Wong Kim Ark was a person born in the United States and has lived in the United States for most of his life, however, he was denied of reentering into the United States after a visit to China in the year 1895. Despite this was not the first time he visited China, since he had one prior visit when his parents decided to go back to China, he was not allowed to re-enter into the United States because of the election of Democrat a President Grover Cleveland and the passing of the Geary Act earlier that year, which both resulted in stricter regulations of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Wong Kim Ark's parents had left the United States because of stress from law and increasing racial hatred toward Chinese. Both of which were making the business of their store harder to sustain. After going back to China, the outlook for Wong Kim Ark's career was not good. Thus, he returned to the United States in search of a job that will support him.
One reason the "UNITED STATES v. WONG KIM ARK" court case was conflictual was that Wong Kim Ark's parents at the time of Wong Kim Ark's birth achieved permanent residence and supporting business in the United States. Since they "are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China", it means that they were under the "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" (UNITED STATES v. WONG KIM ARK, 1898). When writing the Fourteenth Amendment, the reason for writing and including the words "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" was to exclude ambassadors, foreign soldiers, and Native Americans at the time who did not have to pay tax from becoming citizens of the United States(Thomas, 2010). What's more, the case of Wong Kim Ark also brings into the question of is citizenship a result of "jus soli (by soil) or jus sanguinis (by blood)", which is quite problematic for Americans at that time (Thomas, 2010). If there was admittance to jus soli, then there will be admittance to thousands of black people and denial to many children born outside of the United States. If there was admittance to jus sanguini, there will still be a great number of citizens of different races within a generation (Thomas, 2010).
Work Cited
Citizenship [Video file]. Retrieved October 4, 2020, from Kanopy. https://purdue.kanopy.com/playlist/378649
Department of Justice. Immigration and Naturalization Service. San Francisco District Office. "An 1894 notarized statement by witnesses attesting to the identity of Wong Kim Ark. A photograph of Wong is affixed to the statement." Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia. United States v. Wong Kim Ark. Web. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Wong_Kim_Ark#/media/File…
Thomas, Brook. "China Men, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, and the Question of Citizenship." American Quarterly 50.4 (1998): 689-717. Web. https://purdue-primo-prod.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/1c3q7im/…
Thomas, Brook. "The Legal and Literary Complexities of U.S. Citizenship Around 1900." Law & Literature 22.2 (2010): 307-24. Web. https://purdue-primo-prod.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/1c3q7im/…
UNITED STATES v. WONG KIM ARK. Supreme Court of United States. 169 U.S. 649 (1898). https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3381955771263111765&hl=zh-…;