It came as no surprise that the discussion of birthright citizenship at the Supreme Court this week focused on the landmark 1898 precedent set by Wong Kim Ark, which ruled that a child born in San Francisco to Chinese parents was a citizen.

本周，最高法院就出生地公民权展开的讨论毫无意外地聚焦于1898年的黄金德案这一里程碑式判例，该案裁定一对华裔夫妇在旧金山所生的孩子拥有美国公民身份。

But notably peppered throughout the oral arguments Wednesday were many references to lesser-known cases: Fong Yue Ting. Lau Ow Bew. Yick Wo. Bhagat Singh Thind.

但值得注意的是，在周三的口头辩论中，冯越亭案、刘敖标（音）案、益和案、巴哈特·辛格·廷德案等一系列鲜为人知的判例被反复提及。

Each of these names refers to an Asian immigrant at the center of a Supreme Court case in the late 19th century or early 20th century.

这些名字背后，都是19世纪末至20世纪初最高法院案件核心中的亚裔移民。

In the decades before and after the Wong lawsuit, immigrants from China, Japan and India fought an immigration system that tried to keep people like them from entering the United States and from becoming American citizens. Taken together, the cases reflect a body of case law, beyond that of Wong Kim Ark, that has shaped the American immigration system for more than 100 years.

在黄金德提起诉讼前后的数十年间，来自中国、日本、印度的移民与试图阻止他们入境、剥夺他们成为美国公民资格的美国移民体系展开了长期抗争。这些案件与黄金德案共同构成了一套完整判例法，在过去一个多世纪里塑造了美国的移民制度。

“The reason why there are so many cases involving Asian immigrants or the children of Asian immigrants,” said Amanda L. Tyler, a constitutional law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, “is because immigration law in this country for a very long time was incredibly unreceptive to Asian immigration and naturalization.”

“之所以出现这么多涉及亚裔移民或其子女的判例，”加州大学伯克利分校宪法学教授阿曼达·泰勒表示。“是因为长期以来，美国移民法对亚裔移民与入籍申请极度排斥。”

The web of federal immigration restrictions was so comprehensive that, throughout the first half of the 19th century, there were relatively few Asians in the United States. Starting in 1882, virtually all Chinese people were barred from entering the country, and by the 1930s, that had broadened to cover most people from Asia. Asian immigrants also faced bans on becoming naturalized citizens.

联邦移民限制体系极为严密，19世纪上半叶，在美亚裔人口数量寥寥。1882年起，美国事实上禁止所有中国人入境；到20世纪30年代，这一禁令范围扩大至绝大多数亚洲国家。亚裔移民还面临着无法入籍的禁令。

During this era, many Asians turned to their communities for help in challenging these laws, said Gabriel J. Chin, a law professor at the University of California, Davis.

加州大学戴维斯分校法学教授加布里埃尔·秦（音）表示，这一时期，许多亚裔转而依托社群力量，挑战这些法律。

The powerful Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, a group of family and hometown organizations also known as the Six Companies, hired high-profile white lawyers to work on these cases. Led by wealthy Chinese merchants, the association was motivated not just by a desire to protect its community, but also to preserve its access to Chinese labor.

势力强大的中华会馆（又称“六大公司”）是由宗亲与同乡会馆组成的联合组织。该机构聘请知名白人律师代理这些诉讼。在富有的华商领导下，会馆的动机不仅是保护社群，还在于维持获取中国劳工的渠道。

All told, Chinese immigrants filed more than 10,000 lawsuits at the local, state and federal levels during the period of exclusion, historians say.

历史学家称，排华时期，华裔移民在地方、州与联邦各级法院提起的诉讼超过1万起。

“Because of the economic and political importance of Chinese immigration, high-quality U.S. citizen lawyers were hired to litigate cases large and small,” Chin said.

“由于华人移民具备重要的经济与政治价值，各方聘请了高素质的美国公民律师，代理大大小小的各类案件，”加布里埃尔·秦说。

In 1886, the Six Companies helped find lawyers for Lee Yick, the owner of Yick Wo laundry in San Francisco, after he was arrested for violating a local law requiring permits for all laundry businesses in wooden buildings. While neutral on its face, the law was disproportionately used to target Chinese laundry owners.

1886年，六大公司协助旧金山益和洗衣店老板李益找到律师。李益因违反当地一项法令被捕，该法令要求所有木质建筑内的洗衣店必须申请经营许可。尽管法令表面中立，但实际执行中被过度用于针对华裔洗衣店老板。

Lee prevailed under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. The decision became a landmark civil rights case because it extended equal protection to noncitizens.

最终，李益依据宪法第十四修正案的平等保护条款胜诉。该案成为民权领域的里程碑判例，因为它将平等保护权延伸至非公民群体。

In 1892, the organization also won a case for Lau Ow Bew, an affluent Chinese merchant in San Francisco who was detained and blocked from reentering the country by U.S. customs officials because he lacked a required certificate proving that, as a merchant, he was exempt from federal Chinese exclusion laws.

1892年，该组织又为旧金山富商刘敖标赢得诉讼。此前，美国海关官员以他未持有证明其作为商人可豁免联邦排华法的必要证书为由，将其扣留并阻止其重新入境。

And the next year, they lost a case for a Chinese laborer in New York City named Fong Yue Ting, who had been arrested and faced deportation for not having a mandatory residence certificate that required the corroboration of at least one white witness. The ruling affirmed the broad scope of federal power to regulate immigration.

次年，他们为纽约市华工冯越亭辩护的案件败诉。冯越亭因未持有强制要求的居住证（需至少一名白人证人作证）被捕，并面临驱逐出境。最高法院的裁决确认了联邦政府在移民管控领域的广泛权力。

Several years later, the Six Companies hired some of the same lawyers to defend Wong Kim Ark.

数年后，六大公司又聘请了部分原班律师为黄金德辩护。

As Chinese people were increasingly shut out of the country, U.S. immigration and naturalization laws began to target the growing numbers of immigrants from Japan, and later, India.

随着华人入境渠道被持续封堵，美国移民与入籍法开始将矛头指向日益增多的日本移民，随后又针对印度移民。

In 1922, the Supreme Court ruled that Takao Ozawa, a Japanese immigrant, was not white within the meaning of the Naturalization Act of 1790 — which restricted who could become an American to “free white persons” — and was therefore ineligible to become a citizen. Even though Ozawa was Christian, spoke English fluently and, as he argued, had skin that was lighter than even some white people, he was not Caucasian, the court said.

1922年，最高法院裁定，日本移民小泽孝雄因不符合1790年《归化法》对“白人”的定义（该法将美国公民资格仅限于授予“自由白人”）而无资格入籍。尽管小泽是基督徒、英语流利，且辩称自己的肤色比部分白人更浅，但法院认定他不属于高加索人种。

The next year, in an infamous case mentioned by Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Wednesday, the court shifted its reasoning. Bhagat Singh Thind, who had immigrated from India and fought in the U.S. Army during World War I, argued that he was technically Caucasian and so was qualified to become a naturalized citizen. But the court said he was not actually white as understood by the “common man.”

次年，在一桩周三被索尼娅·索托马约尔大法官提及的恶名昭彰的判例中，最高法院改变了推理逻辑。印度移民巴哈特·辛格·廷德曾在一战期间服役于美国陆军，他辩称自己严格意义上属于高加索人种，因此符合归化公民资格。但法院认为，按“普通人”的理解，他并非白人。

The ruling led the government to strip citizenship retroactively from Thind, his lawyer and more than 50 other naturalized citizens of Indian heritage.

该裁决导致美国政府追溯性地剥夺了廷德、其律师及另外50多名印度裔归化公民的公民身份。

The court decisions in Thind and Ozawa were ultimately rendered obsolete by Congress, which passed a series of laws lifting naturalization restrictions under a broader effort to improve geopolitical ties during World War II and the Cold War. But some immigration cases involving Asians, most notably Wong Kim Ark, remain the controlling precedent in U.S. immigration law.

最终，国会通过一系列立法，废除了入籍限制，这是二战与冷战期间，美国为改善地缘政治关系推行的更广泛举措的一部分，廷德案与小泽案的裁决因此失效。但部分涉及亚裔的移民判例，尤其是黄金德案，至今仍是美国移民法中的主导先例。

“Many Asian plaintiffs helped to set precedent with immigration cases,” said Bethany Li, executive director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. “Asian American history is immigration history.”

“许多亚裔原告通过移民诉讼帮助树立了先例，”亚美法律辩护与教育基金执行董事贝瑟妮·李表示。“亚裔美国人的历史，就是移民史。”

In 1965, Congress passed landmark legislation that fully abolished immigration quotas based on national origin, opening the door to an unprecedented influx of immigrants from Asia, among other regions.

1965年，国会通过一项里程碑式立法，全面废除基于国籍的移民配额，为亚洲及其他地区前所未有的移民潮打开了大门。

Today, a vast majority of the 24.8 million Asians in America arrived in the last half-century or are descendants of those post-1965 immigrants. As of last year, they made up 7% of the population and were the country’s fastest-growing racial group.

如今，美国2480万亚裔人口中绝大多数是过去半个世纪内入境的移民，或是1965年后移民的后代。截至去年，亚裔占美国总人口的7%，是美国增速最快的族裔群体。

If the Supreme Court eliminates near-universal birthright citizenship, a right affirmed by Wong Kim Ark’s landmark victory, there could be a disproportionate effect on Asians who are in the country lawfully, according to a new study.

一项最新研究显示，如果最高法院废除由黄金德案胜诉确立的、近乎普遍适用的出生地公民权，受影响最严重的将是合法居留在美国的亚裔群体。

But some advocacy groups say that galvanizing Asian American communities around the issue has been a challenge, in part because many were not directly affected by that early period of discrimination and because that history is not widely taught in schools.

但部分倡导组织表示，围绕这一议题动员亚裔社群一直面临挑战，部分原因在于，许多亚裔并未直接受到早期歧视时期的影响，且这段历史在学校教育中鲜有普及。

Many Americans of Asian heritage do not even see themselves as Asian Americans.

许多亚裔美国人甚至不将自己视为亚裔美国人群体的一员。

“Some Asian Americans think, ‘Well, you know that’s about undocumented people, it’s not about us,’ but the reality is, ‘No, we’re all in this together,’” said Aarti Kohli, executive director of the Asian Law Caucus, which was among the groups challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship.

“有些亚裔美国人会觉得，‘这是关于那些无证移民，跟我们没关系’，但现实是，‘不，我们所有人休戚与共’，”亚美法律中心执行董事阿蒂·科利表示。该中心是挑战特朗普总统出生地公民权行政令的组织之一。