One Century After Thind

Abstract

The 1923 naturalization case, United States v Bhagat Singh Thind (Thind), has become a flashpoint for multiple analyses of South Asian racialization in the United States, at times positioned as evidence of Asian exclusion and eventual triumph and, at others, an attempt to “claim whiteness” and inclusion through leveraging racist and casteist ideologies. The centenary of Thind offers an opportunity to revisit the case itself as well as take up broader questions regarding migration, citizenship, caste, racialization, and naturalization. We open our introduction by examining a public commemoration of Thind alongside the recent legal recognition of caste discrimination in the city of Seattle. Through this discussion, we aim to disrupt linear narratives of progress, move beyond methodological nationalism, question the workings of multiculturalism and concomitant erasures, and take account of uneven locations of legal and social citizenship that mark our understandings of the case. Finally, before introducing the issue contents, we situate Thind in the historical and legal context of the “Asiatic question” in early twentieth century United States.