Common
Definitions of whiteness in the United States
Legal and social structures that define and distinguish whites in the United States
Definitions of whiteness in the United States
Legal and social definitions of who is considered white in the United States have varied throughout the country’s history. In naturalization law, racial classifications historically determined whether an immigrant was eligible to acquire U.S. citizenship. The Naturalization Act of 1790 restricted naturalization to a “free white person.” Courts interpreted the statutory category of “white persons” differently across cases involving applicants of various backgrounds. In In re Rodriguez (1987), a federal district court granted a Mexican applicant’s naturalization petition despite doubts about his classification under contemporary anthropological theories. In Ozawa v. United States (1922) and United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923), the Supreme Court interpreted the statutory racial prerequisite (i.e., the category of “white persons”) in ways that excluded the Japanese and Indian applicants, respectively. In 1870, Congress extended eligibility to persons of African nativity and African...
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