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The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Ozawa v. United States that Japanese people are ineligible for U.S. citizenship.

1922

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Takao Ozawa is a Japanese American student fighting for his right to naturalization. The U.S. Supreme Court rules that since Ozawa is neither a "free white person" nor an African by birth or descent, he does not have the right of naturalization as a "Mongolian."

All "free white persons" were made eligible for U.S. citizenship by Congress in 1790. "Aliens of African nativity and persons of African descent" were similarly designated for citizenship by Congress in 1870. Some 420 Japanese people had been naturalized under the category of "free white persons" by 1910. However, a ruling by a U.S. attorney general to stop issuing naturalization papers to Japanese ended the practice in 1906. Ozawa filed his naturalization papers in 1914.