11/3/05 Dallas Morning News: “Parks benefited all minorities,”
By Esther Wu
    In 1867 Chinese railroad workers along the Sierra Nevada in California went on strike after demanding the same wages as white workers. The Chinese, who were given the more dangerous jobs of blasting through the mountains with dynamite, were paid an average of $26 a month while Irish workers were paid $36. The strike ended when the Chinese, weak from hunger, were forced back to work – without a raise. 
    In many states, laws were passed to prevent Asians from owning property or businesses. Some states set boundaries where Asians were permitted to reside. In the 1800s, California enforced a labor tax on Chinese workers. During the 1890s, Texas Judge Roy Bean dismissed a case of an Irish man killing a Chinese worker, saying, "The laws are explicit on murdering your fellow man, but there's nothing here about killing a Chinaman." 
    In 1885, the parents of 8-year-old Mamie Tape sued the San Francisco Board of Education for refusing to admit their daughter to a public school. They lost their case when the state hastily created a separate school for children of Mongolian or Chinese descent. The California Supreme Court justices ruled that because a separate, but equal, school was available, the public school did not have to admit their daughter. 
    In 1927, in Gong Lum vs. Rice, the Supreme Court ruled that a Mississippi school district could legally require a Chinese-American child to attend a black school rather than a white school under the same law. These two cases predated Brown vs. the Board of Education that was first appealed in 1951 and which would eventually abolish segregated schools. 
    In the 1950s, Jim Crow laws ruled in the South. These laws forced people of color – Hispanics, blacks, Native Americans, Asian-Americans – from enjoying the same rights and privileges as non-minorities.
    All people of color were banned from using the front entrances of hotels and restaurants. They were also relegated to the balconies of movie theaters and the backs of buses.

8/5/04 www.imdiversity.com: "Born in the U.S.A.: The landmark legal case of Wong Kim Ark, and how Asian-Pacific Americans won the right to be Americans,"
By Frank H. Wu,  Howard University
    Like most Americans, I have almost always taken my citizenship for granted. But like some Americans, I have had my citizenship challenged often enough to realize that I should care about its origins. I was born a citizen, but birth alone did not always confer citizenship.
    All of us who care about our civil rights should realize that we owe a measure of our shared equality to an individual named Wong Kim Ark. A century ago in California , Wong took on the federal government in an effort to win his right to remain in his homeland. 
    His legal case ended up in the Supreme Court. His victory shows how, despite recurring racial prejudice, our country can remain true to its ideals. It is worthwhile to reflect on our history, not to condemn the past by contemporary standards, but to understand how we came to where we are now. There are valuable lessons in these forgotten episodes. 
    In the middle of the nineteenth century, Chinese immigrants began to arrive here. They were recruited to work on Southern plantations and Eastern factories. More than ten thousand of them helped build the transcontinental railroad; when they finished the job, they were fired.
    In frontier towns such as San Francisco , Chinese laborers represented more than a quarter of the population at times. But with an economic downturn, whites – many of whom themselves were recent arrivals to the United States – saw non-whites as racial competition. Politicians began to agitate against them, shouting the rallying cry, "The Chinese Must Go!"
    In 1882, heeding warnings that Asians might overwhelm the West Coast, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. As the name of the bill suggested, it prohibited most people of Chinese descent from coming to this country.
    Later, Congress would extend the policy to create an Asiatic Barred Zone. In the 1920s, the Supreme Court confirmed that Japanese and Asian Indians were not "free white persons" and thus could not naturalize.
    After Exclusion, contrary to images of a submissive subculture isolated from the mainstream, Chinese communities engaged in civil disobedience. Chinese who were already present when Exclusion passed were allowed to stay. They could sponsor their children as immigrants under an exception to the act. So they brought in "paper sons," men who claimed falsely to be their descendants.
    Chinese communities also organized themselves to protest their exclusion through politics and lawsuits. The Wong case was only one example.
    What is most remarkable about the period of Chinese Exclusion is that is was then that birthright citizenship emerged as a constitutional doctrine.
    Wong Kim Ark had sued to be re-admitted to the birthplace, after taking a trip to China . He argued that by virtue of his birth on its soil he was a citizen of the United States , even though his parents were racially barred from achieving that status.
    In opposing Wong, the federal government argued in its court briefs, "There certainly should be some honor and dignity in American citizenship that would be scared from the foul and corrupting taint of a debasing alienage."
    The Solicitor General asked, "Are Chinese children born in this country to share with the descendants of the patriots of the American Revolution to exalted qualification of being eligible to the Presidency of the nation?"
    He answered, "If so, then verily there has been a most degenerate departure from the patriotic ideals of our forefathers; and surely in that case American citizenship is not worth having."
    Rejecting these racial arguments, the Court based its ruling on the Fourteenth Amendment. That provision of the Constitution is familiar as the source of "equal protection of the laws."
    The Court gave a literal interpretation to its opening lines, that "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."
    By doing so, the Supreme Court united racial minority groups. For the Fourteenth Amendment had been passed to overturn the notorious 1857 Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott case, which declared that blacks were not citizens. Thus, because African Americans were citizens, Asian immigrants could be citizens as well – and vice versa.
    Today’s debate over birthright citizenship brings the connection full circle. Opponents of birthright citizenship have focused on Latino immigrants. They have said that Mexican women wait until they are about to go into labor, and then cross the border to have American children, supposedly to gain government entitlements. This spectacular racial stereotype is the symbolic sister to the "welfare queen" in the Eighties – the African American single woman who has children solely to obtain public benefits.
    With anxieties about immigration, some demagogues have renewed calls for a racial vision of United States citizenship. They forthright in their claim that this is a white (and Christian) nation by heritage. Other writers have tried to pit communities of color against one another, suggesting that African Americans should oppose immigration, and immigrants should oppose affirmative action. Yet what African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, and everyone else should see through Wong Kim Ark is the citizenship status we enjoy depends on the citizenship of others. Abolishing birthright citizenship would ensure inherited privilege: an individual would be bound by the status of their parents.
    I believe that birthright citizenship guarantees our most basic right, to remain in the land of our origin. It signals both that we belong to the nation and that the nation belongs to us.

5/19/04 Dallas Morning News: "Little-known cases, big impact,"
by Esther Wu
    Monday marked the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision, which declared segregated schools unconstitutional.
    However, long before the parents of 7-year-old Linda Brown in Topeka, Kan., filed their suit, the parents of another little girl fought to get their daughter into a public school in San Francisco. Historically there hasn't been much fanfare about the 1885 case of 8-year-old Mamie Tape, which reached the California Supreme Court.
    But it was just one of many significant lawsuits filed by Asian-Americans that have affected the lives of all Americans:
    • Tape vs. the San Francisco Board of Education and Spring Valley School, 1885. The California Supreme Court ordered the school to admit Mamie Tape, but officials hastily lobbied the state Legislature to pass a provision to create schools for children of Mongolian or Chinese descent. Legislators decreed that when such separate schools exist, the children must not be admitted to any other school. In effect, they introduced the separate but equal doctrine that would eventually lead to the constitutional basis for segregation nationwide. In 1890, Homer A. Plessy challenged a Louisiana law requiring separate train cars for blacks and whites, but U.S. Supreme Court justices – based in part on the Tape decision – ruled that the "separate but equal" facilities were constitutional.
    • Gong Lum vs. Rice, 1927. The Supreme Court ruled that a Mississippi school district could legally require a Chinese-American child to attend a black school rather than a white school, applying the "separate but equal" rule that later would be challenged in Brown vs. Board of Education.
    • United States vs. Wong Kim Ark; 1898. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government couldn't take away a person's birthright. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which restricted Chinese immigrants from entering this country and denied them citizenship. Before that act was repealed, Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco in 1873, left the United States and upon his return was denied entry on the grounds he was no longer a citizen. The court ruled the government could not deny Mr. Wong his citizenship.
    • Yick Wo vs. Hopkins, 1886. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned a San Francisco ordinance aimed at restricting the location of Chinese laundries. The justices said the ordinance targeted a racial minority and therefore violated the constitutional rights of equal protection under the law.
    • Lau vs. Nichols, 1973. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the San Francisco school system violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by denying non-English-speaking Chinese students the opportunity to fully participate in a public education. The justices said providing students with the same books; teachers and curriculum did not necessarily ensure student's equal opportunities if instructions were in a language students could not understand. The case would help pave the way for English as a Second Language programs.
    Unlike the previous cases, a recent ruling by a Tennessee judge involving a Chinese immigrant couple has drawn concern from Asian-American civil rights groups.
    In Baker vs. He, a state district judge ruled last week that Jack and Casey Luo He were unfit parents and awarded custody of their 5-year-old daughter to her foster parents, Jerry and Louise Baker. The Hes, who have custody of their two younger children, said they had given temporary custody of their oldest child to the Bakers while they were undergoing financial difficulties. The Bakers said the Hes abandoned their daughter.
    While there were many factors in this case, the judge noted that Mrs. He could not speak English. He further noted that the couple – which may be deported over immigration issues – might take their daughter back to China, where there is a "one-child-per-family" policy.

9/28/02 San Jose Mercury News: "Extending rights won by Wen Ho Lee,"
    Cecilia Lee Chang, founder of WenHoLee.org, has formed Justice for New Americans.  The Fremont human relations commissioner is taking 
her experience fighting for the rights of Wen Ho Lee, the wrongly accused scientist, to the people.  The new group plans to educate the public about how and why new Americans can easily be targeted as scapegoats under the guise of national security.  And it plans to take some cases to court.
    More than 170 of those cases reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

1999 Daily Princetonian: "Korean Americans organize rally against 
racism in Palisades Park, NJ,"
    Chanting "Fairness yes, racism no" and holding signs reading 
"Y is there racism in Y2K?," a handful of University students protested 
the treatment of Korean Americans in Palisades Park yesterday, 
joining forces with more than 1,500 people in the Peace Rally Against Racism.
    The protesters, many of whom were students from Rutgers, 
Columbia, and New York universities, were rallying against public 
statements against Korean Americans in the Bergen County town and business curfew laws, which the town's Korean- American community believes limits their 
earnings.
    P.J. Kim '01, a Korean American who spoke at yesterday's rally 
and helped organize the trip to Palisades Park, said student activism 
can be powerful in combatting hatred.
    "As university students, we have more knowledge of American 
history, and we know that there is a cycle with these problems. We 
know that this isn't the first time and this probably won't be the last 
time," Kim said.
    Conflict
    Much of the tension began last month when Korean- American 
merchants, whose stores make up 90 percent of Palisades Park's 
business, succeeded in protesting a town business curfew they felt 
curbed their profits. According to The Record of Bergen County, 
however, Korean- American retail merchants still believe they are 
unfairly affected by the town business laws, which prohibit all retail 
sales after 9 p.m. They say police patrol Korean-owned stores and 
fine them as much as $500 when they close just five minutes past the 
hour.
    "If the rally means revealing ugliness in this small town, then yes, 
by all means, I want people to know," Kim said.

5/28/02 Associated Press: "Many States Pushed to Eliminate Racist Anti-Asian Laws,"
    Topeka, Kan. -- Nearly seven decades after the Legislature banned 
Asian immigrants from inheriting property in Kansas, the law is about to 
be struck from the books.
    Only three states -- Kansas, New Mexico and Florida -- still have ``alien land laws.''  Kansas is about to repeal its version; New Mexico voters will decide in November and Florida has taken no action.
    The Alien Land Law Project at the University of Cincinnati Law School (Alien Land Law Project: http://www.law.uc.edu/inlr/all/) brought the laws to the attention of the three states plus Wyoming, which repealed its statute 
last year.
    In Kansas, Gov. Bill Graves is expected to sign the bill (SB 492) 
repealing the 1933 law barring Asians from inheriting property. Originally, 
the law passed in 1925 barred Asians from owning property in the state.
    ``I'm real proud of the fact that Kansas is stepping up and repealing a discriminatory Jim Crow era statute,'' said Rep. John Burroughs, D-Kansas City. ``It says a lot about how we feel about Kansas citizens.''
    Burroughs, who represents a large Asian community, said the statute 
was brought to his attention by Jack Chin, head of the Alien Land Law Project.
    The project was organized by Chin, a law professor, and law students 
at the University of Cincinnati. It was inspired by the repeal of interracial marriage laws in Alabama and South Carolina.
    The United States specifically limited immigration of Asians from 1862-1965. During that span, more than a dozen states passed laws banning Asian immigrants from owning and inheriting property.
    California was the first in 1913. The prohibition moved east with states taking the language directly from federal naturalization law. Immigrants who violated the laws faced imprisonment, fines and seizure of their property.
    Most states did away with the laws between 1940 and 1960.
    Legislatures and elected officials in Kansas, Florida, New Mexico and Wyoming received detailed legal memoranda documenting the history of 
the laws and arguments for repeal from Chin's project.
    Last year, the Wyoming Legislature repealed its 1943 alien land law, which had been enacted in response to placement of Japanese aliens in 
an internment camp in the state.
    ``It didn't actually specify Japanese, but it was worded in such a way 
that the practical application was Japanese who were aliens in Wyoming, couldn't buy land,'' said Wyoming state Sen. Keith Goodenough, 
D-Natrona, who sponsored the bill.
    All of the alien land laws are now unconstitutional under federal law, but Chin believes they should still be repealed.
    In New Mexico and Florida, repealing the statutes is more difficult 
because they are in the state's constitutions. Voters, not lawmakers, would have the final word.
    New Mexico voters will make that choice in November.
    The proposed constitutional amendment was introduced by state Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque, who had been contacted by law students 
at the University of New Mexico.
    McSorley said the effort to amend the constitution faced virtually no opposition, but some worried that voters might reject it because they didn't understand the issue.
    ``If it was defeated at the polls it would be a monumental setback for civil rights in the state and some thought it would be better to let sleeping dogs 
lie and not take the chance,'' he said.
    Florida is the only state that hasn't acted on the restrictions.
    Legislative staff in Florida were surprised the language was in the state's constitution and that nothing had been done about it. Calls to the governor's office Friday were not returned.
    The Alien Land Law Project said Rep. Phillip Brutus, D-Miami Shores, 
had planned to introduce a bill this year to deal with the issue, but did not. Brutus was on vacation and unavailable for comment Friday.
    With three of the four states taking action, Chin said the project is now focusing on all immigration laws. He said the group's work on the issue in Florida would be turned over to lawyers and law students there.
    Another part of the effort was a letter signed by 100 law professors from across the country sent to the states. Robert Porter, a law professor at the University of Kansas, said it was necessary for states to clean up the legal remnants of discrimination.