Who gets to be an American citizen?

Summary

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Throughline – "Who Gets to Be an American Citizen?"

Host: NPR (Rund Abdelfatah, Ramtin Arablouei)
Episode Date: April 7, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode of Throughline, hosts Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei take listeners on a historical journey to unpack the concept of American citizenship, focusing on the landmark case of Wong Kim Ark. The episode explores the origins and lasting impact of birthright citizenship, the dynamics of race and exclusion in U.S. history, and the enduring debates over who gets to be an American.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Ever-Evolving Definition of American Identity

• Rund opens by contextualizing the episode in the ongoing national discussion about who is considered an American, highlighting a contemporary Supreme Court case about birthright citizenship (00:23).
• The episode parallels today’s debates with the historical roots of citizenship law, emphasizing that American identity has always been in flux.

2. The Story of Wong Kim Ark

• Wong Kim Ark, a San Francisco-born cook, returns from China only to be denied re-entry to the U.S. despite his birth certificate and U.S. birth (02:59–03:42).

• Historian Amanda Frost illustrates Wong’s shock at being barred from his homeland due to the Chinese Exclusion Act (03:08).

  “I think when he saw San Francisco Bay emerge out of what was likely the foggy morning... he must have been thrilled to think I'm finally back home.” – Amanda Frost, (03:08–03:23)

• Overview of Wong’s family background: Chinese immigrants, owners of a grocery in San Francisco’s Chinatown, caught up in anti-Chinese sentiment and violence (04:14–05:26).

3. Anti-Chinese Sentiment and Legal Exclusion

• Post–Civil War economic downturn leads to Chinese scapegoating. Anti-Chinese violence, such as the 1877 San Francisco Chinatown riots, forces many—including Wong’s family—to leave (05:26).
• Congress enacts several exclusionary laws:
  • Chinese Exclusion Act (1882): bars Chinese laborers from immigration/naturalization
  • Page Act: bars Chinese women except certain categories
  • Geary Act: requires Chinese immigrants to carry ID papers (05:26–06:34)
• Frost underscores the contradiction that laws prevented assimilation while blaming Chinese immigrants for not assimilating (06:34).

4. Wong Kim Ark’s Test Case

• Wong, after returning to China to start a family, is used by the government as a test case to challenge birthright citizenship for children of Chinese immigrants (07:29).
• His case goes through district and appeals courts up to the Supreme Court, questioning the meaning of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the 14th Amendment (07:49–08:28).

5. The Supreme Court’s Deliberations

• Background on the Court: Known for its racism, particularly under Chief Justice Melville Fuller, who presided over Plessy v. Ferguson (09:12–09:20).

  “The Fuller Court is known among constitutional scholars as one of the most racist iterations of the Supreme Court.” – Constitutional Scholar (09:20)

• The government argues Wong is not a citizen due to his parents’ loyalty to the Emperor of China, and that the 14th Amendment is unconstitutional (09:47–10:14).
• Counterargument: Wong’s lawyers ground their case in the long-standing principle of birthright citizenship in English and American common law, arguing that the 14th Amendment codified this (11:14–11:46).

  “If you rule for the government... you will take away citizenship from hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people, including lots of white people.” – Historian/Expert (12:04)

6. The Ruling and Its Ripple Effects

• Supreme Court, in Justice Gray’s opinion, affirms that the Constitution’s language covers “all persons born in the United States,” regardless of parental nationality (12:45–13:42).

  “All persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States.” – Justice Gray (12:45–13:19)

• Notably, this does not extend to Native Americans, due to their unique legal status as members of sovereign nations (13:42).

• The decision is as much about practical implications (potentially disenfranchising millions of European-immigrant-descended children) as justice for Chinese immigrants (13:55):

  “We can't undo the citizenship of the children of immigrants in this country.” – Historian/Expert (13:55)

7. The Legacy of Wong Kim Ark

• Despite winning his case, Wong Kim Ark’s life remains challenging: he is arrested again in 1901 as a suspected Chinese immigrant and held until he proves his citizenship—demonstrating that legal rights did not always protect against discrimination (14:37).
• He eventually returns to China in his 60s, never to come back, leaving a complicated legacy (14:37–15:34).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Amanda Frost on San Francisco Bay:
  “He must have been thrilled to think I'm finally back home and I can get off this boat and go back to my home in San Francisco.” (03:13)

• On Wong as a test case:
  “Unbeknownst to Wang, while he was in China, the US Government had decided it wanted to bring a test case challenging birthright citizenship... So they chose him, and they didn't let him get off that boat.” – Historian/Expert (07:29)

• On the court’s racism:
  “The Fuller Court is known among constitutional scholars as one of the most racist iterations of the Supreme Court that has existed.” – Constitutional Scholar (09:20)

• On the 14th Amendment's breadth:
  “The fact, therefore, that acts of Congress or treaties have not permitted Chinese persons born out of this country to become citizens... cannot exclude Chinese persons born in this country from the operation of the broad and clear words of the Constitution.” – Justice Gray (12:45)

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Timestamps for Critical Segments

• 00:23 – Framing of the modern birthright citizenship debate
• 03:08 – Wong Kim Ark’s return and historical context
• 04:14 – Family roots in San Francisco
• 05:26 – Anti-Chinese riots and exclusionary laws
• 07:29 – Wong’s return, test case origins
• 08:11 – The 14th Amendment and legal arguments
• 09:20 – The Supreme Court’s hostile reputation
• 10:14 – Government challenges the 14th Amendment
• 11:29–11:46 – Lawyers’ defense of birthright citizenship
• 12:45 – Justice Gray reads the decision
• 13:55 – Supreme Court’s pragmatic reasoning
• 14:37 – Wong Kim Ark’s later life and continuing discrimination

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Conclusion

This episode connects history and present by uncovering how the saga of Wong Kim Ark set the precedent for birthright citizenship in America—and why that legacy remains under debate today. Through the voices of historians, legal scholars, and with audio drama, Throughline provides urgent context for a question at the heart of American identity: Who gets to be an American?

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Transcript

[Edward Jones Announcer]

Support for NPR and the following message come from Edward Jones. A rich life isn't always a straight line. Unexpected turns can bring new possibilities. With 100 years of experience navigating ups and downs, Edward Jones can help guide you. Let's find your rich together. Edward Jones, Member, SIPC

[Rund Abdelfatah]

this is America in Pursuit, a limited run series from Throughline and npr. I'm Rund Abdelfatah. Each week we bring you stories about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the US that began 250 years ago. As we've been talking about in this series, who is American and what it means to be American have always been in flux and today that's still true. Just this month, the Supreme Court started hearing oral arguments that those born in the United States are automatically US Citizens, regardless of their parents immigration status. The court will issue a decision this summer and either undo birthright citizenship or uphold the precedent set over a century ago by another Supreme Court case, the case that started it all.

[Edward Jones Announcer]

The question to be determined is whether a person born within the United States States, whose father and mother were both persons of Chinese descent and subjects of the Emperor of China, but at the time of the birth were both domiciled residents of the United States, is a citizen.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Today, Rantin and I bring you the story of Wong Kim Ark, the man behind the Supreme Court case that made birthright citizenship the law of the land until now. That story right after a quick break,

[Edward Jones Announcer]

Support for NPR and the following message come from Edward Jones. What does it mean to live a rich life? It means brave first leaps, tearful goodbyes and everything in between. With over a hundred years of experience navigating the ups and downs of the market and of life, your Edward Jones financial advisor will be there to help you move ahead with confidence. Because with all you've done to find your rich, they'll do all they can to help you keep enjoying it. Edward Jones, Member, SIPC Evergreen trees are

[Jen Chavez]

Pacific Northwest icons in journalism. An evergreen story isn't tied to one news cycle. It goes deep and helps you understand the world. The Evergreen is also a podcast from OPB about the Northwest. I'm Jen Chavez. Listen to the Evergreen podcast from OPB every Monday, part of the NPR Network.

[Narrator]

It all began when Wong Kim Ark, a San Francisco born cook, tried to return to California after visiting China, his parents homeland.

[Historian/Expert]

I think when he saw San Francisco Bay emerge out of what was likely the foggy morning.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

This is Amanda Frost, professor of Immigration law and author of you Are Not Citizenship Stripping. From Dred Scott to the Dreamers he

[Historian/Expert]

must have been thrilled to think I'm finally back home and I can get off this boat and go back to my home in San Francisco.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

But that's not what would happen. To Wong Kim Ark's surprise, a U.S. customs agent declared that he was not allowed to get off the ship and and set foot onto US soil.

[Historian/Expert]

At this point, the Chinese Exclusion act was in effect. And so if you were a Chinese laborer, you were not allowed to enter.

[Narrator]

Wong Kim Ark argued with the customs official.

[Historian/Expert]

He said, yes, I'm a laborer, I'm a chef, but I'm a citizen. And here's the proof. He had his certificates. He knew that he was born in the United States and that meant he was a US citizen.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Wong Kim Ark was born in the US but his parents were not. They came to the United States, like many other Chinese immigrants, looking for work.

[Legal Expert/Commentator]

They opened what was basically a grocery store in San Francisco. And at some point in the early 1870s, their records aren't totally clear, they welcomed a new baby into the world. Wong Kim Ark, all the time he

[Constitutional Scholar]

was in the United States, he lived

[Historian/Expert]

within about a quarter mile of the place where he was born. At first, Chinese immigrants were welcomed. They were helping to build America. They were building the transcontinental railroad. And they were key. They were extraordinarily important and they helped to mine the gold and the precious metals in backbreaking difficult work throughout the West. But then, as so often we see in this nation, there was an economic downturn and they were scapegoated and blamed for the lack of jobs and the poor economy. This country was coming out of the Civil War, the end of slavery. And the white workers were told, the Chinese are the new slaves and they will undermine your work because they will take jobs at lower pay. They're willing to work in slave like conditions and they use that as an excuse for violence and their attempt to drive out Chinese immigrants from the United States.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

1877, a group of angry men, driven by the idea that Chinese immigrants were taking their jobs, set buildings on fire and killed four men in Chinatown. In San Francisco, anti Chinese violence had landed on the doorstep of Wong Kim Ark's family. Eventually his family packed up their store and moved back to China. When Wong Kim Ark's family left the United States after the 1877 Anti Chinese riots in San Francisco, they never came back. But he did at age 11. And during that time, Wong Kim Ark saw anti Chinese sentiment cemented into law. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion act, which barred Chinese laborers from immigrating or naturalizing. And then they passed the Page act, which barred all Chinese women except merchants wives, and the Geary act, that required all Chinese immigrants to carry identification paperwork.

[Historian/Expert]

So there was this sense that the Chinese wouldn't assimilate. But of course, it was the laws and policies and practices of the nation that made it so difficult for them to assimilate. But that also made it easy to view them as others, as people who are not like us.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

In the face of all this Sinophobia. Wong Kimar continued to live in San Francisco.

[Historian/Expert]

He lived in the United States until. Until he was about 20, when he went back to China because he wanted to find a wife, he wanted to get married.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

And because of the Page act, that meant going back to China. So he did. He got married and started a family. But he didn't stay long. After several months, he returned to the United States to work. And he repeated this process again a couple of years later, going back to China to visit his wife and his growing family. And that's what brings us back to that fateful day in the San Francisco Bay.

[Historian/Expert]

Unbeknownst to Wang, while he was in China, the US Government had decided it wanted to bring a test case challenging birthright citizenship. Birthright citizenship, particularly for the children of Chinese immigrants. So they chose him, and they didn't let him get off that boat.

[Narrator]

And his case made its way from a California district court all the way up to the Supreme Court. The entire case rested on the interpretation of a single sentence in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, an amendment added after the Civil War to guarantee newly emancipated black Americans equal citizenship and protection under US laws.

[Historian/Expert]

14th Amendment, Section 1. 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, and of the state wherein they reside.

[Narrator]

That phrase, jurisdiction thereof, it is key because the court had to decide what makes a person a US Citizen. Do all people born on US Soil fall under its jurisdiction, its laws, or its jurisdiction about where your loyalties lie?

[Legal Expert/Commentator]

On March 5, 1897, on a Friday afternoon, the day came. The case of United States vs Won Kim Ark began.

[Historian/Expert]

They're in the Capitol building because there was no Supreme Court building at this time. And they were in front of these nine black robed men with Chief Justice Fuller in the middle, who was very short, so he was sitting on an elevated chair.

[Legal Expert/Commentator]

Chief Justice Melville Weston Fuller was the leader of the nine justices that made up the Supreme Court. And let's just Say they had a bit of a reputation.

[Constitutional Scholar]

The Fuller Court is known among constitutional scholars as one of the most racist iterations of the Supreme Court that has existed across the span of American history. They're responsible for Plessy versus Ferguson.

[Historian/Expert]

Many members of the Court were on record as being hostile to Chinese immigrants.

[Narrator]

The lawyer for the U.S. government argued,

[Historian/Expert]

well, Wong Kim Ark, sure he was born in the United States, we can't refute that. But we do not think he was subject to the jurisdiction of the United States because his parents were loyal to the Emperor of China and so was their son by sort of automatic transmission. And so that means the son cannot automatically acquire citizenship based on birth.

[Legal Expert/Commentator]

But then he made a bigger, bolder

[Historian/Expert]

claim that the 14th Amendment of the U.S. constitution is itself unconstitutional. And his reason for that was he said the south was coerced into ratifying the 14th amendment in 1868 and therefore it was never validly a part of the Constitution. And we can see in that argument, of course, that he's trying to litigate the Civil War. He's trying to say the Reconstruction Amendment should not be law, we should turn back the clock.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

He's making this case in front of the Supreme Court over 30 years after the ink on the 14th Amendment had dried.

[Historian/Expert]

And in fact the lawyers for Wong Kim Arc call him on that. And they say in their brief, this nation spilled so much blood to fight for the end of slavery and to establish the 13th and 14th and 15th Amendments and change our nation and change our Constitution. And you should not accept the argument that these amendments are invalid.

[Legal Expert/Commentator]

The government made its argument. Then it was Wong Kim Ark's lawyers chance to counter.

[Constitutional Scholar]

Well, in very simple terms, Wong Kim Ark's lawyers have two main claims.

[Legal Expert/Commentator]

Julie Novkov is a co author of American by Wong Kim Ark and the Battle for Citizenship.

[Constitutional Scholar]

One is that this principle of birthright citizenship is a long standing principle in common law. Not just American common law, but English common law.

[Legal Expert/Commentator]

Their second claim is that this common law principle was adopted in the 14th Amendment.

[Constitutional Scholar]

And therefore, if you look at the history of this principle, if you look at how it has played out over time, there's plenty of plenty of grounding there to support the idea that the descendants of Chinese born in the United States are entitled to birthright citizenship.

[Historian/Expert]

They were brilliant lawyers and they told the Supreme Court, if you rule for the government that the children of immigrants are not citizens, you will take away citizenship from hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people, including lots of white people,

[Narrator]

millions of immigrants from Europe and around the world. Had moved to the US in the 1800s. So the Supreme Court was suddenly having to address a fundamental issue, one that would have ripple effects beyond the children of Chinese immigrants like Wong Kim Ark.

[Legal Expert/Commentator]

It took over a year, but finally the Supreme Court issued a ruling in the case of US V. Won Kim Ark.

[Justice Gray]

The fact, therefore, that acts of Congress or treaties have not permitted Chinese persons born out of this country to become citizens by natural cannot exclude Chinese persons born in this country from the operation of the broad and clear words of the Constitution. All persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States. Justice Gray,

[Historian/Expert]

the Court focused on the language, said all persons. This is intended to apply to everyone, and it's not intended to be so restrictive as to take away citizenship or bar citizenship from the children of immigrants. And remember, the United States is a nation of immigrants. It's not like there's just a few people who are born to noncitizen parents. It's a significant percentage of the country every year is born to immigrant parents.

[Legal Expert/Commentator]

Quick note. All persons did not necessarily include Native Americans. And that's because tribes recognized by the US Government were considered sovereign nations with their own governments and court systems.

[Historian/Expert]

And then the Court threw in at the very end. They said, and if we were to rule any other way, we would take citizenship away from lots of children of not just the quote, unquote, obnoxious Chinese, which is how the Court often referred to this group, but also the children of English immigrants and German immigrants and French immigrants that I think also pragmatically led them to say, no, Wong Kim Ark, we're ruling for you. Not so much because we're sympathetic to children of Chinese immigrants, because we can't undo the citizenship of the children of immigrants in this country.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Wong Kim Ark couldn't undo anti Chinese hate, but he did win his case. He was recognized by the US Government as a citizen. He could finally go back to his life in San Francisco. But life was far from easy. He was actually arrested again in 1901 for being a suspected Chinese immigrant and spent months in detention before convincing officials that he was a US citizen. Wong Kim Ark returned to China in his 60s and never came back. That's it for this week's episode of America in Pursuit. If you want to hear more about Wong Kim Ark's story, check out the episode the History of Birthright Citizenship and make sure to join us next week when we dive into how the US Begins to expand beyond its shores.

[Edward Jones Announcer]

It becomes harder to think of the

[Justice Gray]

United States as just a contiguous collection of states because it's quite obvious that the US flag is flying in all sorts of places.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

The story of the beginning of the US Empire and how we went from the United States to calling our country America. That's next week. Don't miss it. This episode was produced by Kiana Mohodam and edited by Christina Kim, with help from the Throughline production team. Music as always by Ramti Nada Bluei and his band Drop Electric. Special thanks to Julie Kane, Irene Noguchi, Beth Donovan, Casey Miner and Lindsay McKenna. We're your hosts, Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei.

[Historian/Expert]

Thank you for listening.