1898 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a child born in the U.S. to Chinese immigrants was a U.S. citizen. This meant that they could not be deported under the Chinese Exclusion Act.

(March 28) marked 120 years since the Supreme Court determined that U.S.-born children of immigrants are United States citizens. The Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) revisits this decision in a video posted on Facebook yesterday.

The clip explains that Wong Kim Ark, the child of Chinese immigrant parents in San Francisco, visited China and successfully returned to America several times. But in 1894, customs officials denied him re-entry under the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which barred most Chinese immigrants from admission and citizenship.

Wong fought the decision, and the prevailing xenophobia toward Asian Americans, through several legal battles. His fight ended in 1898 with the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark. Justice Horace Gray wrote in the court’s opinion that the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment granted citizenship to anybody born on U.S. soil:

for the complete article: colorlines.com