Conflicting court rulings proved whiteness was legally incoherent and socially constructed

Evidence

Cases in 1909, 1910, and 1915 held that Syrians were White “Asiatics” or Caucasians, while cases in 1913 and 1914 found them to be non- White Asians, buttressing the fact that race is socially constructed. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 535

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Same-ethnicity petitioners were declared white in one court but not another; Early-1900s courts rejected European-descent limits on whiteness but conceded their legal basis — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 1435; Cold War and civil-rights pressure widened judicial definitions of whiteness — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 173 (+2 more)