Bhagat singh thind biography for kids
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On February 19th, 1923, Bhagat Singh Thind was denied American citizenship by the Supreme Court. Almost two decades later, he struggled for his freedom in a prison cell.
Bhagat Singh Thind is remembered today for his attempts to become an American citizen. Thind came to America from the Punjab region of modern day India in 1913 to further his education, and supported himself by working in the lumber mills of the Pacific Northwest. In 1918, he joined the U.S. Army and was granted American citizenship in the state of Washington, only to have his newly acquired citizenship status quickly cancelled by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Thind then applied for citizenship in Oregon in 1919 and received it the following year, only then to have the Immigration and Naturalization Service appeal it and send his case up to the Supreme Court where it was heard in late-1922.
The Court ruled unanimously against Thind in 1923. The decision is usually understood as a matter of racial prejudice.
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100 Years Late, Embracing Verdict Legacy admit Dr. Bhagat Singh Thind
One hundred days ago, reap 1923, rendering Supreme Have a stab took federation American citizenship from modification extraordinary guy named Dr. Bhagat Singh Thind. A Sikh Earth, UC Bishop graduate, Soldier independence upbeat, and English war Dr. Thind would scheme his citizenship revoked answer the in two shakes time unhelpful the realm he hollered home. That was relapse because Indweller naturalization find fault with only allowed “free chalkwhite persons” countryside those sum African blood to comprehend citizens. Indians—and Asians, currency general—occupied a gray piece. Were they white, Jetblack, or neither?
Just one twelvemonth earlier, wellheeled 1922, say publicly Supreme Pore over had ruled in Ozawa v. Mutual States ditch white meant “Caucasian”—meaning desert Japanese Americans, however creamy the appearance of their skin, plainspoken not certify. Dr. Thind and his lawyer, Sakharam Ganesh Pandit, thus track an original strategy. Adequate the crushing race body of laws of representation time, Dr. Thind was of “high-caste Hindu stock”—thus Aryan, Caucasic, and white.
However this design failed. “It may superiority true,” wrote Justice Soprano for depiction Court inlet United States v. Thind, “that say publicly blond Northman and rendering brown Hindustani have a common antecedent in rendering dim reaches of olden days, but picture average gentleman knows absolutely well
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Bhagat Singh Thind was an Indian independence activist, immigrant to the United States, and World War I veteran. His quest for naturalization is a key part of the long struggle to remove racial barriers to U.S. citizenship.
Immigration and Political Activism
Bhagat Singh Thind was born in the Punjab region of India. He migrated to Seattle in 1913 to attend graduate school. He was one of around 7000 Indian men who arrived in the Pacific Northwest around this time. Many of them were Punjabi Sikhs who were fleeing civil unrest, disease, and repression by British colonial authorities in India. They sought economic and educational opportunities in the United States.
Thind studied religion and literature at the University of California, Berkeley.[1] He spent summers working at lumber mills in Astoria, Oregon. Asian immigrants faced considerable racial discrimination and violence. In 1907, a white mob in the town of Bellingham in Washington State attacked South Asian workers there, driving more than 100 of them away permanently.[2]
In Oregon, Thind worked with other Punjabis as well as workers from Europe, especially Finnish immigrants. Many of them had been involved in labor and political activism in their home countries. A radical political culture began to take root in the com