now in 1922 there's going to be a famous case involving a japanese man by the name of takao osawa and his ineligibility as a citizen based on grounds that asians were not considered white takawasawa filed for citizenship to the united states of america under the consideration of the 1906 naturalization law which allowed the naturalization of white persons and persons of african descent now even though there were racial restrictions on asians to kawasawa tried desperately to have the japanese classified as being white in order to avoid all the restrictions that were placed on asians so takawa ozawa versus the united states was a case in which the united states supreme court found takao osawa ineligible for naturalization because he was japanese takawasawa did not challenge the constitutionality of the racial restrictions instead takawasawa attempted to have the japanese classified as white but justice george sutherland found that only caucasians were white and therefore the japanese by not being caucasian were not white and instead were members of an inassimilable race lacking provisions in any naturalization act let's go to a film clip on takawasawa's application what are the other so-called asiatic races filipinos syrians the japanese could they also petition successfully to be designated white by the courts and thus become americans in 1922 when japanese businessman takawa ozawa petitioned the supreme court for naturalization many in the japanese community believed his was the perfect test case takawa ozawa came from japan went to the university of california to berkeley for a few years then moved to hawaii where he had a family and he applied to become a naturalized citizen in 1915. my father wrote his own brief and everything and he was really devoted he wanted to become an american citizen and nothing would stop him he was determined japanese growers in california watched ozawa's case closely by 1920 a series of alien land acts prohibited many non-citizens from owning or leasing land without a legal designation of whiteness to make them citizens japanese immigrants could not have the full protection of american law no matter how long they lived in the country in his brief azawa argued that his skin was as white as any so-called caucasian if not whiter but he made a much more important second argument but a second argument was that race shouldn't matter for citizenship what really mattered was a person's beliefs my honesty and industriousness are well known among my japanese and american friends in name benedict arnold was an american but at heart he was a traitor in name i am not an american but at heart i am a true american the articles would come out in the paper i thought oh what did he do you know i thought only bad things came out in the paper and i was kind of ashamed you know when i was a child and it was just the way we were brought up i didn't have any oriental friends my neighbors were all caucasian and so he was so determined to get us well when the time came to be american citizens the supreme court ruled that ozawa could not be a citizen they said he was not white within the meaning of the statute and therefore not eligible to citizenship and the court said well he's not white because he's not caucasian and caucasians are whites he did everything right he learned english he had a lifestyle that was american he went to christian church on sunday he dressed as a westerner he brought up his children as americans he did everything he was supposed to do and and yet he's told that he can't be a citizen because he's not white the court ruled that according to the best known science ozawa was not caucasian but of the mongolian race but the all right it doesn't matter if you want again um it doesn't matter i shared with you when i did my green bean presentation that they can you can assimilate there are those who want to assimilate but even when you assimilate it doesn't matter you're still well this particular case is not white