EVENT DETAILS

NAIS: Bethany Berger, "Citizenship in Red and Yellow: Elk v. Wilkins and United States v. Wong Kim Ark"

Bethany Berger (University of Connecticut School of Law)
“Citizenship in Red and Yellow:  Elk v. Wilkins and United States v. Wong Kim Ark”
Thursday, March 12, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
UC Irvine School of Law, EDU 1111

In the late nineteenth century, the Supreme Court issued two opinions on the citizenship of individuals born in the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment.  In Elk v. Wilkins, the Court rejected citizenship for John Elk, a Winnebago man born in Nebraska to Wisconsin-born parents.  In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the Court affirmed citizenship for Wong Kim Ark, a Chinese man born in California to Chinese-born parents. Central to arguments about birthright citizenship under the constitution, these cases influence debates from unaccompanied minor immigrants to the Indian Child Welfare Act.  This paper argues that despite their apparent differences, both opinions were consistent with the egalitarian ideals of the Fourteenth Amendment. It also provides previously neglected facts about the litigants, their lawyers, and their communities to challenge idealized concepts of citizenship, freedom, and individual action that emerged then and remain influential today. 

Bethany Berger is the Thomas F. Gallivan Jr. Professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law.  She is a co-author and member of the Editorial Board of Felix S. Cohen's Handbook of Federal Indian Law and co-author of leading casebooks in Property Law and American Indian Law.  Her articles have appeared in the Michigan Law Review, California Law Review, UCLA Law Review, and Duke Law Journal.  Her work has been excerpted and discussed in many casebooks and edited collections, as well as in briefs to the Supreme Court and testimony before Congress.  Before entering academia, Professor Berger was the Director of the Native American Youth Law Project of DNA-People's Legal Services serving the Navajo and Hopi Nations, and then Managing Attorney at Advocates for Children of New York.  She has served as a judge for the Southwest Intertribal Court of Appeals and as a visiting professor at Harvard and the University of Michigan.