'Let’s Fight Back': 127 Years After Momentous Supreme Court Ruling, San Francisco Honors Wong Kim Ark

On Friday, the corner of Grant Avenue and Sacramento Street in San Francisco’s Chinatown — usually packed with tourists and residents moving through the narrow sidewalks — saw a different crowd: organizers, lawmakers and historians gathered to honor the 127th anniversary of United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that set the precedent for birthright citizenship.

Friday’s event was the culmination of a week of programming titled “Born in the USA: Wong Kim Ark & The Fight for Citizenship,” organized by the nonprofit Chinese for Affirmative Action. As the Trump administration continues its fights in the courts to limit who gets to be a U.S. citizen at birth, Chinese and Chinese American organizers and lawmakers in San Francisco are stepping up to honor the legacy of Wong Kim Ark by mobilizing to defend birthright citizenship on the national stage.

“Attacks on our constitutional rights are only meant to divide us further in an already fractured world,” Norman Wong, Wong Kim Ark’s great-grandson, said on Friday.

Next to him stood officials from across the state, including San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, who has filed multiple lawsuits for the city against the federal government, including one over birthright citizenship.

Wong Kim Ark was born right on that same block on Sacramento Street in the 1870s to Chinese immigrants. In 1894, he traveled to China to visit his family. During his trip, he married a woman and had a child with her. On his way back to the U.S., he was detained in San Francisco. Customs officials claimed that he was not a U.S. citizen but rather a Chinese national through his parents, blocking him from entering the country due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

Wong Kim Ark sued the U.S. government in order to be recognized as an American citizen. His case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which affirmed that the Constitution recognized Wong as a U.S. citizen because he was born on American soil. The ruling established birthright citizenship as a constitutional principle.

“Wong Kim Ark was not a hero alone,” said Norman Wong, noting that his great-grandfather had the financial and legal support of San Francisco’s Chinese community. “Now we need each of us to find the hero inside to make our world right.”

Wong Kim Ark’s case is what could stop President Donald Trump from fulfilling one of his biggest campaign promises: ending birthright citizenship for the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants.

On his first day back in the White House, Trump signed an executive order that would radically transform who gets to be a U.S. citizen at birth. The order goes further than what Trump promised on the campaign trail: It denies birthright citizenship to babies born on or after Feb. 19, 2025, who don’t have at least one parent who is a citizen or a lawful permanent resident.

However, multiple federal judges have already issued injunctions against the executive order, blocking the federal government from moving forward with Trump’s plans.

Last month, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to lift the pause on his policy in some parts of the country. During a March 24 event dedicated to Wong Kim Ark, Chiu described this idea as chaotic.

“We could have an entire generation of babies, newborns, kids, who were born here in the United States who are literally classless,” Chiu said. “It would create a permanent generation of folks who have never lived anywhere else but are considered undocumented. And we’re talking about kids who would not be able to naturalize or obtain citizenship elsewhere because they’re born here.

“We’re talking about casting an entire underclass of babies to lifelong immigration purgatory.”

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie proclaimed March 28, 2025, as Wong Kim Ark Day in the city, while California Attorney General Rob Bonta mentioned Wong multiple times when he announced that the state would sue the federal government over Trump’s birthright executive order. And earlier in March, state legislators — including Bay Area Reps. Alex Lee, Matt Haney and Ash Kalra — introduced a joint Assembly resolution which, if passed, would reinforce California’s “commitment to birthright citizenship” in honor of Wong Kim Ark’s legal battle.

Annie Lee, managing director of policy at Chinese for Affirmative Action, said getting the resolution passed is an important step to protect California’s immigrant communities. “For those of us who were born citizens, we take for granted what it means to be a citizen,” she said. “But there is so much tied to citizenship.”

Similar to Wong Kim Ark, Lee was born in San Francisco and grew up traveling between the U.S. and China to visit family. Having American citizenship allowed her to seek more financial aid for her education and express her beliefs via the ballot box.

“The important thing about Wong Kim Ark’s case is not that it happened 127 years ago — it’s that it matters today,” she said. “It matters today because every child born in the United States is a citizen, and we cannot allow that fundamental constitutional right to change.”

When Wong Kim Ark took the federal government to court, his legal argument was based on the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects rights like birthright citizenship, due process and equal protection. Congress originally passed the Fourteenth Amendment in response to the laws many Southern states instituted after the Civil War that severely restricted the rights of formerly enslaved Black Americans and their children.

“I’m so proud of this community, the Chinatown community, because Asian Americans have been in the fight for civil rights for a really long time,” Lee said. “And we don’t just do it for ourselves, we do it in collaboration with other communities of color.”

For Norman Wong, a San Francisco native like his great-grandfather, defending birthright citizenship is also about his father and the family’s complex history.

Late into his life, Norman Wong’s father was interviewed by local press and even taken to events on Angel Island where Wong Kim Ark was detained. His father started taking pride in the Wong Kim Ark story.

“He did these things without our knowledge,” Wong said. “I was well into my adulthood, probably middle-aged, before I ever heard the name Wong Kim Ark. My father didn’t talk about his past. It’s because my father had a very painful childhood when he came over [from China.]”

His father began sharing more with him and his wife, pulling out articles and talking about the reporters who visited him.

“Parents of our generation, it was different. You did what you were told, and you didn’t really ask questions,” Wong said. “Now, we have all these young people that wanna bring up these questions. I’d like to be part of this, [for] my grandchildren … I think it’s really important to know who your ancestors are.

“I want my children and my grandchildren and their children to have a better life … I don’t see them having a better life in this country if everything turns draconian.”

But the story equally involves his mother’s side. The Trump administration recently invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to detain and deport hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador. The last time the act was used was 84 years ago, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It led to the detention of Japanese, German and Italian nationals and was the precursor to the incarceration of over 120,000 people with Japanese ancestry during World War II, including Wong’s mother.

“Threats to birthright citizenship will only divide us,” Norman Wong said during the March 24 event. “We need to come together to continue the impact of my great-grandfather and to remember the history of my mother.

“Let’s fight back.”