The little-known history of birthright citizenship
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2025
⏱️ 21 minutes
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Summary
Norman Wong didn’t know his family’s history for most of his life. Now, the 75-year-old retired carpenter is fighting to save birthright citizenship and his great-grandfather’s legacy.
His great-grandfather was Wong Kim Ark, a cook born to Chinese immigrants in San Francisco in 1870. After visiting family in China, Wong Kim Ark was denied reentry into the United States. The ensuing court battle made it up to the U.S. Supreme Court and enshrined the right to citizenship for almost any child born on U.S. soil, regardless of where their parents came from.
More than a century later, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to limit birthright citizenship. On Thursday, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments about the legal battle over the order. Norman Wong hopes that sharing his family story can influence that fight.
Today’s episode was produced by Laura Benshoff, with help from Emma Talkoff. It was edited by Maggie Penman and mixed by Sean Carter.
If you want to learn more about Wong Kim Ark and the landmark Supreme Court case that affirmed birthright citizenship, check out our podcast “Constitutional.”
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So let's have Norman Wong, our special guest. Let's give them a hand. |
| 0:11.8 | Hello, my name's Norman Wong. I'm the great-grandson, Wong Kim Mark. |
| 0:20.1 | Wong Kimmerk was born in the USA. |
| 0:23.5 | Norman Wong is a 75-year-old retiree. |
| 0:26.6 | He lives near San Francisco. |
| 0:28.8 | And recently, my colleague David Nakamura went out to California to meet him. |
| 0:33.5 | He wasn't really like an activist. |
| 0:35.1 | He was a carpenter. |
| 0:36.5 | He sort of did odd jobs in building maintenance. |
| 0:38.4 | And he's suddenly become, once Trump was in office again, this sort of accidental activist |
| 0:43.2 | who is now called upon to sort of be the public face of the campaign to sort of save birthright citizenship. |
| 0:49.3 | That's because Norman's great-grandfather had a huge role in defining birth-right citizenship. |
| 0:54.8 | Here he is telling that story at a recent panel on immigration. |
| 0:59.0 | Like my great-grandfather, I, too, was born American. |
| 1:04.3 | In the same city, San Francisco, more than 75 years after him. |
| 1:09.5 | We are both Americans, but unlike him, my citizenship has never been challenged. |
| 1:18.6 | Birthright citizenship is something lots of Americans take for granted. |
| 1:23.0 | It's been settled law in the United States for more than 100 years. |
| 1:26.9 | Basically, if you're born on |
| 1:28.4 | U.S. soil, you are American. It doesn't matter where your parents are from or what their |
| 1:33.8 | immigration status is. But President Donald Trump wants to change that. On the first day of his |
| 1:39.9 | second term, he signed an executive order that would reinterpret the 14th Amendment and restrict |
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