white. Thomas d Rierdon, who we
mentioned earlier, spelled this out in an interview that he

(27:01):
gave during all of this, saying, quote, think of all
the people in this country who have been born of
parents who owe allegiance to either Great Britain, Germany, Italy,
or some other European power. Are all these people to
be declared not citizens? He said that there might be
two hundred thousand people in that position, but he also

(27:22):
called that a low estimate. The United States argument was
that while Wong had been born in the US, he
was quote by reason of his race, language, color, and
dress a Chinese person. They argued that under international law,
children received the citizenship of their parents, not citizenship based

(27:42):
on where they were born. That's the sanguinous idea that
we mentioned earlier in the episode. The Supreme Court issued
its decision more than a year later, on March twenty eighth,
eighteen ninety eight, the day after Inauguration Day. The Court
ruled in favor of Long six to two. There were

(28:04):
nine justices, but Justice Joseph McKenna didn't participate. He had
replaced Justice Stephen Field, who had retired after the oral
arguments but before the decision was issued. The majority opinion
in this case includes pages and pages and pages of
earlier decisions related in some way to citizenship, starting with

(28:27):
people who had been born in the British colonies before
the Revolutionary War and whether those people had been considered
British subjects, which they had. There were also cases involving
people born in England to foreign parents, with those children
also considered British subjects. Over and over again. These cases
involved scenarios in which children were considered citizens of the

(28:50):
place they were born, regardless of their parents' citizenship. This
opinion even referenced the descent in dread Scott versus Sandford,
which set in part quote the first section of the
second Article of the Constitution uses the language a natural
born citizen. It thus assumes that citizenship may be acquired

(29:11):
by birth. The opinion went on to say, quote, passing
by questions once earnestly controverted, but finally put at rest
by the fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, it is beyond
doubt that before the enactment of the Civil Rights Act
of eighteen sixty six or the adoption of the Constitutional Amendment,

(29:33):
all white persons at least born within the sovereignty of
the United States, whether children of citizens or foreigners, accepting
only children of ambassadors or public ministers of a foreign government,
were native born citizens of the United States. Later on,
the opinion said, quote as appears upon the face of

(29:54):
the Amendment, as well as from the history of the times,
this was not intended to impose any new restrictions upon
citizenship or to prevent any persons from becoming citizens by
the fact of birth within the United States, who would
thereby have become citizens according to the law existing before
its adoption. It is declaratory in form and enabling and

(30:17):
extending in effect. Its main purpose, doubtless was, as has
been often recognized by this Court, to establish the citizenship
of free negroes, which had been denied in the opinion
delivered by Chief Justice Tainey in dread Scott versus Sandford,
and to put it beyond doubt that all blacks, as
well as whites, born or naturalized within the jurisdiction of

(30:39):
the United States are citizens of the United States. From there,
it referenced the slaughter House cases as well as other
cases that had focused on the scope of the reconstruction amendments,
before saying quote but the opening words, all persons born
are general, not to say universal, restricted only by place

(31:02):
and jurisdiction, and not by color or race, as was
clearly recognized in all the opinions delivered in the Slaughterhouse
cases above cited. This decision also reiterated the idea that
at that time indigenous people were not considered to be
US citizens at birth. The Supreme Court had already heard

(31:23):
and decided on a case related specifically to this, that
was Elk versus Wilkins in eighteen eighty four. This case
could also be a whole episode of its own, but Briefly,
John Elk was Winnebago and had been born on a reservation,
but had later renounced his tribal citizenship and begun living
in a non indigenous community. As summarized in the decision

(31:46):
of the United States versus Wonkim arc quote, it was
decided that an Indian born a member of one of
the Indian tribes within the United States which still existed
and was recognized as an Indian tribe by the United States,
who had voluntarily separated himself from his tribe and taken
up his residence among the white citizens of a state,

(32:08):
but who did not appear to have been naturalized or
text or in any way recognized or treated as a citizen,
either by the United States or by the state, was
not a citizen of the United States as a person
born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction
thereof within the meaning of the clause in question. To

(32:30):
be super clear, this was not saying he could not
become a citizen, just that he had not been one
of the United States from birth. The majority opinion ended quote.
The evident intention and the necessary effect of the submission
of this case to the decision of the Court upon
the facts agreed by the parties were to present for determination.

(32:53):
These single questions stated at the beginning of this opinion, namely,
whether a child born in the United States of parent
of Chinese descent, who at the time of his birth
are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a
permanent domicile at residence in the United States and are
there carrying on business and are not employed in any

(33:15):
domestic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes
at the time of his birth a citizen of the
United States. For the reasons above stated, this Court is
of the opinion that the question must be answered in
the affirmative. Chief Justice Melville Fuller and Justice John Marshall

(33:35):
Harlan dissented. They argued that the amendment should not be
interpreted within a framework of English common law, but instead
should rest on international law, in which citizenship more commonly
came from a person's parents. They also argued that the
court's interpretation would mean that US citizen's children born while

(33:55):
their parents were abroad would be considered aliens in the US.
They cited a small number of earlier cases in which
someone's citizenship had been decided based on who their parents were.
The dissenting opinion also argued that the children of Chinese
immigrants specifically, unlike the children of other immigrants, could not

(34:19):
be considered to be completely under US jurisdiction. By treaty
and by law, Chinese immigrants living in the United States
could not become US citizens. They were still Chinese citizens,
and in the dissenting justices' opinions, they were loyal to
the emperor and their children would also be loyal to

(34:41):
the Emperor because in their religion quote filial piety is
the first and greatest commandment. In spite of the language
it contained, in practice, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution
did not mean that everyone in the US actually had
access to things like due process and equal protection under
the laws. We have so many episodes about the ongoing

(35:05):
patterns of discrimination and racism that continued after it was ratified,
And this court case did not mean that people like
Won kim Ark were suddenly regarded as US citizens on
equal footing with white people born in the US. There
were still plenty of people who wanted an interpretation of
the Fourteenth Amendment in which that phrase under the jurisdiction

(35:26):
thereof did not apply to Chinese people. There have been
ongoing efforts in the decades since, which are still going
on today to try to get a more narrow reading
of that jurisdiction language like right now. One of the
arguments is that the court's opinion notes that Wong's parents
were lawful permanent residence with a domicile, so the children

(35:49):
of people who aren't permanent legal residents should not be
considered citizens. A counter argument to that is, when the
fourteenth Amendment was drafted, there wasn't really a concept of
illegal immigration, but it did apply to the children of
people who had entered the United States illegally, specifically the
children of people who had been illegally trafficked after the

(36:11):
US banned the slave trade in eighteen oh eight. I
know that seems like a super problematic argument from the
modern perspective, but that was still how it worked. Those
were people who were considered to have entered the United
States illegally, their children were citizens, and Chinese immigrants and
their children were obviously still subjected to harassment, racism, and bigotry,

(36:36):
and this affected Wang Kim Mark and his family directly.
In nineteen oh one, Wang was arrested and nearly deported
from El Paso, Texas. While trying to cross back into
the United States from Mexico, he had to convince authorities
that he was a citizen. Because Wang was a citizen
by law, his children born in China were also US citizens,

(37:00):
and ultimately three of his sons were able to enter
the United States, but each of them faced detainment and
interrogations while trying to do so. An immigration station was
built at Angel Island in nineteen ten, and that's where
people mostly from China and other parts of Asia, were
put through intense questioning that was designed to try to

(37:24):
keep them out of the United States. They also had
to go through humiliating physical exams. We talked more about
Angel Island and these interrogations in our episode on Tyrus Wong.
One of wangkim Ark's sons, Wang Yuk Fun, was refused
entry into the United States and deported back to China
in nineteen eleven because investigators at Angel Island claimed his

(37:48):
answers had too many discrepancies from his fathers. Again, these
interrogations were made to be unpassable. Wang Yuk Su was
also denied entry into the United States in nineteen twenty four,
but was eventually allowed in after wangkim Ark testified on
his behalf. This is also connected to the paper suns

(38:09):
that we talked about in our episode on Tyris Wong,
people who claimed to be the children of US citizens
or born in the US, but were really born in
China to Chinese parents. Wang Yuk Siu had been presented
as wangkim Ark's citizen's son, but in nineteen sixty, as
part of the US Immigration and Naturalization Service's Chinese Confession program,

(38:32):
Wang Yuk Su admitted to being a paper son. Wangkim
Ark had died by this point. He had returned to
China in nineteen thirty one, saying he intended to return
to the US, but he didn't return, and we don't
really know what happened to him after this or his
thoughts about presenting Wang Yuk Su as his paper son.

(38:54):
The United States also continued to ban immigration from China
after this. In nineteen you know four, the Chinese Exclusion
Acts were renewed, and definitely they were not formally repealed
until December seventeenth, nineteen forty three, which is also when
it became legal for Chinese immigrants to be naturalized as

(39:14):
US citizens also because the citizenship status of Indigenous people
has come up several times in this episode. The Indian
Citizenship Act was signed into law in nineteen twenty four.
It read quote be it enacted by the Senate and
House of Representatives of the United States of America in
Congress assembled that all non citizen Indians born within the

(39:37):
territorial limits of the United States be and they are
hereby declared to be citizens of the United States, provided
that the granting of such citizenship shall not, in any manner,
impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian to
tribal or other property. Indigenous people themselves had a range

(39:58):
of opinions on being granted US citizenship, including some tribes
that lobbied heavily against this law. Many of the white
people who advocated for it were motivated by the idea
that it would help reduce corruption within the Bureau of
Indian Affairs, not by the well being or wishes of
the Indigenous people. It would apply to. The executive order

(40:20):
that we mentioned at the top of the show doesn't
mention the Indian Citizenship Act, or Elk versus Wilkins, or
the idea of birthright citizenship. For Indigenous people specifically, but
a Justice Department filing in response to a motion for
a restraining order against the executive order does. That filing

(40:41):
cites Elk versus Wilkins and United States versus Wankamark in
its arguments that the Fourteenth Amendment's citizenship clause applies only
to the children of US citizens and legal permanent residents
of the US. This has led to concerns that there
might be an attempt to end birthright citizenship for Indigenous people.

(41:03):
My basic understanding of this is that there is more
consensus at this point than a century ago that Indigenous
people would like to have US citizenship as well as
the citizenship of their indigenous nations. Again, it was impossible
to keep up with every aspect of what was happening

(41:23):
with this executive order while this episode was being researched
and recorded, but most legal and constitutional scholars that have
weighed in have said that an executive order cannot overrule
the Constitution. Instead, what is likely to happen is that
this executive order will lead to another test case that
will need to make its way to the Supreme Court,

(41:45):
as United States versus wan kim Ark, did I have
some very lighthearted is not the right word. It is
listener mail. That's not about anything of consequence. Really, it's
just for fun to close this sound yay. This is
from Randall. Randall wrote in after our recent Unearthed installments

(42:06):
where we talked about archaeologists leaving messages and bottles that
their archaeological sites for future archaeologists defined and Randall wrote Hill,
I was interested in the messages found in bottles. We
are restoring a seventeen eighty two house. Previous owners stripped
three rooms of their plaster and lath. We are putting
back the lath and replastering with lime plaster. Maybe a

(42:28):
substance you should look into, since it is a really
fascinating product. It cures by capturing carbon. We have seen
some articles of people finding shoes hidden in their old houses.
Apparently it was to ward off evil. Before I closed
the final wall, I stuck in a pair of my
old sneakers. They are size sixteen, double wide, so I

(42:49):
figured they will ward off a bunch of evil and
give future renovators something to talk about. I love your podcast, Randall. Randal,
I love this story. They're his. I'm just talking specifically
about North America, but other places too, Like there have
been traditions of putting all kinds of things in walls
and up chimneys as an idea of like warding off

(43:12):
evil and protecting the house and things like that. And
so I just love the idea of centuries from now
an archaeologist being like, is this a thing that people
were doing in the year in ten. There's a great
misinterpretation where they're like, this house must have been full

(43:32):
of evil spirits because they procured an extra large shoe.
I love that too. I'm a fan of putting surprises
in construction. Yeah, you have done it in our house
in several places. Yes. I just generally like the idea
of far in the future. If you know, if in
some way your home specifically, you know, at some time

(43:58):
far in the future than having been through a series
of additional owners, that your house as is becomes an
archaeological site and I think becomes like the focus of
archaeological study. Yeah, they're going to be like, there was
clearly some sort of religion around this figure, and we
don't understand it, but there's incredibly important anyway. Anyway, thanks

(44:23):
for giving us a moment to laugh. Randal If you
would like to send us a note about this or
any other podcast, we're at History Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
If you have not subscribed to the show, you can
do that. We're on the iHeartRadio app and really wherever
else you like to get your podcasts. Stuff you missed

(44:47):
in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
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