Wong Kim Ark’s departure statement
National Archives
In August 1895, 24-year-old Wong Kim Ark returned home to San Francisco after a visit to China. He carried a departure statement attesting to his identity and legal status as a United States citizen born on American soil. But John H. Wise, collector of customs, refused to acknowledge this status, arguing that because Wong’s parents weren’t naturalized, he was ineligible for birthright citizenship. Wise ordered Wong deported, citing the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years and barred Chinese people from becoming naturalized citizens.
Wise wasn’t the first to raise concerns about the legal status of children of Chinese ancestry born in the U.S. Nativist objections to these individuals’ birthright status (known as the jus soli principle) first emerged with debates over the 1866 passage of the 14th Amendment, which stated that all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. were citizens. Some white observers in the American West interpreted the amendment as an avenue for individuals of Chinese ancestry to procure citizenship but not equal civil rights, including the right to vote.
If Wise successfully stripped Wong of citizenship, his children (who were born in China but eligible on the basis of the jus sanguinis, or “right of blood,” principle) would lose their status as citizens, too. With no legal pathway to naturalization, they’d be permanent aliens if they chose to live in the U.S. On a broader scale, all children whose parents weren’t naturalized at the time of their birth would risk losing their citizenship.
Wong’s ID photograph Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
Wong’s case would also have strengthened the U.S. government’s efforts to…
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