Dear Students of Truth,
For the first time in almost 87 years the Reenactment of
the 1923 U.S. Supreme Court Case vs Bhagat Singh Thind will
be held June 24, 2010 at the NASABA Conventionb in Bostom,
MA. This Mock Argument and Court Deliberation: Renenactment
of U.S. vs Bhagat Singh Thind (1923), the case in which
the Supreme Court deemed Asian Indians ineligible for citizenship
because the U.S. law allowed only free whites to become
naturalized citizens.
For all of you I urge you to attend hornoring this great
and overdue injustice. Below is my statement that will be
read allowed upon the opening of deliberations:
Dear Students and Practioners of Justice and Truth,
It is such a great honor to be invited to share a few words
regarding the mock argument and court deliberation of the
law suit concerning my father's fight for citizenship, U.S.
v. Bhagat Singh Thind. I am unable to attend, but am honored
to share a few words with you today about my father.
As a young man in India, my father became inspired to travel
to America. In fact, he aspired to become a lawyer; but
at that time, lawyers in the United States were required
to be American citizens. My father studied the works of
Emerson, Whitman and Thoreau, and began his quest for American
citizenship to fulfill his destiny as a Spiritual Teacher.
My father first applied for citizenship in the State of
Washington and received his Certificate of Citizenship on
December 9, 1918. He wore his full uniform of the U.S. Army,
from which he received a Honorable Discharge on December
16, 1918. Ironically, four days after his Honorable Discharge,
his U.S. Citizenship was revoked because he was not a "free
white man".
Undaunted, my father applied for citizenship again in Oregon
on May 6, 1919 with the same bigoted Office of Immigration
and Naturalization. The Officer tried to refuse my father
citizenship again, bringing up his involvement with the
Gadar Movement. But this time the District Court overturned
the decision of the Officer and granted my father citizenship
for the second time on November 18, 1920. Almost three years
later, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice William Taft,
witnessed the opinion by Justice Sutherland that gave orders
to the Ninth Circuit Court to revoke my father's citizenship
certificate. This Supreme Court loss effectively resulted
in all East Indians being grouped together with the other
discriminated classes of Asians. The doors of U.S. citizenship
had finally closed to all Asian Immigrants and would last
for the next 23 years.
So many people in the United States recognized how badly
my father was treated by the Supreme Court noting he was
a U.S. Veteran, that under public pressure in 1935, the
74th Congress finally passed a law allowing citizenship
to U.S. Veterans- even those from the 'barred zones'. My
father, Dr. Bhagat Singh Thind, was finally naturalized
for the third time in 1936 and given his long overdue naturalization
rights.
God Bless all of you for bringing this tragedy of justice
to light after all these many years and recognizing my father
as the true pioneer of justice in American history.
Blessings,
David Bhagat Thind |
