According to the excerpt by Lopez, White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race, the criteria for citizenship required individuals to be “white,” to fit a classification established by generally accepted as “common knowledge,” which we now know as rooted in pseudo-scientific racial claims. However, it is really up to the whim of the Supreme Court, because after ruling against Ozawa, whose claim as “white” was based in part on the literal shade of his skin, the Supreme Court contradicted itself three months later so that it could rule against Thind. This time the court argued that according to the common man and the common knowledge, the anthropological definition of Caucasian is irrelevant; through ignorance the common man may exclude people with dark skin as not “Caucasian” and not “white.” Therefore only “white” people as defined by the Supreme Court were eligible for citizenship.
In the film, Meeting at Tule Lake, the criteria were the renunciation of citizenship of all other countries and loyalty to the Emperor of Japan. They must have absolute loyalty to the United States but were still refused citizenship. Agreeing to the questionnaire effectively forced them to become stateless indefinitely. If they answered no they were sent to Tule Lake, labelled as disloyal by both white Americans and other Japanese Americans. They could not refuse to answer the questionnaire or else the government would fine them $10,000 and imprison them for 20 years. They were also expected to serve in the armed forces. If the camps were created to identify spies and neutralize their threat, then forcing them to join the army contradicts the foundational purpose of the camps. Therefore Executive Order 9066 was not justified because “the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage,” but rather the mere stripping away of rights, “the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave” the internment camps. The public fear of Japanese Americans, the animosity and desire to enforce control over them, to discriminate against Asian Americans, was the true motivation for the camps.
While legally the United States government recognizes the citizenship of people with the documents to prove it, socially if you are not white your citizenship is constantly challenged. For example, Kamala Harris is a citizen by law because she was born in California. Yet political opponents have targeted her as unfit for the office of Vice President, inventing a requirement that her parents had to be naturalized citizens at the time of her birth, highlighting her supposed foreignness because of her Jamaican and Indian parents. Therefore, they are really saying that she does not belong and is not part of America. I believe that living here peacefully, having a dedication to democracy, freedom, equality, and human rights, are what should be in the heart and soul of every American citizen.
Hey Garey,
I understand what you mean when you say socially if you are not white your citizenship is constantly challenged. It is the sad truth. America really digs through everything they can including records and any signs of a person tying back to their home country to prevent the person from becoming a citizen. I have seen the way people criticize Kamala Harris because of where her parents are from, but my parents are also born in Jamaica and migrated here. I was born here in the U.S. and I see myself as Jamaican in heart and nobody can take that away from me by saying I am not an American when I do everything an American is required to do.