Pigmented Caucasians

[Guest guest]

Dear Prof. Wedemeyer,

 

Findlaw is down today, it appears, and I have no particular knowledge of U.S.

immigration law, but a quick web search turns up the following odd turns on the

"pigmented Caucasian" idea.

 

The "pigmented Caucasian" classification was in fact -struck down- by the United

States Supreme Court in 1923 and 1934, not because the notion was racist, but

because it was not racist enough:

 

See, e.g., the following excerpt from a speech by the owner of the website

below, of whose opinions I express no opinion or warranty, express or implied:

http://www.shusterman.com/history.html

 

>>>

 

"In 1923, the Supreme Court ruled that Asian Indians were ineligible for

naturalization and therefore unable to immigrate to the U.S. Although the Court

conceded that Indians were Caucasian, they were not white, and the intention of

the Founding Fathers was to "confer the privilege of citizenship upon that class

of persons that they knew as `white'." While "it may be true that the blond

Scandinavian and the brown Hindu have a common ancestor in the dim reaches of

antiquity," the Court wrote, "the average man knows perfectly well that there

are unmistakable and profound differences between them today."

 

Again, in 1934, the Supreme Court interpreted the Naturalization Law of 1790 to

define "white peoples within the meaning of the statute (as) members of the

Caucasian race as defined in the understanding of the mass of men. The term

excludes the Chinese, the Japanese, the Hindus, the American Indians, and the

Filipinos."

 

>>>

 

(For information about Bhagat Singh Thind, the litigant in U.S. v. Thind (1923)

261 U.S. 204, see http://www.lib.ucdavis.edu/punjab/legis.html . The opinion

itself is at http://www.multiracial.com/government/thind.html . The Supreme

Court held that "a high-caste Hindu, of full Indian blood, born at Amritsar,

Punjab, India," is not "a white person within the meaning of section 2169,

Revised Statutes," first adopted in 1790. Or, more precisely, "What we now hold

is that the words "free white persons" are words of common speech, to be

interpreted in accordance with the understanding of the common man, synonymous

with the word "Caucasian" only as that {page 215} word is popularly understood."

The court also said: "The question for deter-{page 210}mination is not,

therefore, whether by the speculative processes of ethnological reasoning we may

present a probability to the scientific mind that they have the same origin, but

whether we can satisfy the common understanding that they are now the same or

sufficiently the same to justify the interpreters of a statute -- written in the

words of common speech, for common understanding, by unscientific men -- in

classifying them together in the statutory category as white persons. In 1790

the Adamite theory of creation -- which gave a common ancestor to all mankind --

was generally accepted, and it is not at all probable that it was intended by

the legislators of that day to submit the question of the application of the

words "white persons" to the mere test of an indefinitely remote common

ancestry, without regard to the extent of the subsequent divergence of the

various branches from such common ancestry or from one another. "

 

The 1923 court also had this to say about the "Aryan theory":

 

>>>

 

The Aryan theory as a racial basis seems to be discredited by most, if not all,

modern writers on the subject of ethnology. A review of their contentions would

serve no useful purpose. It is enough to refer to the works of Deniker (Races of

Man, 317), Keane (Man, Past and Present, 445, 446), and Huxley (Man's Place in

Nature, 278) and to the Dictionary of Races, Senate Document 662, 61st Congress,

3d Sess. 1910-1911, p. 17.

 

The term "Aryan" has to do with linguistic, and not at all with physical,

characteristics, and it would seem reasonably clear that mere resemblance in

language, indicating a common linguistic root buried in remotely ancient soil,

is altogether inadequate to prove common racial origin. There is, and can be, no

assurance that the so-called {page 211} Aryan language was not spoken by a

variety of races living in proximity to one another. Our own history has

witnessed the adoption of the English tongue by millions of Negroes, whose

descendants can never be classified racially with the descendants of white

persons, notwithstanding both may speak a common root language.

 

>>>)

 

According to the source below, the most racist of the various exclusion acts

were repealed in 1943 and 1952, but immigration quotas continued to be

proportioned among "racialized ethnic categories such as 'Chinese' " until 1965,

when Asian immigration to the US was greatly liberalized.

http://www.umass.edu/complit/aclanet/USMigrat.html However, I note that

another source states that a 1961 amendment struck out the requirement for

applicants to state race and ethnic classification. U.S. Immigration and

Nationality Act, http://www.fourmilab.ch/uscode/8usc/8usc.html. I would check

that, but Findlaw won't come up.

 

Hence, if your father-in-law was given a racial classification in the "late"

'60's, it must have been for some other purpose than admission to the United

States. I do not find either "pigmented" or "Caucasian" in today's U.S.

Immigration and Naturalization Act. In fact, It would appear that the only

overt recognition of ethnicity or race today is through the "green card

lottery," said by the source below to be intended to promote ethnic diversity by

increasing the quota for immigrants from nations not otherwise having immigrants

eligible through other preferences. See Immigrant Visas and Green Cards

http://www.nolo.com/encyclopedia/articles/im/visas.html

 

A google search reveals the term "pigmented Caucasian" apparently still has some

significance in medicine, especially respecting skin cancers, and the reverse

image (lightly-pigmented) seems also to still hold some significance to poet(s)

of the internet age.

 

http://www.med.wayne.edu/elab/exams_old/Path299.PDF

 

Pathology II exam from 1998, offering as a choice on a multiple-choice test:

page 6, question 20, d: "Lightly pigmented Caucasian with unprotected sun

exposure"

 

http://flamandaf.diaryland.com/history.html

History of the Future

a poem (I think) which I hesitate to interpret. It notes the supposed fact that

it is no longer politically correct to call oneself "white"; instead, the author

is described as a "vision-impaired light pigmented Caucasian"; he seems morose

 

further deponent saith not,

 

David

-

Christian K. Wedemeyer

INDOLOGY

Tuesday, November 06, 2001 2:46 AM

[Y-Indology] Re: Caucasians

 

 

INDOLOGY, "Manish Modi" <manish.modi@b...> wrote:

>

> I read somewhere about white caucasians, brown caucasians and black

> caucasians! What does the word "Caucasian" mean?

 

I have not heard of "brown" and "black" caucasians, but in American

immigration circles there was (is?) in use a term "pigmented

caucasian," which was used to classify Indians.

 

My information is almost wholly anecdotal, but for what it's worth:

there seems to have been a conflict in the States in the early part of

the last century about immigration policy as it applied to Indians.

The general immigration policy was not to admit (or to greatly restrict

the entry of) persons of color (i.e. "non-caucasians"). Some Indians,

however, basing themselves on (everyone's favorite) "Aryan

invasion/migration" hypothesis, claimed to have Aryan blood and, thus,

to be caucasians and worthy of admission to the US. There was, I hear,

a conflict between the immigration officials on the West Coast, who

wanted to classify Indians merely as "colored" and those on the East

Coast who thought Indians should be treated differently than other

"coloreds." Apparently, the East Coast school won, as the compromise

term "pigmented caucasian" came into use. (If I remember correctly,

Taraknath Das was influential in creating this compromise.) I expect

it is no longer in use, but it continued in government usage at least

until 30 years ago, as my father-in-law reports that he was classified

as a "pigmented caucasian" when he came to the States in the late

1960s.

 

Best,

 

Christian Wedemeyer

University of Copenhagen

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "David Salmon" <dsalmon@s...> wrote:

>Dear Prof. Wedemeyer,

>

 

It will be interesting to read an article

detailing Indian claims that they are Aryans

for purposes of immigration into USA.

 

See,

http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind9811&L=indology&P=R21701

 

 

 

_______________

Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp