This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

This is our American Stories.

Ratified in 1868, the 14th Amendment is one of the most important post-founding era additions to our Constitution.

After all, it explicitly gives everyone equal protection and due process under the law,

regardless of what state you're in or what race you belong to.

And you can thank a lot of that to a Chinese laundry shop owner from San Francisco.

Here to share the story of the landmark Supreme Court decision is Kirk Higgins,

the vice president of content at the Bill of Rights Institute.

Let's get into the story.

It was July 1885, and businessman Lee Yick strode down DuPont Street in San Francisco.

The Chinese immigrant was about to do something dangerous, something that could get him arrested at any time.

He was not going to rob a bank or steal a horse or harm anyone.

His only so-called crime?

Going to work.

To open the laundry business, he had operated for more than two decades, even if it meant going to jail.

Music had operated for more than two decades, even if it meant going to jail. Chinese immigrants Lake Yik played an important role in the settlement of the American

West during the mid-1800s.

Many were drawn to California by the gold rush, and thousands of Chinese immigrants helped

build America's transcontinental

railroad, often in difficult and dangerous conditions.

Some immigrants, like Yik, found success in operating service industries, such as laundries,

...