By Sacha Wedner
If you asked Norman Wong about carrying on the legacy of his great-grandfather, Wong Kim Ark, he would describe his role in the fight to preserve birthright citizenship as accidental.
In a Zoom interview with AsAmNews, Wong said that, initially, he had no intentions of carrying his great-grandfather’s torch, but that changed when he started to receive messages as attacks on birthright citizenship made headlines.
“I wasn’t looking to honor my great-grandfather’s name in any way or keep this issue alive. What happened was this issue came to a head, I believe, when Trump started to take office, and then people started to contact me because birthright citizenship became a national issue, in a sense”, Wong explained. “And so, people started to contact me and I was willing to talk to them, and that’s my role. It’s not one I carved out for myself, it’s people asking me what I can do to help, in a sense, by just giving my experience and a little bit of my family history”
Staring Monday, in light of the Trump administration’s stance against birthright citizenship, a coalition of San Francisco-based Asian American groups will be partnering to present Born in the USA: Wong Kim Ark and the Fight for Citizenship. This will be a weeklong series of events to honor the 127th anniversary of birthright citizenship in the U.S., and to continue the fight to preserve birthright citizenship in the U.S.
Wong Kim Ark was a man born to Chinese immigrants in San Francisco who was detained after reentry to the U.S. from China in 1894 on the false basis that he wasn’t a U.S. citizen. His case would be taken to the Supreme Court, where it was ruled that birthright citizenship applied to all U.S. citizens, including those whose parents were immigrants.
President Trump has made ending birthright citizenship a priority because he says it incentivizes people to enter the country illegally and then rewards their newborns with citizenship.
Wong will be joining the Born in the USA week’s community symposium on Monday, March 24, as a special guest speaker.
Wong explained his connection with his great-grandfather and his family history, saying that he didn’t know about Wong Kim Ark or his connection to him until later on in his life.
“In reality, I’m not the expert on my own family history in a sense because Wong Kim Ark, he’s really a stranger to me.” Wong explains “I never met him and never knew of him until well into adulthood, with fully grown kids I believe,… before I even learned of his existence”
“So, I wouldn’t credit myself with doing anything but what I’m doing, and in the likes of CAA and other organizations that are keeping this issue alive, so that basically these birthright citizens, so their rights don’t just get all rolled over.”
Wong Kim Ark Week is born
Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA), collaborated with the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of San Francisco, Chinese Culture Center, Chinese Historical Society of America, API Legal Outreach, API Civil Rights Network, and numerous other organizations to make the Born in the USA week possible.
“I think part of the reason why CAA wanted to get behind launching a Wong Kim Ark Week was because we knew that this issue was going to impact our immigrant communities,” said Nick Gee, CAA’s advocacy manager and manager of the Born in the USA Week, in a Zoom interview with AsAmNews. “And specifically, there was going to be questions that the Chinese American community had.”
“And so, in collaboration with some of our local partners here in the city of San Francisco, we’re (CAA) is particularly partnering with the Chinatown Media and Arts Collaborative, or CMAC”, Gee continued. “And so it’s a growing collective of artist groups, community-based organizations based in San Francisco’s Chinatown, really aimed … at uplifting the stories and experiences of the Chinese American community in Chinatown. And so this collective really works to create different artworks and events and programs to bring people together.”
Events planned
The first event in the week-long itinerary will be a virtual book talk with Bianca Mabute-Louie, the author of Unmissable, on March 24 from 12 – 1 p.m. PST. Hosted by the Chinese Historical Society of America Museum, Mabute-Louie will explore “the complexities of Asian American identity, anti-Blackness, and the myths of assimilation” and challenge readers to “rethink race, belonging, and solidarity in America”.
“It really challenges this idea of what does it mean to be a part of the Asian diaspora here in America, and to think about what is the cost of belonging here, “Gee explains, “to be in this “community” in the States. And so, you know, I think there’s this kind of unearthing right in that book talk that’s going to happen around what does it mean to belong? What does it mean? Can we actually assimilate?”
The next event, which will be held later that Monday from 4:00 – 6:00 p.m. PST, will be a community symposium about Wong Kim Ark and “the fight for citizenship”. The symposium will be composed of legal scholars, historians, advocates, and community members for multiple panel discussions regarding birthright citizenship. As mentioned earlier, Norman Wong will be joining as a special guest, followed by a reception.
Then on March 27 from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. PST, will be a special edition of CAA’s Chinatown History & Art Tour. This hour highlights the history, activism, and art of San Francisco’s Chinatown while highlighting Wong Kim Ark’s legacy.
The final event of the week will be a birthright citizenship resolution and Wong Kim Ark dedication, which will be held in Chinatown on March 28 at 2:00 p.m. The event will be led by local activists and feature a plaque of Wong Kim Ark to celebrate his impact on birthright citizenship.
Throughout the upcoming week, the San Francisco Public Library North Beach campus will be hosting a book display highlighting Asian American and Pacific Islander authors and works, “inspired by themes of migration, community, and resilience”.
Broad impact of ending birthright citizenship
The Born in the USA comes amidst the backdrop of the Trump administration signing an executive order to terminate birthright citizenship on Jan. 21. Put into effect, this order would bar access to U.S. passports, social security cards, healthcare access, lunch programs, federal student aid, and more, according to CAA.
The effects of this could negatively impact the well-being of the birthright citizens and could lead to disastrous social, political, and economic consequences. The current efforts against birthright citizenship and immigration can be viewed as a legacy of centuries of xenophobia in the U.S.
“I don’t think it’s a recent thing. It’s been better at certain times or worse at certain times,” said Wong. “For a few years, for a few decades, birthright citizenship was no longer an issue. Now it’s a big issue, and it’s mainly, I think, being directed at non-Asians, other people of color, first. But I have no doubts it’ll get back to Chinese, then Japanese, then Koreans.”
“But to frame it in the Asian American context, y’know, I’m almost not surprised that something like this is happening because the U.S. Government did do something like this to our community in the past.”, continued Gee, mentioning the infamous Chinese Exclusion Act and the Geary Act, which required Chinese Americans/Chinese people who lived in the U.S. to carry resident permits.
To preserve birthright citizenship in the U.S., you can sign this CAA letter opposing the Trump administration’s executive order to ban birthright citizenship and sign up to join Stop AAPI Hate’s One Home campaign.
AsAmNews reached out to the Center for Immigration Studies which opposes birthright citizenship, but did not hear back.
“I would really, you know, encourage people to sign their petitions, to call their representatives to make noise right and to call the person who represents them.”, says Gee. “And to say, we really need to be advocating for immigrant communities. Now is not the time to back down. Now is the time to protect and fight for birthright citizenship. And so I think, you know, when we call our legislators, when we flood their inbox, whether that’s email or their voicemail box, it really does make a difference. Because when you are getting calls multiple times a day, and you’re getting flooded and inundated with messages, you kind of have to respond to that”
“I can’t speak for everyone, but what we have to do is choose who we want to be and not let the labels, the way they identify us, but we have to identify ourselves, the kind of people we want to be”, Wong continued. “I don’t if that give us victory, I don’t know if that gives us safety, but I do know that we can’t by becoming as bad as the people that hate us, and we have to ultimately pull together as a group and don’t get divided”
If you want to know more information about the movement to defend birthright citizenship, contact CAA at [email protected].
AsAmNews is published by the non-profit, Asian American Media Inc.
We’re now on BlueSky. You can now keep up with the latest AAPI news there and on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and X.
We are supported by generous donations from our readers and by such charitable foundations as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
You can make your tax-deductible donations here via credit card, debit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal and Venmo. Stock donations and donations via DAFs are also welcomed.