Pod Insights Stuff You Missed in History Class United States vs. Wong Kim Ark About this episode The 1898 supreme court case called United States vs. Wong Kim Ark had affected enforcement of the Chinese Exclusion Act, because the court found that people born in the U. S. to Chinese parents were U. S. citizens.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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0:45 Tracy V. Wilson? Robert, Mick, Bill, and Jessa strut back down memory lane for season two, sharing lessons on life, love, and loss. These are the kind of insights that only come from experience. So tune in to Silver Linings with The Old Gays on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Workplace chaos. We've all been there. Deadlines are slipping, projects are piling up, and suddenly you realize the missing piece is the right person. That's when you say, this is a job for sponsored jobs. With Indeed Sponsored Jobs, your job post gets a boost so you can connect with quality candidates faster. In fact, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs.
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1:42 Holly Frey? We've all tumbled down an internet rabbit hole trying to self-diagnose, and it leaves us more anxious than informed. Our feeds are full of wellness trends, but how do we know what's real, what's exaggerated, and what's just wrong? Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association breaks it all down. Emmy-nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez talks to doctors, influencers, and real people trying these trends, not to cancel them, but to understand them. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. So listen to Health vs. Hype wherever you get your podcasts.
2:14 Tracy V. Wilson? Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeart Radio.
2:25 Tracy V. Wilson? Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
2:29 Holly Frey? And I'm Holly Frey.
2:31 Tracy V. Wilson? Last year, we did an episode on artist Tyrus Wong, who was instrumental in developing the look and feel for Disney's Bambi, along with creating just a prolific amount of other really beautiful work across multiple media. Wong had been brought to the United States as a child at a time when the Chinese Exclusion Act banned immigration to the United States from China. And one of the things we talked about in that episode was how a Supreme Court case called the United States versus Wong Kim Ark had affected how the US could enforce the Chinese Exclusion Act. Because the court had found that people who were born in the US
3:13 Tracy V. Wilson? to Chinese parents were US citizens. When we did that previous episode, I said that United States versus Wong Kim Ark was another topic that was on my episode list. And we got a number of emails from listeners saying that they were looking forward to getting that one. Obviously, this has become newly relevant in light of the Executive Order on Birthright Citizenship issued by President Donald Trump on Inauguration Day. So I moved it to the top of the list.
3:46 Tracy V. Wilson? I just want to note, we are currently at a place where we are writing and recording episodes a couple of weeks before they come out. Honestly, I could not even keep up with all the news and commentary about this executive order as I was researching and writing the episode. And we cannot predict what might happen with it between writing and recording the episode and when it actually hits your ears in a couple of weeks. This is not going into any kind of detail about the executive order or the constitutional arguments around the executive order. This is about the historical Supreme Court case.
4:26 Holly Frey? So to talk about the US Supreme Court's decision in United States versus Wong Kim Ark, we need to work our way back a few steps. The Constitution is the supreme law of the United States, and it forms the foundation of the federal government. When it went into effect in 1789, it didn't explicitly define what a citizen was or how a person became a citizen. At the same time, it contained language that made it clear that citizenship existed and was important. Article 2, Section 1 said that, quote, "No person except a natural-born citizen or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution shall be eligible to the office of President."
5:11 Holly Frey? Article 4 also included the clause, quote, "The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states."
5:22 Tracy V. Wilson? The Constitution didn't define citizen or natural-born. But for the most part, the way citizenship worked in the United States was following ideas from English common law. Although there was some nuance around who was considered a full citizen and who had the right to vote, there was also a basic understanding in English common law that people born in the monarch's realm were subjects of the monarch. Of course, the United States is a republic. It is not supposed to have monarchs or subjects. But the basic idea carried over that people born in the United States were citizens of the republic.
6:06 Tracy V. Wilson? In terms of legal theory, this is known as usoli or the right of the soil. The idea that citizenship is inherited from a person's parents is common in other systems, and it is known as usanguinus, or the right of blood.
6:22 Holly Frey? Over the decades that followed, various laws and court decisions related to US citizenship in some way, and to the idea of who could be a citizen. One was Dred Scott versus Sanford, which was decided in 1857. We did a two-part episode on this case that came out on July 16th and 18th of 2018. But briefly, Dred Scott and his wife Harriet had been enslaved, and when their enslaver died, they were living in free territory. The Scots sued for their freedom on the grounds that since they were taken to free territory, they were free. The US Supreme Court did not answer the question of whether that was the case.
7:05 Holly Frey? Instead, it said that the issue was outside its jurisdiction. Writing, quote, "A free Negro of the African race whose ancestors were brought to this country and sold as slaves is not a citizen within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States." That meant that the Scots did not have the right to sue in federal court.
7:27 Tracy V. Wilson? A few years later, multiple states seceded from the Union over the issue of slavery, and the United States Civil War began in 1861. After the war ended in 1865, part of the US government's focus was reuniting and rebuilding the country, at time known as Reconstruction, which also involved trying to address the harms of centuries of slavery. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude except in punishment for a crime, was ratified in December of 1865.
8:05 Tracy V. Wilson? Early the following year, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, or "An Act to Protect All Persons in the United States in Their Civil Rights and Furnish the Means of Their Vindication."
8:21 Holly Frey? This said, in part, “All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States, and such citizens of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right, in every state and territory in the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and
9:05 Holly Frey? to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, to the contrary notwithstanding.” President Andrew Johnson vetoed this bill, and Congress overrode that veto on April 9, 1866.
9:35 Tracy V. Wilson? This was the first U.S. law to define citizenship, and it overturned Dred Scott versus Sanford. But legislators understood that laws can be repealed, and if that happened with this law, people would use the Supreme Court decision to justify trying to bar people with African ancestry from citizenship. Constitutional amendments are a lot harder to change than laws are. They have to be passed by a two-thirds majority of Congress and then ratified by three-fourths of the states before they go into effect, and then they can only be repealed if a new amendment goes through that same process. So, as they were working on these
10:15 Tracy V. Wilson? constitutional amendments after the Civil War, very similar language was added to the first section of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
10:39 Holly Frey? Today, that language is known as the Citizenship Clause. It explicitly repudiated the Dred Scott decision and added a clear definition of who was a US citizen to the Constitution: people born in the United States or naturalized.
10:57 Tracy V. Wilson? There were, of course, limited exceptions. It didn't spell out what was meant by, quote, "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." But this was generally interpreted as referencing a few very specific groups. Diplomats from other countries were not under US jurisdiction. They were under the jurisdiction of the country they were serving. So any children born to them in the United States were not US citizens. Also, if a foreign army were to invade the United States, or if foreign soldiers were in the United States for some other reason, they also would not be subject to US jurisdiction,
11:42 Tracy V. Wilson? so their children also would not be considered citizens.
11:46 Holly Frey? A third group not considered to be under US jurisdiction was indigenous people, who were described as Indians not taxed in the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and in other language in the 14th Amendment. And there is some critically important context here. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was passed by the Senate in 1866 and ratified two years later. This was near the end of what some historians describe as the treaty-making era of federal Indian policy. At a very basic level, a treaty is an agreement between two sovereign nations. The treaties we're talking about in this case were generally skewed in favor of the
12:28 Holly Frey? United States, and they were connected to ongoing violence and genocide against indigenous people. But they still rested on the idea that the United States was one sovereign nation and the indigenous nation was another. So in the view of the authors of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment, indigenous people were first and foremost under the jurisdiction of their own sovereign indigenous nation, not of the United States, even though the United States had created and imposed systems that kept those indigenous nations dependent on the United States for their survival.
13:08 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah, there's some really very meme-y, and in my opinion overly reductive discourse going around the internet and social media about this right now. It was primarily about tribal sovereignty, even in a limited sense of tribal sovereignty that was actually existing. When it was written, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was deeply controversial, but it's clear that the people who drafted it understood that it would grant citizenship to everyone born in the United States without regard to race or color, with the exception of the very specific groups we just mentioned. That is what they intended for it to do.
13:52 Tracy V. Wilson? Part of the whole point was that we were no longer going to have classes of people who, by their heredity, were excluded from citizenship. This had been addressed during congressional debates over the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which was the origin point for this language in the 14th Amendment. I am going to read some of this. Heads up, there's a term in here that is considered a slur today. So Edward Cowan of Pennsylvania asked, quote, "whether it will not have the effect of naturalizing the children of Chinese and gypsies born in this country." Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, who was chair of the committee that drafted the bill,
14:33 Tracy V. Wilson? answered, quote, "undoubtedly," before continuing, quote, "is not the child born in this country of German parents a citizen?" Cowan answered, quote, "the children of German parents are citizens, but Germans are not Chinese." And then Trumbull answered this with, quote, "the law makes no such distinction, and the child of an Asiatic is just as much a citizen as the child of a European."
15:00 Holly Frey? When Senator Jacob Howard of Michigan introduced similar language as part of the 14th Amendment, he described it as declaratory of what he saw as the law of the land already. He described it as excluding, quote, "foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the government of the United States." And after some additional discussion, language was adjusted so that it would be clear that it also excluded indigenous people for the reasons that we already talked about. Then Cowan brought up the same question he'd asked about the Civil Rights Act of 1866, talking about the subject at length.
15:40 Tracy V. Wilson? This time, Cowan was answered by John Connors of California, which was the state in which most of the Chinese immigrants to the United States were actually living. Connors said, quote, "The proposition before us relates simply in that respect to the children begotten of Chinese parents in California, and it is proposed to declare that they shall be citizens. We have declared that by law. Now, it is proposed to incorporate the same provision in the fundamental instrument of the nation. I am in favor of doing so. I voted for the proposition to declare that the children of all parentage, whatever, born in California should be regarded and treated as citizens of the United States, entitled
16:24 Tracy V. Wilson? to equal civil rights with other citizens of the United States." Connors also went on at length, the transcripts of both of these comments are very long, before saying, quote, "We are entirely ready to accept the provision proposed in this constitutional amendment, that the children born here of Mongolian parents shall be declared by the Constitution of the United States to be entitled to civil rights and to equal protection before the law with others."
16:53 Holly Frey? So while it's clear that this language was intentionally drafted in a way that would include the children of Chinese immigrants as citizens, there were also plenty of people, including lawmakers, who did not want a law or amendment that would do that. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment were both passed and ratified over these objections. Under the Reconstruction Act of 1867, the states that had seceded from the US were required to ratify the 14th Amendment in order to rejoin the Union. And some people argued that because of this, the amendment itself was not valid. But again, that was
17:33 Holly Frey? not about the meaning of the citizenship clause. There were controversies around other provisions of the 14th Amendment as well, but those are outside the scope of what we're talking about today.
17:45 Tracy V. Wilson? Almost immediately, people who did not want this to be in the Constitution started trying to find a way to get a legal interpretation of "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" that would exclude specific groups of people from the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment. Initially, a big focus of that was the children of Chinese immigrants. That led to the United States versus Wong Kim Ark, and we will get into that after a sponsor break.
18:15 Speaker 03 First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?
18:18 Tracy V. Wilson? Hey, everybody, it's Tracy from Stuff You Missed in History Class. That's Alan Goya, a planning engineer at AT&T. He's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T Fiber and 5G, defining the fan's experience. And Alan's master plan made it all possible.
18:38 Speaker 03 It was going to rival anything that was already built, and that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.
18:46 Tracy V. Wilson? That includes Field Services Manager Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.
18:53 Speaker 04 Through what Alan's whole crew designed, we connected the event visitors to the world.
18:59 Tracy V. Wilson? And after years of hard work and collaboration, it was opening night.
19:02 Speaker 04 To actually see the whole stadium light up and data is flowing is a beautiful thing.
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19:12 Speaker 05 Connecting changes everything. AT&T.
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20:00 Tracy V. Wilson? ADT home security in a snap. Head to ADT.com/BLU to build your system today. And to hear more about home protection and other grown up topics, check out new episodes of grown up stuff on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
20:22 Tracy V. Wilson? Guess who's back in the house? The old gays return for season two of Silver Linings, their hit podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Just wait until you hear what hosts Robert McMillan and Jessa have in store this time around. They strut back down memory lane navigating life, love, loss, and everything that shaped them along the way. And as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits. These are the kinds of insights that can only come from experience. So listen to your elders, honey, and discover the silver linings you can take with you. All sass, zero filter,
21:04 Tracy V. Wilson? and decades of perspective from four friends proving that queer joy only gets better with age on the podcast that never gets old. Listen to Silver Linings, available on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
21:22 Tracy V. Wilson? For any small business owner, there's a moment when you realize the next hire could be the difference between staying busy and actually growing. The challenge is finding the right person without wasting time sorting through candidates who aren't the right fit. That's where Indeed Sponsored Jobs comes in. When workplace chaos hits and you need someone who can step in and make a difference, this is a job for Sponsored Jobs. It helps put your job in front of candidates who match the criteria that matter most to you, whether that's skills, experience, certifications, or location. And you're certainly not alone in using Indeed. Join the 3.3 million employers worldwide that use Indeed to connect with quality talent that fits their needs. That's millions of businesses turning to Indeed.
22:05 Tracy V. Wilson? To help solve hiring challenges and find people who can help drive results. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. Get your $75 sponsored job credit today at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now, then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.
22:39 Tracy V. Wilson? Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco, California, probably sometime between 1869 and 1873. Different documents give different years. His mother's name was Wee Lee and his father was Wong Si Ping. Wong Si Ping was a merchant, part of a firm called Kwang Sing and Company. And Wong Kim Ark was born in his parents' home above his father's shop on Sacramento Street. It's not clear exactly when the Wong family first arrived in the US, although one document describes it as, quote, "a long time prior to his birth." At the time, immigration between China and the United States would have been governed by treaty.
23:21 Tracy V. Wilson? If it was after July 28, 1868, that would have been the one known in English as the Burlingame Treaty. Among other things, this treaty removed restrictions on immigration to the US from China and specified that such immigration did not confer naturalization upon Chinese citizens in the US or vice versa. Chinese people in the United States had always faced racism and bigotry, and that escalated as more people came to the US from China. This was also tied to things like jobs and economic conditions. A lot of Chinese laborers had come to the US during the California Gold Rush.
24:01 Tracy V. Wilson? And as long as the Gold Rush was booming, their labor was really welcomed by employers, even if they as people were being shunned and disparaged. When the Gold Rush ended, though, they needed to find new work and were seen as taking jobs from white workers. The same cycle happened again with the Transatlantic Railroad. Chinese workers were an enormous part of that effort, but then faced immense hostility after the railroad was finished in 1869.
24:32 Holly Frey? Chinese immigrants were also described as a "unassimilable race", meaning that they were not willing or able to assimilate with white communities. Laws and unwritten rules forced Chinese immigrants to live in small, isolated enclaves, and then they faced judgment and bigotry for continuing to speak Chinese and observe Chinese norms and social customs. There was also mob violence against these communities, including a massacre in Los Angeles in 1871 and a violent and deadly attack on San Francisco's Chinatown on July 24th, 1877.
25:12 Tracy V. Wilson? We talk a lot more about that in the episode on Chai Changping versus the United States, which we just ran as a Saturday classic. We don't know for sure why the Wong's decided to return to China, but it was after this 1877 attack. Living in the United States also would have been incredibly isolating for Weili. There were only about 5,000 Chinese women in the entire country, and within the Chinese community, it wasn't considered appropriate for women of her station to be out in public among strangers.
25:48 Holly Frey? Wong Kimark was still a child when his family left for China. A few years later, when he was in his teens, he returned to the United States with an uncle, and he started working as a dishwasher and a cook in mining camps in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. In 1889, when he was about 19, he visited China again, and he got married there. The Chinese community in the United States was, as the statistic Tracy just mentioned makes clear, overwhelmingly male, and an anti-masogeneration laws made it illegal for them to marry people of other races. So if he wanted to get married and have children, his only real option was to do so in China.
26:30 Holly Frey? While his wife was pregnant with their first child, Wong returned to the United States, where he could make more money to support his family.
26:38 Tracy V. Wilson? Wong made another visit to China in 1894. He had prepared a departure statement before leaving the United States, which read, quote, "Whereas Wong Kim Ark, whose photograph is here to attach, is about to depart for China, intending to return to the United States, and is entitled to return thereto. Now, therefore, for the better identification of the said Wong Kim Ark, and in order to facilitate his landing upon his said return, we, the undersigned, do hereby certify that the said Wong Kim Ark is well-known to us, that he was born in the city and county of San Francisco, state of California, that his father, Wong Si Ping, was a merchant
27:23 Tracy V. Wilson? and a member of the firm of Kwong Sing and Company, number 751 Sacramento Street, in the said city and county of San Francisco, state of California." This was signed by three white witnesses, who also gave their addresses. It was notarized, and it was signed and stamped by the inspector on Wong Kim Ark's departure.
27:47 Holly Frey? It was not enough. When Wong returned to the US in August of 1895 aboard the SS Coptic, John H. Wise, described as a, quote, "zealous opponent of Chinese immigration", was the collector of customs for the port of San Francisco. And Wise refused to let Wong into the country, claiming that he was not a citizen. Wong was detained aboard the Coptic.
28:13 Tracy V. Wilson? By this point, the United States had banned immigration from China under the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. In 1888, the SCOTC Act had also made it illegal for Chinese immigrants who left the United States to return. This, again, is stuff that we talked about in our most recent Saturday Classic. In 1892, the Geary Act had also extended the Chinese Exclusion Act for another 10 years, and it had specified that if a writ of habeas corpus was issued for a Chinese person who was denied entry into the United States, no bail would be allowed for that person. The US Supreme Court had upheld this as constitutional the following year.
28:58 Tracy V. Wilson? Legally, Chinese immigrants also could not be naturalized as citizens.
29:03 Holly Frey? So if Wong Kim Ark had been an immigrant, wise would have been legally justified in keeping him out of the US. The Chinese Exclusion Act did contain exceptions for diplomats, travelers, merchants, teachers, and students, and since Wong was a cook, this didn't apply to him. But he wasn't an immigrant. He had been born in the United States, so under the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, he was a US citizen.
29:33 Tracy V. Wilson? Some of Wong's friends filed a writ of habeas corpus to try to get him released, and soon, the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, also called the Chinese Six Companies, stepped in. The Chinese Six Companies had started out as a charitable and mutual aid organization focused on the needs of Chinese immigrants to the US. By this point, their work had expanded to include legal defense, including on immigration issues. They had attorney Thomas D. Ryerden on retainer, and Ryerden started working with Wong's case. When the Coptic left port, Wong was moved to another ship, the Gaelic, and then moved from the Gaelic to the Peking.
30:16 Tracy V. Wilson? Finally, on January 3rd, 1896, after he had been forced to live aboard these ships for almost six months, Judge William Morrow ordered him released on $250 bond.
30:30 Holly Frey? The United States filed an appeal, and this wasn't just about keeping Wong out of the country. Like we said earlier, there had always been people who objected to the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause. Officials like Wise and the U.S. Department of Justice were looking for a test case that could go all the way to the Supreme Court with the hope that the courts would define the phrase "subject to its jurisdiction" as excluding the children of Chinese immigrants born in the U.S.
31:01 Tracy V. Wilson? From the DOJ's perspective, Wong Kim Ark was the perfect test case for this for a number of reasons. He had been born in the United States to Chinese parents who had lawfully entered the country. Apart from visits to China, he had been living in the United States, almost all of it in the same neighborhood of San Francisco for many years. His wife and children were living in China, so there would be no dramatic headlines about the federal government breaking up a family if he was deported, and also, no family left in the United States without financial support. Wong had no criminal record, and he paid taxes. Since he was working as a cook, they also didn't expect him to have a lot of money
31:46 Tracy V. Wilson? available to try to mount a legal defense.
31:50 Holly Frey? From the perspective of Wong and his supporters, the idea of winning a Supreme Court case probably seemed really doubtful. The Chinese Six Companies had very skilled attorneys, and they had had some success with lower courts, but none of the cases that had gotten all the way to the Supreme Court had been found in their favor. The Supreme Court had also issued a decision on a group of cases known as the Slaughterhouse Cases in 1873. That is a whole other topic, but part of the decision was that the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments had been written in the context of free and formerly enslaved Black people, and that their protections did not necessarily apply to people of other races.
32:35 Tracy V. Wilson? We will look at the case as it went to the Supreme Court after a sponsor break.
32:44 Tracy V. Wilson? Guess who's back in the house? The old gays return for season two of Silver Linings, their hit podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Just wait until you hear what hosts Robert McMillan and Jesay have in store this time around. They strut back down memory lane navigating life, love, loss, and everything that shaped them along the way. And as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits. These are the kinds of insights that can only come from experience. So, listen to your elders, honey, and discover the silver linings you can take with you. All sass, zero filter, and decades of perspective from four friends,
33:27 Tracy V. Wilson? proving that queer joy only gets better with age on the podcast that never gets old. Listen to Silver Linings, available on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
33:43 Tracy V. Wilson? For any small business owner, there's a moment when you realize the next hire could be the difference between staying busy and actually growing. The challenge is finding the right person without wasting time sorting through candidates who aren't the right fit. That's where Indeed Sponsored Jobs comes in. When workplace chaos hits and you need someone who can step in and make a difference, this is a job for Sponsored Jobs. It helps put your job in front of candidates who match the criteria that matter most to you, whether that's skills, experience, certifications, or location. And you're certainly not alone in using Indeed. Join the 3.3 million employers worldwide that use Indeed to connect with quality talent that fits their needs. That's millions of businesses turning to Indeed to help solve hiring challenges
34:27 Tracy V. Wilson? and find people who can help drive results. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. Get your $75 sponsored job credit today at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now, then this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.
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35:24 Holly Frey? We've all done it, tumble down an internet rabbit hole trying to self-diagnose. And sometimes doing our own research can leave us more anxious than informed. Your feed is packed with wellness trends telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep. But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association and iHeartMedia's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy-nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez, who's racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel, and YouTube, talks to doctors, influencers, and real people trying these trends. Not to cancel them, not to hype them
36:08 Holly Frey? more, but to actually understand them. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Start asking better questions and listen to Health vs. Hype on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
36:33 Tracy V. Wilson? The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in United States versus Wong Kim Ark in early March of 1897. Wong's representatives argued that the Constitution was established on the principles of English common law that we mentioned earlier in the episode. They also argued that interpreting the 14th Amendment in a way that meant Wong was not a citizen would also apply to a lot of other people who had been born in the United States, to immigrants from other countries. Specifically, a whole lot of other people who were considered to be white. Thomas D. Ryerden, who we mentioned earlier, spelled this out in an interview that he gave during all of this, saying,
37:17 Tracy V. Wilson? quote, "Think of all the people in this country who have been born of parents who owe allegiance to either Great Britain, Germany, Italy, or some other European power. Are all these people to be declared not citizens?" He said that there might be 200,000 people in that position, but he also called that a low estimate.
37:39 Holly Frey? The United States' argument was that while Wong had been born in the US, he was, quote, "by reason of his race, language, color, and dress, a Chinese person." They argued that, under international law, children received the citizenship of their parents, not citizenship based on where they were born. That's the just sanguineous idea that we mentioned earlier in the episode.
38:05 Tracy V. Wilson? The Supreme Court issued its decision more than a year later, on March 28, 1898, the day after Inauguration Day. The court ruled in favor of Wong, 6 to 2. There were nine justices, but Justice Joseph McKenna didn't participate. He had replaced Justice Stephen Field, who had retired after the oral arguments but before the decision was issued.
38:31 Holly Frey? The majority opinion in this case includes pages and pages and pages of earlier decisions related in some way to citizenship, starting with people who had been born in the British colonies before the Revolutionary War, and whether those people had been considered British subjects, which they had. There were also cases involving people born in England to foreign parents, with those children also considered British subjects. Over and over again, these cases involve scenarios in which children were considered citizens of the place they were born, regardless of their parents' citizenship. This opinion even referenced the dissent in Dred Scott versus Sanford, which said in part, quote, "The first section
39:16 Holly Frey? of the second article of the Constitution uses the language, 'a natural-born citizen.' It thus assumes that citizenship may be acquired by birth."
39:27 Tracy V. Wilson? The opinion went on to say, quote, "Passing by questions once earnestly controverted but finally put at rest by the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, it is beyond doubt that before the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 or the adoption of the constitutional amendment, all white persons, at least born within the sovereignty of the United States, whether children of citizens or foreigners, excepting only children of ambassadors or public ministers of a foreign government, were native-born citizens of the United States." Later on, the opinion said, quote, "As appears upon the face of the amendment,
40:09 Tracy V. Wilson? as well as from the history of the times, this was not intended to impose any new restrictions upon citizenship, or to prevent any persons from becoming citizens by the fact of birth within the United States who would thereby have become citizens according to the law existing before its adoption. It is declaratory in form and enabling and extending in effect. Its main purpose doubtless was, as has been often recognized by this court, to establish the citizenship of free Negroes, which had been denied in the opinion delivered by Chief Justice Taney in Dred Scott versus Sanford, and to put it beyond doubt that all blacks,
40:50 Tracy V. Wilson? as well as whites, born or naturalized within the jurisdiction of the United States, are citizens of the United States." From there, it referenced the Slaughterhouse cases, as well as other cases that had focused on the scope of the Reconstruction amendments, before saying, quote, "But the opening words, 'all persons born,' are general, not to say universal, restricted only by place and jurisdiction, and not by color or race, as was clearly recognized in all the opinions delivered in the Slaughterhouse cases above cited."
41:27 Holly Frey? This decision also reiterated the idea that, at that time, indigenous people were not considered to be US citizens at birth. The Supreme Court had already heard and decided on a case related specifically to this that was Elk versus Wilkins in 1884. This case could also be a whole episode of its own, but briefly, John Elk was Winnebago and had been born on a reservation, but had later renounced his tribal citizenship and begun living in a non-indigenous community. As summarized in the decision of the United States versus Wong Kim Ark, "It was decided that an Indian born a member of one of the Indian tribes within the United States, which still existed and was recognized
42:12 Holly Frey? as an Indian tribe by the United States, who had voluntarily separated himself from his tribe and taken up his residence among the white citizens of a state, but who did not appear to have been naturalized or taxed, or in any way recognized or treated as a citizen, either by the United States or by the state, was not a citizen of the United States as a person born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, within the meaning of the clause in question."
42:44 Tracy V. Wilson? To be super clear, this was not saying he could not become a citizen, just that he had not been one of the United States from birth. The majority opinion ended, "The evident intention and the necessary effect of the submission of this case to the decision of the court upon the facts agreed by the parties were to present for determination the single question stated at the beginning of this opinion, namely, whether a child born in the United States of parent of Chinese descent, who at the time of his birth are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business and are not employed
43:29 Tracy V. Wilson? in any domestic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States. For the reasons above stated, this court is of the opinion that the question must be answered in the affirmative." Chief Justice Melville Fuller and Justice John Marshall Harland dissented. They argued that the amendment should not be interpreted within a framework of English common law, but instead should rest on international law in which citizenship more commonly came from a person's parents. They also argued that the court's interpretation would mean that US citizens' children born while their parents were abroad would be considered aliens in the US.
44:14 Tracy V. Wilson? They cited a small number of earlier cases in which someone's citizenship had been decided based on who their parents were. The dissenting opinion also argued that the children of Chinese immigrants specifically, unlike the children of other immigrants, could not be considered to be completely under US jurisdiction. By treaty and by law, Chinese immigrants living in the United States could not become US citizens. They were still Chinese citizens. And in the dissenting justices' opinions, they were loyal to the emperor, and their children would also be loyal to the emperor because in their religion, quote, "filial
44:59 Tracy V. Wilson? piety is the first and greatest commandment." In spite of the language it contained, in practice, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution did not mean that everyone in the US actually had access to things like due process and equal protection under the laws. We have so many episodes about the ongoing patterns of discrimination and racism that continued after it was ratified. And this court case did not mean that people like Wong Kim Ark were suddenly regarded as US citizens on equal footing with white people born in the US. There were still plenty of people who wanted an interpretation of the 14th Amendment in which that phrase "under the jurisdiction thereof" did not apply to Chinese people.
45:45 Tracy V. Wilson? There have been ongoing efforts in the decades since, which are still going on today to try to get a more narrow reading of that jurisdiction language. Like, right now, one of the arguments is that the court's opinion notes that Wong's parents were lawful, permanent residents with a domicile. So the children of people who aren't permanent legal residents should not be considered citizens. A counterargument to that is when the 14th Amendment was drafted, there wasn't really a concept of illegal immigration, but it did apply to the children of people who had entered the United States illegally, specifically the children of people who had been illegally trafficked after the US banned the slave trade in 1808.
46:29 Tracy V. Wilson? I know that seems like a super problematic argument from the modern perspective, but that was still how it worked. Those were people who were considered to have entered the United States illegally. Their children were citizens. And Chinese immigrants and their children were obviously still subjected to harassment, racism, and bigotry. And this affected Wong Kim Ark and his family directly. In 1901, Wong was arrested and nearly deported from El Paso, Texas, while trying to cross back into the United States from Mexico. He had to convince authorities that he was a citizen. Because Wong was a citizen, by law, his children born in China were also US citizens.
47:14 Tracy V. Wilson? And ultimately, three of his sons were able to enter the United States. But each of them faced detainment and interrogations while trying to do so. An immigration station was built at Angel Island in 1910, and that's where people, mostly from China and other parts of Asia, were put through intense questioning that was designed to try to keep them out of the United States. And they also had to go through humiliating physical exams. We talked more about Angel Island and these interrogations in our episode on Tyrus Wong. One of Wong Kim Ark's sons, Wong Yook-Fun, was refused entry into the United States
47:56 Tracy V. Wilson? and deported back to China in 1911 because investigators at Angel Island claimed his answers had too many discrepancies from his father's. Again, these interrogations were made to be unpassable.
48:11 Holly Frey? Wong Yook Su was also denied entry into the United States in 1924, but was eventually allowed in after Wong Kim Ark testified on his behalf. This is also connected to the paper sons that we talked about in our episode on Tyrus Wong, people who claimed to be the children of US citizens or born in the US, but were really born in China to Chinese parents. Wong Yook Su had been presented as Wong Kim Ark's citizen's son, but in 1960, as part of the US Immigration and Naturalization Services Chinese Confession Program, Wong Yook Su admitted to being a paper son. Wong Kim Ark had died by this point.
48:53 Holly Frey? He had returned to China in 1931, saying he intended to return to the US. But he didn't return, and we don't really know what happened to him after this, or his thoughts about presenting Wong Yook Su as his paper son.
49:08 Tracy V. Wilson? The United States also continued to ban immigration from China after this. In 1904, the Chinese Exclusion Acts were renewed indefinitely. They were not formally repealed until December 17, 1943, which is also when it became legal for Chinese immigrants to be naturalized as US citizens.
49:30 Holly Frey? Also, because the citizenship status of Indigenous people has come up several times in this episode, the Indian Citizenship Act was signed into law in 1924. It read, quote, "Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that all non-citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States, provided that the granting of such citizenship shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian to tribal or other property." Indigenous people themselves had a range of opinions on being granted US citizenship,
50:15 Holly Frey? including some tribes that lobbied heavily against this law. Many of the white people who advocated for it were motivated by the idea that it would help reduce corruption within the Bureau of Indian Affairs, not by the well-being or wishes of the Indigenous people it would apply to.
50:33 Tracy V. Wilson? The executive order that we mentioned at the top of the show doesn't mention the Indian Citizenship Act, or Elk versus Wilkins, or the idea of birthright citizenship for Indigenous people specifically. But a Justice Department filing in response to a motion for a restraining order against the executive order does. That filing cites Elk versus Wilkins and United States versus Wong Kim Ark in its arguments that the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause applies only to the children of US citizens and legal permanent residents of the US. This has led to concerns that there might be an attempt to end birthright citizenship for Indigenous people.
51:17 Tracy V. Wilson? My basic understanding of this is that there is more consensus at this point than a century ago that Indigenous people would like to have US citizenship, as well as the citizenship of their Indigenous nations.
51:32 Holly Frey? Again, it was impossible to keep up with every aspect of what was happening with this executive order while this episode was being researched and recorded. But most legal and constitutional scholars that have weighed in have said that an executive order cannot overrule the Constitution. Instead, what is likely to happen is that this executive order will lead to another test case that will need to make its way to the Supreme Court, as United States versus Wong Kim Ark did.
52:03 Tracy V. Wilson? I have some very... lighthearted is not the right word. It is listener mail that's not about anything of consequence, really. It's just for fun to close this out.
52:14 Holly Frey? Yay.
52:15 Tracy V. Wilson? This is from Randall. Randall wrote in after our recent unearthed installments where we talked about archaeologists leaving messages in bottles at their archaeological sites for future archaeologists to find.
52:28 Tracy V. Wilson? And Randall wrote, hi all. I was interested in the messages found in bottles. We are restoring a 1782 house. Previous owners stripped three rooms of their plaster and lath. We are putting back the lath and replastering with lime plaster. Maybe a substance you should look into since it is a really fascinating product. It cures by capturing carbon. We have seen some articles of people finding shoes hidden in their old houses. Apparently it was to ward off evil. Before I closed the final wall, I stuck in a pair of my old sneakers. They are size 16, double wide, so I figured they will ward off a bunch of evil and give future renovators something to talk about. I love your podcast, Randall. Randall, I love this story.
53:13 Tracy V. Wilson? There historically, I'm just talking specifically about North America, but other places too. Like there have been traditions of putting all kinds of things in walls and up chimneys as an idea of like warding off evil and protecting the house and things like that. And so I just love the idea of centuries from now, an archaeologist being like, is this a thing that people were doing in the year?
53:41 Holly Frey? In my head, there's a great misinterpretation where they're like, this house must have been full of evil spirits because they procured an extra large shoe.
53:53 Tracy V. Wilson? I love that too.
53:55 Holly Frey? I'm a fan of putting surprises in construction. We have done it in our house in several places.
54:01 Tracy V. Wilson? Yes. I just generally like the idea of far in the future. If, you know, if in some way your home specifically, you know, at some time far in the future, rather than having been through a series of additional owners, that your house as is becomes an archaeological site. And
54:21 Holly Frey? I think about this all the time.
54:23 Tracy V. Wilson? Like the focus of archaeological study.
54:25 Holly Frey? Yeah, they're going to be like, there was clearly some sort of religion around this figure and we don't understand it, but there's an altar.
54:31 Tracy V. Wilson? It must have been incredibly important.
54:35 Tracy V. Wilson? Anyway, anyway.
54:38 Tracy V. Wilson? Thanks for giving us a moment to laugh, Randall. If you would like to send us a note about this or any other podcast, we're at [email protected] . If you have not subscribed to the show, you can do that. We're on the iHeartRadio app and really wherever else you like to get your podcasts.
55:01 Tracy V. Wilson? Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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