Wong Kim Ark v U.S.

Wong Kim Ark (黃金德; Toisanese: wong gim 'ak; Cantonese: wong gam dak; Mandarin: huáng jīn dé) was born in San Francisco, California, sometime between 1868 and 1873. His father, Wong Si Ping and his mother, Wee Lee were immigrants from Taishan, China and were not United States citizens.

Wong’s case is influential to Asian American Popular Culture due to his court case’s effect on all Asian Americans born in the United States today. In 1890, Wong’s parents returned to live back in China. To his surprise, Wong found himself back in the states that year and was allowed back into the United States on the grounds, “upon the sole reason that he was a native-born citizen of the United States.”

Four years later, unfortunately the immigration circumstances had changed and Wong, who was a San Francisco cook at the time, sailed to China for a temporary visit in 1894. After his visit, Wong traveled back to San Francisco only to find that he was to be detained at the Port of San Francisco by the Collector of Customs and denied permission to enter the country because Wong was now considered “not a citizen” due to the fact that his parents were not U.S. citizens. This came as a shock to Wong since he was born and raised in the city and county of San Francisco. According to the logic of U.S. customs at the time, Wong’s parents and all other descendents of first generation Chinese immigrants were subjects of the Emperor of China and not to be considered loyal to America. Since the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act that was placed by congress prohibited all persons of Chinese descent from coming to the United States or becoming naturalized citizens, Wong was previously able to enter the country though the fact that he was a natural born citizen.

Seeing this problem as one that affected all Chinese American citizens, Wong challenged this situation with the Supreme Court case “Wong Kim Ark v. US,” which called upon to decide whether an American-born person of Chinese decent could constitutionally be denied U.S. citizenship and be excluded from the country. Chief Justice Melville Fuller, who presided at the hearings expanded on the idea that the history of U.S. citizenship law had broken with the idea of English law tradition; thus embracing the U.S. right of expatriation and the rejecting the British doctrine of perpetual alliance.

After analyzing the evidence regarding Wong Kim Ark case, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Wong and also acknowledged the notion that children of foreigners that acquired U.S. citizenship through birth on U.S. soil should be granted full rights. Despite this ruling for all foreigners and their American born children, many saw Chinese individuals in a different light due to their strong cultural traditions which were discouraging to mainstream American society, the inevitable fact that pledging allegiance to U.S. citizenship was a capital crime in China, and that the current provisions of the Chinese Exclusion act made Chinese immigrants already in the country still ineligible for citizenship.