Arab Muslims won US citizenship via the Semitic-race argument in the mid-1940s

Evidence

Arab Muslims had a more difficult time acquiring citizenship, Gualteiri argues. However, by the mid-1940s Arab Muslims were also incorporated into legal definitions of whiteness on the grounds that they were part of the Semitic race. The Immigration and Naturalization Services department argued that since the Semitic races had contributed to Western civilization, Arab Muslims could be granted citizenship. Thus, while Arab Americans were legally discriminated against in a process that we might understand as racism, it was a shifting and unstable form of racialization that did not target them specifically but was part of a system of oppression directed at all “new immigrants.” — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 230

Categorization

• XREF: Provides the specific mid-1940s Semitic-race ruling that ch7 summarized (lighter-skinned Syrians accepted); grounds it in an actual INS legal doctrine about Western civilization. — connects to: Arab Muslims gained US citizenship rights by being classified as a Semitic white race; Arabs had to litigate their whiteness to gain US citizenship — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 978; Arab Americans had to prove whiteness to naturalize before 1952 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Arab Muslims gained US citizenship rights by being classified as a Semitic white race #corroborates (1.00)
• Arab Americans had to prove whiteness to naturalize before 1952 #expands (0.85)
• Arabs had to litigate their whiteness to gain US citizenship #responds-to (0.80) — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 978
• Muslims were barred from US citizenship from 1790 to 1944 #qualifies (0.75) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 147
• Christians and Muslims from the same region received opposite citizenship outcomes #responds-to (0.70)