Category: Discussion Board 7

Honestly what I learned from the readings and video is not surprising at all. It pretty much just supported what I already knew about how exclusive America was (not just legally, but also socially) for a long period of time. In ‘Ozawa and Thind’, it is pretty clear that being white was the gold standard. The fact that Ozawa had to constantly fight over the fact that he isn’t ‘caucasian’ in order to gain citizenship is pretty ridiculous. Why in the world was a person’s skin color at all relevant in becoming a citizen? As Ozawa writes, he also had to prove that he was a ‘fully assimilated’ American in order to gain favor in the court. He discusses how to do this he had to prove that he has no affiliation with any Japanese organizations or communities whatsoever. I think a lot of the difficulty Japanese immigrants had obtaining citizenship (such as having to fill out loyalty questionnaires) comes mostly from the U.S. government’s fear of foreign governments. While I don’t necessarily agree with what they did, in a way I understand that they didn’t really know what to do to keep their country safe so they ended up implementing all these roadblocks.

Also, while Lopez does mention how Europeans had a much easier path to citizenship, as she says “Japanese immigrants shared much in common with their European counterparts, yet every European immigrant group regardless of national origin, had the right of naturalization and precisely because they possessed it no matter how beleaguered they were”, I wouldn’t say they were completely in the clear. There was still plenty of social disdain for specific groups of European immigrants, like the very common anti-Irish sentiments.

I think anybody should be able to become a U.S. citizen, at least socially. What it really means is to just live here and abide by the laws. If you live, work, and pay taxes here, you’re just as American as someone whose family has been here for 5 generations. Obviously skin color is not something that matters whatsoever.

• What I learned from the video and readings about the criteria for citizenship is that if you are a race other than European white, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been living in the U.S it will be difficult to become a citizen because POC don’t have power/privilege’s of their own to defend them. Europeans whites and Asians who were recruited to fight in the war were basically allowed to be citizen or belong to the U.S. According to Lopez it states ” Japanese immigrants shared much in common with their European counterparts, yet every European immigrant group regardless of national origin, had the right of naturalization and precisely because they possessed it no matter how beleaguered they were”. Europeans had more privilege’s to becoming citizens, and Asians had to fill out the loyalty questionnaire to show their loyalty to the U.S.
• Today what i think defines citizenship is when you live, work, and spend your money here in the U.S makes you a citizen because the government is still taking money(tax) from you since money is what it’s all about. People in the military serving the U.S and people who bring money and goods would be considered to be part of the U.S because they’re benefitting the U.S and some of them are not really thinking about the real ones who have to face the fear of their own countries