Let the Record Show: How UC Law SF Shapes National Conversation on Birthright Citizenship and Equality 

This photograph of Wong Kim Ark accompanied his 1894 departure statement, which certified that Wong was able leave and return to the U.S.

With birthright citizenship recently thrust into the headlines, UC Law San Francisco professors are continuing to shape the debate. By sharing their expertise and experiences, they illustrate how this constitutional right has not only shaped American law, but has also profoundly impacted their own lives, families, and the pursuit of the American Dream. 

Since an executive order sought to end birthright citizenship in the U.S. earlier this year, constitutional law scholars nationwide have asserted that the birthright citizenship is inexorably tied to the country’s founding principles and values.  

UC Law SF’s Ming Hsu Chen, a professor and director of the Center for Race, Immigration, Citizenship, and Equality (RICE), has been a leading voice on the issue, sharing her expertise with multiple media outlets. As she told KQED in January, America “tried to enact a promise of equality” with the Fourteenth Amendment, a promise that has come under attack in recent weeks.    

Professor Ming Hsu Chen is faculty director of the Center for Race, Immigration, Citizenship and Equality at UC Law SF.

While the Fourteenth Amendment lays the foundation of citizenship for all Americans, an important part of its story began here, in one of San Francisco’s oldest communities. In the 19th century, the Chinatown community worked together to wage one of the country’s most influential legal battles: United States v. Wong Kim Ark.  

The Supreme Court case is remembered today in Chinatown’s colorful murals commemorating the historic win, and its legacy is celebrated—and taught—by UC Law SF. 

In 2023, RICE celebrated the 125th anniversary of the landmark case with a series of events. Featuring prominent members of San Francisco’s Chinatown community alongside law professors and historians, the events were another important reminder that the guarantee of birthright citizenship and civil rights has been shaped by the legacy of grassroots organizations fighting exclusionary policies—and creating justice—for the benefit of all.  

The anniversary series also highlighted the advocacy of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, whose coordinated fundraising efforts helped 21-year-old Wong Kim Ark successfully defend his claim to being an American citizen.   

In 1895, customs officials denied San Francisco-born Wong’s re-entry into the U.S after a trip to visit family in China. Officials claimed Wong was not an American citizen but a Chinese national due to his parents being Chinese citizens at the time of his birth.   

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was in force at the time, banning the immigration of Chinese laborers. The National Archives notes that this was the first time that “federal law proscribed entry of an ethnic working group on the premise that it endangered the good order of certain localities.”  

United States v. Wong Kim Ark was the first case in U.S history to argue the interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause before the Supreme Court. The ruling confirmed that American citizenship is conferred to anyone born on U.S soil—and it has shaped our understanding of birthright citizenship for over 125 years.  

With the Trump administration’s arguments echoing those made by the government in 1898, Chen highlights the ways legal battles for equality are often fought by local communities to the benefit of society as a whole. “I think you can really see that this issue touches so many different corners of America,” she told KQED.  

Former UC Law SF Dean & Chancellor Dean Frank Wu said he would not be an American citizen without the Wong Kim Ark case. Wu wrote in 2013 that his parents came to the U.S from China more than a century ago “to pursue higher education. They arrived just before the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act abolished the remaining racial restrictions on who could enter.”   

Wu is one of millions of people across the U.S. whose lives has been profoundly affected by the Wong Kim Ark case.  

As Chen told The Guardian, “birthright citizenship is so vital both as a way of erasing – or trying to erase – the vestiges of slavery and acknowledging we’re a nation of immigrants where every child is born under the same status.”  

Let the Record Show is an occasional series that showcases people, moments, and milestones from UC Law San Francisco’s past.