【4/6/2021】CAPA-NoVA Distinguished Chinese American Project
（Written by: Yuyan Zhou）
黄今德 (Wong Kim Ark) is important to the US history not because of his career, but due to his lawsuit against the US, which affirmed his US citizenship. His parents were both Chinese immigrants. Due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, they couldn’t get US citizenships. After his parents went back to China, Wong visited them often. On one return trip to the US, he was denied re-entry due to his parents’ non-US citizenships. Since he was born in CA, Wong filed a federal lawsuit and won, which became a case law for birthright citizenship.
Not only do we live among the stars, the stars live within us!
More reading:
English: https://www.history.com/news/born-in-the-usa-the-immigrant-son-who-fought-for-birthright-citizenship
Chinese: http://ahistoricalrecord.com/manuscript/wong-kim-ark-and-citizenship
