United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind: Facts, Discussion Forum, and Encyclopedia Article
United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, 261 U.S. 204
Case citation
Case citation is the system used in common law countries such as the United States, England and Wales, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and India to uniquely identify the location of past court cases in special series of books called Rep...
(1923), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the supreme court in the United States and leads the judiciary separation of powers of the United States federal government....
decided that Bhagat Singh Thind
Bhagat Singh Thind
Bhagat Singh Thind, PhD, was an Indian American Sikh writer and lecturer on "spiritual science" who was involved in an important legal battle over the rights of Indians to obtain United States nationality law....
, who was a high caste
Caste system in India
The Hindu caste system describes the social stratification and social restrictions in the Hindu religion, in which social classes are defined by thousands of endogamy hereditary groups, often termed as jatis or castes....
Punjabi
Punjabi people
The Punjabi people are an Indo-Aryans ethnic group from South Asia. Their region, the Punjab region, has been host to some of the oldest civilizations in the world....
Sikh
Sikh
A Sikh is an adherent of Sikhism. The term originates from the Punjabi language where it means student or disciple....
, settled in Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a U.S. state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Oregon borders the Pacific Ocean on the west, Washington on the north, Idaho on the east, and California, and Nevada on the south....
, could not be a naturalized
Naturalization
In law, naturalization is the act whereby a person voluntarily and actively acquires a nationality which is not his or her nationality at birth....
citizen of the United States
United States
The United States of America, also known as the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., and America, is a country in North America....
, despite the fact that anthropologists
Anthropology
Anthropology consists of the study of humanity . It is holism in two senses: it is concerned with all humans at all times and with all dimensions of humanity....
had defined the people in India as belonging to the Caucasian race
Caucasian race
The term Caucasian race or Caucasian is used to refer to people whose ancestry can be traced back to Europe, North Africa, West Asia, the Indian subcontinent and parts of Central Asia....
. The ruling followed a decision in Takao Ozawa v. United States
Takao Ozawa v. United States
Takao Ozawa v. United States Case citation was a case in which the United States Supreme Court found Takao Ozawa, a Japanese man, ineligible for naturalization....
, where the same court had ruled that a light-skinned native of Japan
Japan
is an Island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of China, Korea, and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea in the south....
could not be counted as "white", because "white" meant "Caucasian". In Bhagat Singh Thind, the court seemed to contradict itself, ruling that Thind was not a "white person" as used in "common speech, to be interpreted in accordance with the understanding of the common man." Using the "understanding of the common man" argument, it was therefore decided that Congress never intended for Indians to be able to naturalize.
