Exemption from the Asiatic barred zone consolidated Syrian legal whiteness

Evidence

Arguments in cases regarding access to citizenship rights for Syrians in the early twentieth century depended on racial classification and ethnology to define religious di√erence based on an opposition between Muslim foreigners and white Christian citizens. The racial label ”Muslim,” for example, was assigned to Arab Christians who, paradoxically, were racialized as the religious other of white European Christianity. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 205 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The 1924 Asiatic Barred Zone placed nearly all Muslims outside admissible whiteness; Legal whiteness construction created the Middle East category by separating Syrians from Asia — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 241; US courts issued conflicting rulings on Syrian legal Whiteness within five years (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Early-twentieth-century US citizenship cases racialized Syrians as Muslim foreign threats. #complicates (0.78) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 205