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May 30, 2025 • 49 mins

What’s an American? In Part Five, we continue our journey by telling the story behind "the melting pot" concept of American assimilation...and the movement that rose to destroy it and replace it with "multiculturalism."

Presented by: The Licorice Guy

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Speaker 1 (00:03):
This is Red Pilled America.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
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(01:03):
Previously on Red Pilled America.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of eighteen sixty six.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
All persons born in the United States and not subject
to any foreign power, excluding Indians, not taxed are hereby
declared to be citizens.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
The phrase not subject to any foreign power was understood
to mean owing full and exclusive allegiance to the United States.
Two years later, Congress constitutionalized this act with the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Supreme Court issued its decision in a six to
two ruling. It decided in favor of Wang kim Ark.

(01:38):
The wangkim Mark decision only gave citizenship to the children
of people legally and permanently residing in the United States.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
I'm Patrick Crelci and.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
I'm Adriana Cortes.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
And this is Red Pilled America, a storytelling show.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
This is not another talk show covering the day's news.
We're all about telling stories.

Speaker 4 (02:02):
Stories.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Hollywood doesn't want you to hear stories.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
The media mocks stories about everyday Americans at the globalist ignore.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
You can think of Red Pilled America as audio documentaries,
and we promise only one thing, the truth. Welcome to
Red Pilled America. It was May fifteenth, nineteen fifty three,

(02:39):
when Clement Martinez Perez walked into an immigration office in
San Francisco and turned himself in. His move was tactical
for several years. During World War Two, Perez had been
working as a Mexican laborer in the United States. At
the end of each stint, he shuttled back home to Mexico,
where his wife and seven children lived. But this time

(03:02):
the forty four year old was surrendering to immigration, claiming
his work visa had expired. That should have been it.
Deportation back to Mexico was supposed to be the next
order of business, but the Mexican laborer added a wrinkle
into the equation because you see, after living for over
thirty years in Mexico, Clement Martinez Perez claimed to be

(03:25):
a US citizen, and his case would set the battle
lines over what it means to be American. We're at
part five of our series of episodes entitled What's an American.
We're looking for the answer to that question by taking

(03:47):
a deep dive into the meaning of American citizenship. So
to pick up where we left off in our last episode.
In eighteen ninety eight, the Supreme Court found that Wong
kim Ark was a US citizen by birthright, but unlike
many would later claim, the Court did not conclude that
anyone born on US soil was an American citizen. The

(04:09):
Court simply found that Wangkimark met the citizenship requirement of
the Fourteenth Amendment. In the immediate wake of the Wangkimark decision,
the prestigious Yale Law Journal concluded that in order for
the children of foreign subjects to be US citizens, the
parents must not be foreign ministers or subjects of an
enemy state, and the parents quote must be permanently domiciled

(04:30):
end quote. The Wangkimark decision only gave citizenship to children
born on American soil if their parents were legally and
permanently residing in the United States, But the decision formed
a small crack in the dam of what it meant
to be an American, a crack that immigration activists would
eventually exploit to flood America.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
However, in the wake of Wang kim Ark, America did
not experience a tidal wave of Chinese immigration. In fact,
it was the opposite. The same year of the decision,
fewer than two thousand Chinese immigrants were admitted into the US.
When the act that prohibited Chinese immigration approached expiration in
nineteen oh two, Congress didn't just let it expire. It

(05:18):
extended it indefinitely. Now, that is not to say that
immigration halted in the years that followed. America was coming
out of the Long Depression and its economy was ready
to rip thanks to protectionist policies. It centered on building
homegrown industries. Manufacturing was exploding in the US and Americans
alone couldn't keep up with the growth of industry. So

(05:41):
a new wave of immigration rushed into America, but they
did not come from northern and western Europe as they
had throughout the nineteenth century. This time immigrants were coming
from southern and eastern Europe, and by the standards of

(06:04):
the era, the inflow was massive. For the decade following
the eighteen ninety eight Wonki Mark decision, total immigration inflows
averaged from eight hundred thousand to one million per year,
an almost twenty percent growth in US population. The sources
of immigration shifted from Britain, Ireland and the German speaking
countries to what is modern day Italy, Russia, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Romania, Croatia, Bosnia, Ukraine, Slovenia, Slovakia,

(06:33):
and the Czech Republic. As a result, a massive increase
of Catholics, Jews, and Orthodox Christians entered America. Asian immigration
was still severely restricted, but this massive European inflow still
created a challenge for assimilation. The new immigrants may have
been white, but culturally they came with completely different beliefs, traditions,

(06:55):
and languages, and the political structures they'd been steeped in
were largely at complete odds with the American model. America's
leaders became concerned how would these immigrants assimilate into American culture,
a culture whose success was driven largely by Anglo Saxon values.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
While just as these new immigrants arrived, a concept that
helped describe American culture, one that had been percolating for
over a century, was about to go mainstream. In nineteen
oh eight, a Jewish immigrant playwright named Israel Zangwill debuted
his fictional play in Washington, d c. He called it
The Melting Pot, and the story would help define a

(07:38):
process that had been in motion since America's founding. The
hero of the play was a Russian Jew that escapes
a pogrim in his native land. He arrives in the
United States, where he dreams of an America where all
of the ethnicities, hatred and blood feuds of the old
world melt away to create a harmonious whole. At one
point in the play, the hero proclaims.

Speaker 5 (07:59):
America is God's crucible, the great melting pot where all
the races of Europe are melting and reforming.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
The play celebrated the idea that ethnic and national differences
could dissolve in America, producing a new, cohesive American identity.
The play was an instant sensation in Washington, DC, but
that shouldn't have been a surprise. Zagwall may have been
the first to publicly brand American culture as a melting pot,

(08:29):
but the idea had been around since the birth of
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Speaker 2 (10:04):
Welcome back to Red Pilled America. In seventeen fifty nine,
a Frenchman named Hector Saint John de creevecourp immigrated to
the British colony of New York. He married a local
woman and settled into his life in the New World,
working as a surveyor, merchant and farmer. But it was
in this last occupation where Hector would find some inspiration,

(10:25):
inspiration that would bring him fame throughout Europe. Shortly after
the British surrendered Yorktown in seventeen eighty one, Europe was
curious about this peculiar new country on the other side
of the Atlantic. There was nothing like the United States
anywhere in the world at the time. The people of
England were British in France, they were French in Ireland Irish. Sure,

(10:49):
there were factions of outsiders that arrived during times of conflict,
but overall, the countries of the Old World were ethnically homogeneous.
The United States, on the other hand, was an experiment
like no other in human history. Slavery was common throughout
the world, but not this mix of cultures. People from
all over Northern and Western Europe, from vastly different cultures,

(11:11):
with their only common thread being white Protestants, voluntarily settled
in America to build a new republic. The people of
Europe became curious about this new world, and Hector decided
he would be the man to describe it to them.
In seventeen eighty two, he published Letters from an American farmer,

(11:32):
a series of fictional letters from a farmer named James
to an English gentleman named mister f b. The fictional
englishman represented an inquisitive European audience curious about life in America.
In one of his letters, coincidentally entitled what is an American?
Hector explored the identity, character, and opportunities of the American.

Speaker 5 (11:55):
What then is the American?

Speaker 3 (11:57):
This new man?

Speaker 5 (11:58):
He is either an European or the descendant of an European.
That strange mixture of blood which you will find in
no other country. I could point out to you a
family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch,
whose son married a frenchwoman, and whose present four sons
have now four wives of different nations. He is an

(12:19):
American who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners,
receives new ones from the new mode of life he
has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new
rank he holds. Here, individuals of all nations are melted
into a new race of men, whose labors and posterity
will one day cause great changes in the world.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
Hector was the first to describe the American melting pot
founding father Thomas Jefferson recognized the melting pot early as well,
but his was a cautionary message. In his seventeen eighty
five book Notes on the State of Virginia, he expressed
a concern about immigrant assimilation.

Speaker 6 (13:00):
They will bring with them the principles of the governments
they live imbibed in their early youth. In proportion to
their numbers. They will share with us the legislation. They
will infuse into it their spirit warp and bias its direction,
and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Jefferson was concerned that even with just white European immigrants
with different cultural backgrounds coming together, there would be trouble
with assimilation.

Speaker 6 (13:33):
Suppose twenty millions of Republican Americans thrown all of a
sudden into France, what would be the condition of that kingdom?
If it would be more turbulent, less happy, less strong.
We may believe that the addition of half a million
of foreigners to our present numbers would produce a similar effect.

Speaker 3 (13:49):
Here.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
At its founding, American culture was driven by Anglo Saxon norms,
the English language, English legal system, and the political ideals
of English Enlightenment thinkers, the Protestant work ethic, moral code
of family structure, English literature, education system, and political clubs.
All of this made up the Anglo Saxon cultural framework

(14:11):
of which America was founded on and thrived under. Thomas
Jefferson believed that immigrants, particularly those from England, could assimilate
into American society by adopting these Anglo Saxon norms, the
principles that were the fabric of America's founding. In an
eighteen seventeen letter, he wrote that English immigrants.

Speaker 6 (14:31):
Differ little except in principles of government, and most merchants
accepted are disposed to adopt American principles.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
Jefferson believed cultural similarity made assimilation easier for English immigrants
compared to others. He expressed concerns about immigrants from culturally
different backgrounds, like Germans, who often preserved their own languages
and principles, potentially disrupting American society. He advocated for discouraging
large immigrant settlements to promote assimilation, and suggested they should

(15:00):
be distributed sparsely among natives for quicker assimilation. John Quincy
Adams also expressed a concern that the immigrants flocking to
the country would not conform to America's Anglo Saxon norms.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
They must cast off the European skin, never to resume it.
They must look forward to their posterity rather than backward
to their ancestors. They must be sure that, whatever their
own feelings may be, those of their children will cling
to the prejudices of this country and will partake of

(15:35):
that proud spirit.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams did not state the
melting pot phrase explicitly, but they were clearly identifying that
the process was underway and for America to retain its
founding principles, immigrants needed to assimilate to the Anglo American
norms established of the country's founding. The first recorded American
use of the melting pot phrase, or at least a

(15:59):
form of it, was philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson
in July eighteen forty five, at age forty two. Emerson
mused that America would fuse people of diverse origins into
a new, vigorous civilization. Drawing an analogy from metallurgy.

Speaker 7 (16:15):
He wrote, man is the most composite of all creatures,
as in the old burning of the temple at Corinth.
By the melting and intermixture of silver and gold and
other metals, a new compound, more precious than any, called
Corinthian brass, was formed. So in this continent asylum of

(16:36):
all nations, the energy of Irish, Germans, Swedes, Poles and Cossacks,
and all the European tribes, of the Africans and of
the Polynesians will construct a new race, a new religion,
a new state, a new literature which will be as
vigorous as the new Europe which came out of the
smelting pot of the Dark Ages.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
But notably, Emerson's smelting pot metaphor was recorded in his
personal journals and not public in his lifetime. It remained
unknown to the public for nearly seventy years until Emerson's
journals were first edited and released posthumously in nineteen twelve.
Emerson's private observations of this smelting pot may have initially

(17:18):
been idealistic, but over time his tone grew more in
line with Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams. In his
Society and Solitude Essays, he noted that despite the mixture
of races in America, one still.

Speaker 7 (17:30):
May yet find a rose water that will wash the
Negro white. He sees the skull of the English race
changing from its Saxon type under the exigencies of American life.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
In other words, Emerson doubted that racial difference, especially involving
Black Americans, could be so easily erased. He even observed
that the English race itself was changing under American life.
Emerson became skeptical of an American melting pot where all
ethnic groups would blend equally into a homogeneous American Eyees identity.

(18:04):
He instead saw a melting pot that wood and should
be driven by Anglo Saxons. In his eighteen fifty six
essays entitled English Traits, Emerson wrote.

Speaker 7 (18:14):
These Saxons are the hands of mankind. They have the
taste for toil, a distaste for pleasure or repose, and
the telescopic appreciation of distant gain. They are the wealth makers.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
He praised Anglo saxon industriousness and energy, implying an innate
drive that propels industry and prosperity.

Speaker 7 (18:35):
The Saxon works after liking or only for himself, and
to set him at work, all dishonor fret and barrier
must be removed, and then his energies begin to play.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
In other writings, Emerson quantified the dominance of Anglo Saxons.
By his calculations, the United States excluding slaves, had twenty
million people, so that, together with the British Empire, roughly
sixty million English speaking people horror in his.

Speaker 7 (19:03):
Words, governing a population of two hundred and forty five
million souls.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
Emerson was arguing that the Anglo Saxon character was shaping
world affairs. So the trajectory of Emerson's view on the
melting pot evolved, starting from an early idealistic belief in
a collective, creative fusion of races, followed by a recognition
of persistent racial distinctions. Emerson was an abolitionist, but he

(19:29):
had a persistent confidence in Anglo Saxon energy as the
defining cultural force of an American melting pot. Other nineteenth
century American thinkers were seeing this melting pot phenomenon as well,
including black abolitionist and statesman Frederick Douglas.

Speaker 8 (19:49):
We are a country of all extremes, ends and opposites,
the most conspicuous example of composite nationality in the world.
We should welcome all who can assimilate with us, we
are to become the most perfect national illustration of the
unity and dignity of the human family.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
American thinkers and philosophers have been witnessing and publicly describing
this melting pop phenomenon since the founding of the United States.
So in nineteen oh eight, when Israel Zangwill debuted his
Melting Pop play in Washington, d C. It described something
everyone felt. The play became an immediate sensation. President Theodore Roosevelt,

(20:31):
who attended the premier, reportedly loved the play and helped
elevate the phrase's cultural impact. The show toured nationally and
was a success wherever it landed, but the Melting Pot
was still primarily a vision of immigrants assimilating to the
Anglo Saxon template of American culture. However, after the outbreak
of World War One, a new cosmopolitan movement surfaced that

(20:54):
wanted to tear down this model and replace it with
a multicultural version of America.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
Hey, Fambam, we'd love to hear from you on the
question what's an American? Send us a short audio recording
under a minute, and we may play it on air.
You can use your phone or however you'd like to
record it, send it to info at Redpilled America dot com.
We'd love to hear from you, Like Ignacio and Tanya
from California.

Speaker 9 (21:27):
An American is a citizen who belongs to the nation
that recognizes that all men are created equal and are
endowed by our Creator with certain natural human rights, among
them being life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness.

Speaker 10 (21:43):
Hey, Patrick and Adriana, this is Tanya out in the
Joshua Tree Yuca Valley area. What's an American having the
freedom to choose? I hope this helps.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
Welcome back to red pilled America. At the peak of
World War One in nineteen sixteen, progressive writer Randolph Bourne
penned Transnational America for the far left literary magazine The Atlantic.
In it, he challenged the melting Pot idea, arguing its

(22:19):
suppressed cultural diversity and reinforced Anglo Saxon dominance.

Speaker 11 (22:25):
No reverberatory effect of the Great War has caused American
public opinion more solicitude than the failure of the Melting Pot.
We have had to listen to publicists who express themselves
as stunned by the evidence of vigorous nationalistic and cultural
movements in this country among Germans, Scandinavians, Bohemians, and Poles,
while in the same breath they insist that the Aliens
shall be forcibly assimilated to that Anglo Saxon tradition which

(22:48):
they unquestioningly label American born.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
Saw the United States as a nation of immigrants, with
none being able to make an indigenous claim on American principles.

Speaker 11 (22:58):
We are all foreign born or the descendants of foreign born,
and if distinctions are to be made but between us,
they should rightly be on some other ground than indigenousness.
The early colonists came over with motives no less colonial
than the later. They did not come to be assimilated
in an American melting pot. The Anglo Saxon element is
guilty of just what every dominant race is guilty of

(23:18):
in every European country, the imposition of its own culture
upon the minority peoples.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
Warn argued that the Anglo Saxon origin of American culture
was a myth. Instead, the country was the first transnational society.

Speaker 11 (23:32):
In a world which has dreamed of internationalism, we find
that we have all unawares been building up the first
international nation in this effort, we may have to accept
some form of that dual citizenship which meets with so
much articulate horror among US. Dual citizenship we may have
to recognize as the rudimentary form of that international citizenship
to which, if our words mean anything, we aspire. We

(23:54):
have assumed unquestioningly that mere participation in the political life
of the United States must cut the new citizen off
from all sympathy with his old allegiance.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
Borne was effectively arguing for a United States where its
citizens could have a stronger allegiance with their ancestral lands
than with America.

Speaker 11 (24:11):
Along with dual citizenship, we shall have to accept, I think,
that free and mobile passage of the immigrant between America
and his native land again, which now arouses so much
prejudice among us. To stigmatize the alien who works in
America for a few years and returns to his own
land only perhaps to seek American fortune again is to
think in narrow nationalistic terms. It is to ignore the

(24:31):
cosmopolitan significance of this migration. America is coming to be
not a nationality but a trans nationality, a weaving back
and forth with the other lands of many threads of
all sizes, and colors.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
Borne closed by arguing that the Anglo Saxon driven melting
pot needed to be destroyed and replaced with a multicultural
model that celebrated hyphenated Americans.

Speaker 11 (24:54):
The Anglo Saxon attempt to fuse will only create enmity
and distrust. The crusade against hyphenates will only inflame the
partial patriot of transnationals and caused them to assert their
European traditions in strident and unwholesome ways. But the attempt
to weave a holy novel international nation out of our
chaotic America will liberate and harmonize the creative power of

(25:16):
all these peoples, and give them the new spiritual citizenship,
as so many individuals have already been given of a world.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
Randolph Bourne's message resonated with progressive intellectuals, liberal educators, and
immigration activists. Transnational America marked the emergence of a globalist
movement in its infancy, but it would take a series
of unlikely events before this movement would fully be able
to unlock America's gates to mass immigration. In nineteen oh seven,

(25:52):
the United States experienced a financial crisis. It quickly spread
to Mexico, whose economy was closely tied to the US.
Falling crop prices and job losses plagued both rural and
urban Mexico. Compounding the issue was a rise in the
cost of living. Wages declined or stagnated, while Mexican elites

(26:13):
were largely insulated from the impact. The situation destabilized the
Mexican government of President Porfidio Dias, whom many began to
view as a dictator. After over thirty years of ruling,
Mexico was on the precipice of civil war, and many
of the country's citizens sought refuge up north in America,

(26:34):
citizens like the Perez family. At the time, in the
United States, there were no numerical limits or quotas on
immigration from Mexico. Mexican nationals could cross the border freely
with little to no restrictions. The US Border Patrol didn't
even exist yet, so Mexican nationals could legally domicile in
the United States. Around the time Mexico's government destabilized, the

(27:00):
Perez family made their way north across the border into America,
setting up camp in El Paso, Texas. In nineteen oh nine,
Their son, clement Martinez Perez, was born just as Civil
War erupted in Mexico, a conflict that would come to
be known as the Mexican Revolution. With his birth in America,

(27:22):
the young Perez found himself in a unique position, with
both of his parents being Mexican nationals. Under Mexican law,
Clement was a Mexican national. At the same time, since
his parents were legally domiciled in the US, Clement could
also be considered a US citizen. He was effectively a
dual citizen, and for any nation, this is where problems arise,

(27:44):
because history has shown that dual allegiances has led the
United States into troubled waters, including war.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
In eighteen oh seven, British sailors boarded an American ship
off the coast of Virginia. They found four American citizens
they claimed were British subjects that had deserted their navy.
Because of England's view that its subjects owed perpetual loyalty
to the crown, the four sailors were effectively dual citizens
of Great Britain and America. The British seized the U

(28:14):
s sailors, an act that outraged Americans and President James
Madison alike. The US would eventually declare war against Great Britain,
igniting the War of eighteen twelve. Over the course of
the nearly three years, almost three hundred thousand American troops
were pulled into the conflict, Over twenty two hundred American
servicemen were killed, and British troops burned down much of Washington,

(28:38):
d c. Including the White House. And it was all
ignited by the issue of dual citizenship. Congress would later
pass legislation reaffirming the right of Americans to renounce national allegiances,
including with the United States. This is all to say
that the issue of dual citizenship was and is no
small matter. Even in modern times. It has brought America

(29:01):
into deadly conflict.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
So when the Perez family left an unstable Mexico, giving
birth in nineteen oh nine to their son, Clement Martinez
Perez on American soil, the family was adding to this
old dual citizenship conundrum. After Perez's birth, the Mexican Revolution
went on for ten years, but by nineteen twenty the
country stabilized and many of the Mexican nationals that had

(29:23):
taken refuge in the United States began migrating back to
their home country, including ten year old Clement Martinez Perez
and his family. Perez would live the next three decades
plus in Mexico. In nineteen thirty two, he married a
Mexican national. The two would raise seven children together at
their home in Mexico. Then, in nineteen forty one, at

(29:44):
the outbreak of World War II, by law in America, Perez,
who was then thirty two, was required to register for
military service, just as my paternal grandparent, Rudolfo CARELCI had done.
Rudolfo was born in Mexico City in nineteen fourteen. In
nineteen twenty three, like the Perez family, Ridolpho in emigrated
to America legally through El Paso, Texas. He would eventually

(30:07):
marry my paternal grandmother, Margarita in nineteen thirty eight. Margarita
was also born in Mexico and immigrated to America via
El Paso, Texas as well. Both my paternal grandparents were
Mexican nationals. They started their family in Los Angeles, but

(30:29):
as the outbreak of World War two hit, Rudolfo and
Margarita didn't move back to Mexico, so Rudolfo could avoid
military service. Instead, when my grandfather Rudolfo was twenty six
years old. He registered for the draft. He would eventually
go on to serve in World War II, and was
naturalized as a US citizen in the process, but Clement
Martinez Perez dodged the draft. Instead of enlisting, he decided

(30:53):
to profit from the war. In July nineteen forty three,
with most able bodied men off to war, America experienced
a labor shortage took advantage of the situation. He applied
for temporary admission to work in the United States, but
not as an American citizen. He claimed to be a
Mexican national born in Mexico, and there was a reason

(31:15):
for that. He knew American citizens that didn't enlist were
breaking the law. Perez was avoiding the draft, and in
many ways it made sense. He had no allegiance with
the United States. His family, wife, children, home, and his
entire life was in Mexico, as was his allegiance. In
March nineteen forty four, he returned to Mexico, only to

(31:38):
apply again for admission into the US to work as
a Mexican alien. As World War II heated up, he
returned to Mexico in November nineteen forty four, and would
later admit he did so to avoid the draft. While
Perez was hiding in Mexico, Americans like Frederick Coon's and
Mary Cox by maternal grandparents enlisted in the US military.

(32:00):
Frederick and Mary worked in the same hangar who met
on a Friday. They married the next day. People that
felt an allegiance to America were enlisting and creating families
in the United States. But that's not what Clement Martinez
Perez did. In nineteen forty six, he voted in the
Mexican presidential election. There was no question about it. His

(32:21):
allegiance was with Mexico, not America. Yet when World War
Two ended, Clement wanted back into America, but this time
as an American. Welcome back to red pilled America. In
nineteen forty seven, Clement Martinez Perez applied at the El

(32:44):
Paso Port of Entry as a US citizen. He was
brought before a board of special inquiry. Clement admitted that
he avoided US military service during World War II. He
also admitted to voting in the Mexican presidential election the
year earlier. At the time, these were serious admissions that
were tantamount to renawnouncing one's U S citizenship. Prior to

(33:06):
World War II, Congress was faced with dealing with some
alarming issues. First, Congress had real diplomatic concerns about Americans
participating in foreign politics. For over a decade, the State
Department was already treating Americans of foreign origin who voted
in their ancestral countries as having accepted that country's nationality.

(33:27):
A nineteen thirty four State Department memorandum noted that a
naturalized American of Italian origin who votes in general elections
in Italy would be regarded as having accepted Italian nationality.
In other words, US officials believed voluntarily voting in a
foreign election signified a shift in allegiance. Foreign allegiance was
a critical element of the first Citizenship Clause in the

(33:49):
Civil Rights Act of eighteen sixty six and later constitutionalized
in the Fourteenth Amendment. Legislators feared that an American voting
in another country's political contest could cause serious embarrassments or
be seen as acts against US interests. So Congress passed
the Nationality Act of nineteen forty, which deliberately made voting

(34:10):
in foreign elections a ground for loss of citizenship. In
order to protect US foreign relations. No one wanted to
create another war of eighteen twelve situation. When World War
iiO kicked off, many Americans left or remained outside the
US to evade the draft. Lawmakers warned that these people
who had voluntarily put aside their U. S citizenship for

(34:33):
the duration of the war could undermine the morale of
fighting U. S forces by later returning home to enjoy
the fruits of victory without having shared in the burden.
Stripping citizenship from wartime deserters or draft evaders was viewed
as a deterrent and a way to remove that threat,
So in nineteen forty four, Congress amended the Nationality Act

(34:53):
of nineteen forty adding a provision that deemed military desertion
during wartime as an expatriating act. So, when Clement Martinez
Perez admitted to both voting in a foreign election and
draft dodging, the Immigration Service ruled that these acts caused
him to expatriate himself under the Nationality Act of nineteen
forty They ordered his exclusion from the United States. He

(35:16):
appealed the decision, but it was affirmed. During the appeals process.
Perez was denied entry into the US, but he wasn't
giving up. In nineteen fifty two, he re entered the
US on a visa as an agricultural labourer, this time
claiming to be a Mexican national. But after his visa
expired on May fifteenth, nineteen fifty three, he surrendered to

(35:39):
immigration authorities in San Francisco, again asserting he was a U.
S citizen. A special inquiry officer held a hearing and
found that Perez lacked a valid immigration visa. The officer
ordered him deported as an alien. Perez appealed this ruling
as well, but the Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed the

(35:59):
deportation order. That's when Perez connected with the am Mayor
and Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU. The ACLU had a
model to follow. You may remember that in eighteen ninety eight,
Wang Kimark connected with an immigration activist organization, the Chinese
Consolidated Benevolent Association or CCBA, to sue the US government

(36:21):
to be recognized as an American citizen, while the ACLU
played that role for Perez. In nineteen fifty four, Perez
sued in a U. S. District court seeking a judicial
declaration that he was a US national. After a bench trial,
the court concluded that under the Nationality Act of nineteen forty,
Perez lost his US citizenship. Perez appealed the District Court's decision,

(36:45):
and again in July nineteen fifty six, the Ninth Circuit
affirmed the lower court's judgment, so in nineteen fifty seven,
Perez took his case all the way to the U. S.
Supreme Court.

Speaker 4 (36:56):
The proceeding is an action for a declaratory judgment that
the petitioner is a citizen of the United States. The
District Court denied petitioner that relief, and the judge that
he was not a citizen of the United States. That
decision was affirmed by the court below, which is the
Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In each
of the two courts, two provisions of the Nationality Act

(37:19):
of nineteen forty as a mandate, were held to have
taken away the American citizenship, which the petitioner admittedly once had.
The first provision is sub section E of Section four
O one, which decrees that any American citizen, whether native
born or naturalized, who votes in a foreign political election

(37:40):
or plebiscite shall lose his American citizenship. The second provision,
which is sub section J of the same section four
O one, decrees a like fate for any citizen, lady, foreign,
or naturalized who remains outside of or flees the United
States to avoid military service. Your honors will recall that
in this case the petitioner was found to have done

(38:02):
both of those.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
Perez's lawyer, Charles A. Horsky, opened by stating the facts
that led to this Supreme Court review and then got
to the central question of the case.

Speaker 4 (38:12):
A question of issue, then is simply this, does Congress
have the power under the Constitution to declare that native
foreign citizenship shall be fourth it if a citizen votes
in a foreign political election or remains outside of the
United States to avoid military service. Those two sections are

(38:33):
the ones involved in this case.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
Perez's attorney conceded that there were acts a US citizen
could undertake that would give Congress the constitutional right to
revoke a person's citizenship.

Speaker 4 (38:45):
What Congress can do under the Constitution is to provide
that a citizen, a native foreign citizen, cannot undertake voluntarily
to divide his allegiance with another sovereign state. We concede
that that is well within the constitutional power of coming. Hence,
it may provide, as it has done, that an American citizen,
native born or naturalist, who acquires nationality in another sovereign state,

(39:11):
or who takes an oath of allegiance to another sovereign state,
forfeits his own American citizenship, whether he wants to or not.
Those are the most ancient and the most conclusive expressions
of intention to abandon citizenship, as this Court has noted,
and in order to avoid or minimize the international complications

(39:31):
that might well come from divided allegiance or divided responsibility,
we agree that Congress may declare that a man cannot,
in effect have two masters, and that if he elects
a new one, he is deemed conclusively to have agreed
to abandon the oll.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
But Perez's attorney argued that it was unconstitutional to strip
Perez of his birthright citizenship from merely voting in a
foreign election or evading the military draft.

Speaker 4 (39:57):
There is no finding here that petitioner knew or had
reason to know, that by the acts he did, he
was forfeiting his American citizenship. We believe that each of
these sub sections exceeds the power which is vested in
Congress by the Constitution. In a word, we believe that citizenship,
native born citizenship, citizenship acquired by birth in the United

(40:20):
States is a constitutional right which accept possibly as a
criminal punishment which is not involved here, cannot be made
forth it for the doing of acts such as these.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
Supreme Court Justice Frankfurter signaled that he disagreed.

Speaker 4 (40:37):
I find it.

Speaker 12 (40:38):
Very difficult russ the city of and judgment on Congress
and determining that a person who flowed in his lot
the political society of another nation.

Speaker 6 (40:47):
May not equally well accomplicate inquire the nations.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
Arguing on the side of the government was Solicitor General
of the United States Jay Lee Rankin. He opened by
pointing out that Perez's Council had already conceded that Congress
has the right to pass legislation dealing with the problem
of dual citizenship.

Speaker 12 (41:04):
The Council concedes that if there is a problem of
dual citizenship or allegiance that is divided between several countries,
he can recognize a need for the type of action
that Congress has dealt with in this section four O one.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
Rank And went on stating that there was no question
that under the laws of both the US and Mexico
that Perez could claim citizenship in either country.

Speaker 12 (41:31):
There is a specific finding that he was born of
Mexican parents, both father and mother born in the United States,
which would give him citizenship under the laws in both countries.
That is a fact to be dealt with in this case.
So here we have a man who's, on the face
of the record, was a citizen of both countries.

Speaker 4 (41:53):
Now let's see where his allegiance was.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
Rank And went on to provide the long history of
Perez claiming over and over again to being a Mexican
city when it benefited him, his living in Mexico for
over thirty years, marrying a Mexican national, and raising seven
kids solely in Mexico. Rancan mentioned Perez's voting in the
Mexican presidential election and his admitted evasion of the US

(42:17):
military draft. Not only was he evading his obligation as
a US citizen, rank And argued, but he was also
reaping the benefits of being a Mexican national by applying
for US work visa programs designated for Mexican nationals time
after time. Rank And argued, Clement Martinez Perez was presented
with opportunities to show his allegiance. Was he a Mexican

(42:39):
national or an American citizen? And every time he said
he was Mexican, except for when World War II was over.

Speaker 12 (42:46):
Now, in view of that history, is he a Mexican
national or is he an American citizen? What is he
trying to do time after time he said.

Speaker 4 (42:55):
Is a Mexican.

Speaker 1 (42:56):
Rancan noted that Congress didn't just pull this ability to
revoke citizenship out of thin air.

Speaker 6 (43:01):
Here you have.

Speaker 12 (43:02):
Before what seems to me the more a forty uri case,
or you have dual citizenship problem, because there, according to
the whole history of our country, the Congress is solving
something fundamentally dealing with the clashes between sovereign nations, and
it must be dealt with in order for our country

(43:23):
to be able to handle foreign affairs.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
A war has been started over this issue of dual citizenship.
Legislation has been passed throughout US history giving citizens the
right to expatriate from any country, including the United States.
So by continually claiming to be a Mexican national, Rankin
argued that Perez was expatriating from the US. Congress performed
years of investigations about the types of conflicts that could

(43:48):
arise from the issue of dual citizenship, and rank And
quoted Congress's findings.

Speaker 12 (43:53):
Taking an active part in the political affairs of a
foreign state by voting in a political election thereum is
believed to involve attachment and practical allegiance there too, which
is inconsistent with continued allegiance to the United States, whether
or not the person in question has or acquired the

(44:16):
nationality of the foreign state.

Speaker 5 (44:18):
In any event, it is not believed that.

Speaker 12 (44:20):
American national should be permitted to participate in the political
affairs of foreign state and at the same time retained
his American nationality. The two facts would seem to be
inconsistent with each other. Now, that was what these administrative
departments said after a careful study of this problem, as

(44:41):
they had been dealing with it over a period of years.
In the conduct of the government.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
Rankin admitted that Congress could not just revoke you as
citizenship for any criminal acts.

Speaker 12 (44:52):
I certainly would not say that you can take citizenship
away from American citizens for any crime. I think that
there has to be a fundamental connection between the obligations
to that citizenship and the particular act that you're dealing

(45:13):
with when you say that he is expatated, loses citizenship
because of that.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
But in the case of Perez, rank And argued he
was taking actions that were directly connected to his citizenship.

Speaker 4 (45:24):
This is a.

Speaker 12 (45:25):
Cardinal element of citizenship that there's an obligation if you
want to be a citizen to preserve the very life
of the country that you claim you're.

Speaker 1 (45:34):
A citizen of.

Speaker 12 (45:36):
Those are the very most fundamental things about the preservation
of the country and citizenship, and the citizenship in my concept,
and I'm confident in most Americans, involves obligations on both sides,
the country and the individual. And certainly there's no question about.

Speaker 4 (45:58):
The value of them to the citizen and what he
gets in this about all others in the world.

Speaker 12 (46:05):
But on the other hand, he had a certain responsibilities.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
In March nineteen fifty eight, in a six to three decision,
the Supreme Court found that by voting in a foreign election,
it was constitutional for Congress to revoke the U s
citizenship of Clement Martinez Perez. Since that was enough to
allow Perez's deportation order to stand, the Court declined to
rule on the draft of aasion aspect of the case,

(46:32):
but the decision was monumental. The U. S. Supreme Court
was effectively saying that the Fourteenth Amendment protects birthright citizenship,
but if a person voluntarily places themselves under the sovereign
control of another nation, they are stepping outside the jurisdiction
and protection of the U. S. Constitution, and Congress could
validly recognize that by withdrawing citizenship, retaining dual citizenship was

(47:09):
grounds for losing American citizenship. Allegiance as the cornerstone of
American citizenship was preserved, but as the nineteen sixties came
to a close, a movement began to gain steam. This
movement would take Randolph Bourne's transnational America idea, package it

(47:29):
with a warped interpretation of the wonkim Ark decision, and
then bring it all together with a Fourteenth Amendment that
was stripped of the amendment's history. They mixed this altogether
to make a weapon of mass immigration, and then they
turned to a US president to drop their weapon on
the American people. Every American whoever lived, with the exception
of one group, was either an immigrant himself or a

(47:51):
descendant of immigrants.

Speaker 8 (47:52):
We are a nation of immigrants.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
Coming up on Red Pilled America.

Speaker 13 (47:57):
The fact that far over four decades, the immigration policy
of the United States dates has been twisted and has
been distorted by the harsh injustice of the national origin's
quota system. Under that system, the ability of new emigrants
to come to America depended upon the country of their birth.

(48:20):
Only three countries were allowed to supply seventy percent of
all the emigrants. Today, with my signature, this system is abolished.

Speaker 2 (48:36):
Red Pilled America is and iHeartRadio original podcast. It's owned
and produced by Patrick Carrelci and me Adrianna Coortez Fromformed Ventures.
Now you can get ad free access to our entire
catalog of episodes by becoming a backstage subscriber. To subscribe,
just visit Redpilled America dot com and could join in
the top menu. Thanks for listening.
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