This article unravels an important historical conjuncture in the making of modern US citizenship and alienage by drawing on the state's regulation of naturalization as it relates to Asian immigration in the early twentieth century. My primary concern is to examine the socio-legal formations that constructed the thick distinctions between the modern US citizen and alien along the lines of racial difference and racial capital. Specifically, this article argues that Asian immigration to the United States remade the modern US citizen and alien in two significant and interconnected ways. First, it underscores how the adjudication of race in US courts and connected political campaigns re-mapped race in the United States and sharpened the racialization of Asia and Europe in profound ways that ultimately produced immigrants from southern, central, and eastern parts of Asia as the modern US alien. Second, the debate over Asian immigrants’ eligibility to naturalize refashioned legal status as a normative avenue to sustain a regime of racial capital. It cast citizenship as a legal avenue for White men and families to acquire and protect a proprietary interest in citizenship and recast some Asian immigrants as permanent aliens in a period when alienage came to signify disposable immigrant labor. The article concludes by distinguishing how the struggle for US citizenship by Asian immigrants frames the epistemological parameters and political vocabulary of immigration and naturalization reform.

本文通过借鉴国家对 20 世纪初亚洲移民的入籍规定，揭示了现代美国公民身份和异化的形成过程中的一个重要历史时刻。我主要关心的是检查社会法律结构，这些结构沿着种族差异和种族资本的界限构建了现代美国公民和外国人之间的明显区别。具体而言，本文认为亚洲移民到美国以两种重要且相互关联的方式重塑了现代美国公民和外国人。首先，它强调了美国法院对种族的裁决和相关的政治运动如何重新映射了美国的种族，并以深刻的方式加剧了亚洲和欧洲的种族化，最终产生了来自南部、中部、和亚洲东部地区作为现代美国外星人。其次，关于亚洲移民是否有资格将重新塑造的法律地位归化为维持种族资本制度的规范途径的争论。它将公民身份视为白人男性和家庭获得和保护公民所有权权益的合法途径，并在异化开始意味着一次性移民劳动的时期将一些亚洲移民重新塑造为永久外国人。文章最后区分了亚洲移民争取美国公民身份的斗争如何构成移民和归化改革的认识论参数和政治词汇。它将公民身份视为白人男性和家庭获得和保护公民所有权权益的合法途径，并在异化开始意味着一次性移民劳动的时期将一些亚洲移民重新塑造为永久外国人。文章最后区分了亚洲移民争取美国公民身份的斗争如何构成移民和归化改革的认识论参数和政治词汇。它将公民身份视为白人男性和家庭获得和保护公民所有权权益的合法途径，并在异化开始意味着一次性移民劳动的时期将一些亚洲移民重新塑造为永久外国人。文章最后区分了亚洲移民争取美国公民身份的斗争如何构成移民和归化改革的认识论参数和政治词汇。