INDIA ABROAD March 3, 2017 20 SPECIAL REPORT
INDIAABROAD.COM
n Feb. 19 1923, the U.S.
Supreme Court decid-
ed unanimously to bar
South Asians from
becoming American
citizens and to denatu-
ralize those who had already
done so in the landmark deci-
sion, United States v. Bhagat
Singh Thind. Thind, who immi-
grated to the United States in
1913 and even
trained at Camp
Lewis in
Washington to
fight with the U.S.
Army in World War
I, had begun his
personal struggle
for citizenship five
years earlier, in
1918. Through its
decision, the
Supreme Court
quashed the hopes
of Thind and fellow
South Asians in the
United States to
gain full recognition as American
citizens. It was not
until 1946, more
than two decades
later, that South
Asians were again
allowed the right of
citizenship.
An article published in the
Literary Digest, "Hindus Too
Brunette To Vote Here," provides
an explanation of the racial logic
behind the Supreme Court deci-
sion. 1 The issue at hand was
what was meant by “white.”
Thind, and many others, argued
that according to the "racial sci-
ence” of the day, South Asians
were descendants of Indian
Aryans who belonged to the
“Caucasian race.” Using this
racial algebra, Thind too was
“white” and thus eligible for citi-
zenship. 2 The Supreme Court
responded:
“It would be obviously illogi-
cal to convert words of common
speech used in a
statute into words
of scientific termi-
nology when nei-
ther the latter nor
science, for whose
purpose they
were coined, was
within the con-
templation of the
framers of the
statute are to be
interpreted in
accordance with
the understand-
ing of the com-
mon man, from
whose vocabulary
they were taken.”
The Supreme
Court further con-
cluded that the
Hindu “is of such
character and
extent that the
great body of our
people instinctively recognize it
and reject the thought of assimi-
lation.” Moreover, the Court
struck against the racial logic that
Thind had utilized, citing that
the term “Aryan” indicated a
“common linguistic root buried
in remotely ancient soil” which
was “inadequate to prove com-
mon racial origin.”
As the scholar Ian Haney-
Lopez has written, the Thind
decision powerfully redrew the
parameters of citizenship, of
race, and of whiteness. He
writes, “the Court stanched the
collapsing parameters of
Whiteness by shifting judicial
determinations of race off of the
crumbling parapet of physical
difference and onto the relatively
solid earthwork of social preju-
dice." 4 Other commentators, like
Sucheta Mazumdar, have been
more critical of the sort of rea-
soning adopted by Ozawa, Thind
and other Asian migrants to the
U.S., pointing out that their
strategies challenged racial
exclusion by investing in “white-
ness” instead of challenging a
color line which systematically
discriminated against all non-
white people. 3 One sees in these
Supreme Court cases what
George Lipsitz calls the “posses-
sive investment in whiteness,”
that is, the structural and materi-
al benefits that have historically
and contemporaneously been
accrued to whites in the U.S.
Thind’s case, clearly, shows us
the challenges and negotiations
faced by South Asians during this
period.
Thind, however, continued to
live in the U.S., receiving a Ph.D.
at Berkeley, and eventually
receiving his citizenship in 1936
after Congress had decided that
veterans of World War I should
be eligible for naturalization. 5 In
1940, Thind eventually married
his wife Vivian, who herself
became an active member in the
Indian-America Society, and he
continued to lecture across the
country on issues of non-vio-
lence, spirituality, and meta-
physics; he passed away in 1967.
— saada.org
O
‘Hindus Too
Brunette to
Vote Here’
An article published in the Literary Digest,
provides an explanation of the racial logic
behind the 1923 Supreme Court decision
Left, photograph of
Bhagat Singh Thind and
his wife Vivian. Below, a
photograph of Bhagat
Singh Thind in his U.S.
Army Uniform, from 1918.
Thind enlisted in the U.S.
Army, and trained at
Camp Lewis,
Washington.
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Through its
decision, the
Supreme
Court quashed
the hopes of
Thind and
fellow South
Asians in the
United States
to gain full
recognition as
American
citizens
S
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Stars” and added Bollywood
songs, “Sau Aasmaan” (from
“Baar Baar Dekho”) earning
them second place.
Shivan Lala, a second-year
student at UC-San Diego, who
is captain of Zor, told India
Abroad he was not into dancing until high school.
“Getting into the competition is actually exciting and, for
the most part, most of the team
are new dancers,” he said. “So
to be able to come to
(Berkeley), perform and do
pretty well was very motivating for all of us. And yes, it’s
my first competition as captain, so it was very exciting and
encouraging,” he said.
The captain is responsible
for day to day meeting, coming
up with choreography and
being responsive to day to day
activity and money, operation.
Zor is an eight-year-old team
and now boasts 23 dance mem-
bers. When asked on why he
joined, Lala said, “I was defi-
nitely interested in trying
something new and I thought
this would be a good way. I
have heard about (Zor) before
coming to UCSD, and after
watching the video thought
would be something good to
do. It worked out – luckily,” he
said, with a laugh.
Talking about the prepara-
tion involved, Lala said the
tryout was held in mid-
September last year since
many are new students.
"Many are new dancers and
they need to learn the basics to
make sure they are on the
same page. The level of com-
petitions, it’s, like, growing
every year and so we make
sure, we are putting forward
the best effort we can,” said
Lala, who hopes to finally
become a doctor.
UC;Davis’s Lashkara Wins First Place at Bollywood Berkeley 2017
Continued from page 15
