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Montana after the war, he hopped off the train once a year, the event was crowded with
5
during a thirty-minute stop in Sheridan and was would-be Americans from around the county;
still down at Louie’s eating when it pulled out seventeen from Poland, six from Austria, four
again — much to the dismay of his mother, who from Czechoslovakia, two each from Greece,
had organized a town-wide celebration at his Scotland, Hungary, and Montenegro, one from
home station. Russia, one from Sweden, and one — Hot Tamale
Kids were welcome at Louie’s, too, as 20 Louie, né Zarif Khan — from Afghanistan. On
were the women who worked at the nearby February 2, 1926, the paperwork came through,
Redefining America
brothels and people who were too broke to and Louie became a citizen. Five months after
buy a meal. Khan would hand out a tamale that, he received a subpoena from the U.S.
anyway, although the next time he saw you Attorney for the district of Wyoming, ordering
he might say, “Hi, Mr. Ten Cents,” and if by him to appear in court in the matter of the
then you had a dime you’d pay him back. United States of America v. Zarif Khan.
The only people he refused to serve were the • • •
drunk, the foulmouthed, and the brawling, The first naturalization law in the United
whom he personally threw out on their ears. States was passed in 1790, one year into
He was five feet six and weighed a hundred George Washington’s first term as President. It
and twenty pounds, but nothing and no one established that only “free white persons” were
intimidated him. For one thing, he had got eligible to become citizens, a constraint designed
himself all the way to Sheridan from the Khyber to exclude Native Americans and slaves. After
Pass. For another, he was the one holding the the Civil War, that law was changed to extend
foot-long knife. Also, he had good aim with eligibility to people of African descent. As a result,
an onion. beginning in 1870, those petitioning for American
Khan’s egalitarian attitude raised eyebrows citizenship had to be either black or white.
among Sheridan’s snootier citizens. In the That left immigrants from Asian nations
end, though, no one could stay away from the in the lurch — deliberately, as Congress soon
food, and so Louie’s gradually became its own made clear. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
little Equality State — an American kind of prevented anyone born in China from becoming
place, diverse and democratic, where the staff American. The Immigration Act of 1917
of the newspaper wolfed down post-deadline established an “Asiatic Barred Zone”: a region,
burgers elbow to elbow with society ladies, and encompassing dozens of countries, from the
schoolkids counted out their nickels next to Middle East to Melanesia, whose native citizens
stockbrokers ordering large. Meanwhile, Louie could not be naturalized. In theory, such laws
himself had gradually become American as were plenty clear. In practice, however, Asians
well, and in 1925, after nearly twenty years in petitioning for citizenship simply contended
the United States, he decided to make it official. that they were white. Whether that was true was
The town fathers, all of them Louie regulars, a matter of heated dispute among ethnologists,
were happy to help; when Khan filed his anthropologists, political scientists, policymakers,
naturalization petition, it was witnessed for him and government officials around the nation.
by the general counsel for the city of Sheridan The courts, brought in to clarify the issue, 25
and one of its former mayors. made a mess of it instead. In “White by Law: The
The citizenship hearing was held on Legal Construction of Race,” the Berkeley law
November 6, 1925. Because naturalization professor Ian Haney López provides a tragicomic
examiners showed up in Sheridan only list of court rulings on racial identity, together
42
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