This Month in History: In re Ah Yup rules Chinese ineligible for naturalized citizenship on April 29, 1878
This Month in History: In re Ah Yup, April 29, 1878
On April 29, 1878, the Ninth Circuit Court in California denied Ah Yup (a Chinese immigrant) the right to naturalize, citing the 1802 naturalization laws and all Revised Statutes that had been passed since. At the time of Ah Yup’s petition, the laws granted all “free white persons” as well as all “aliens of African nativity, and… persons of African descent” the right to naturalize. Writing for the Court, Judge Sawyer ruled that a “Mongolian” is not a “white person,” and he provided a brief anthropological statement about the prevailing classifications of “race” at the time. The Court ruled that Mongolians could not be classified as “white,” and made it clear that the existing provisions prevented all except “whites” and individuals of African descent from naturalizing.
W.T. Baggett, ed., Pacific Coast Law Journal, vol. 1. San Francisco: W.T. Bagget & Co., 1878.
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