Bhagat Singh Thind

Prior to the case of United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, the United States implemented a naturalization law known as the Naturalization Act of 1790, in which citizenship would only be granted to “any alien, being a free white person.” And so the prerequisite cases was born, in which any immigrants who wanted to be granted citizenship would have to prove in the court of law that they were indeed “white”. The court would either use scientific evidence or common knowledge to determine if someone was white or not. But not both, due to the In Re Najour case of 1909, in which In Re Najour a dark skin syrian, was granted citizenship after proving that he was indeed “white” in which he won due to scientific evidence. But would of never been granted

Bhagat Singh Thind in 1923, the United States was attempting to revoke Bhagat Singh Thind’s naturalization of citizenship. In which Thind filed for naturalization under the Naturalization of 1906, that only granted “free white persons” and person of “African descent” to become citizens. The case was taken to the United States of the Supreme Court, in which Thind argued that he was indeed white because his people was part of the Aryan race and that he was a “high caste Hindu, of full blood Indian”, therefore making him part of the caucasian race.

Thind was confident in his argument prior to the case, due to a prior case of Ozawa v . United States, in which Takao Ozawa, a native born Japanese was denied citizenship even though he was physically white and had live in America for over 20 years. In which the court denied him citizenship due to scientific evidence, for the court only recognized a white person to be a member of the caucasian race, in which Ozawa was clearly

Does it mean that race is indeed not natural, for it does not exist in nature? Was race merely a social construct that was created in society by the usage of the law? To realize the possibility that race may have in fact be a social construction, would challenge the very nature and social hierarchy of which America has lived by for so long. So the only logical thing to do at that time, was for the court to reject scientific evidence completely, in order to maintain this hierarchy that whites will always be dominant and everyone else would be deemed inferior.

The case of United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, had a profound detrimental impact in which all former Asian Indians prior to this case had their citizenships revoked. And as a result they lost everything, from their homes, to their business, to their very lives in which they were so accustomed to of living in. A devastating impact that severely crippled Asian Indians lives in America, until it was finally revoked and revised with President Harry Truman signing the Luce-Celler Act of 1946 that allowed Asian Indians and Filipinos to once more immigrate to America freely and become