Residential Segregation and Interracial Marriages

Part I highlights recent data on racially segregated neighborhoods and low rates of interracial marriage to underscore what Russell Robinson refers to as “structural constraints” that shape and limit romantic preferences. As I discuss in this Part, many cities today continue to be racially segregated. Notably, current data demonstrate a strong correlation between low rates of interracial marriage and racially segregated neighborhoods in those cities. By contrast, contemporary studies indicate that in cities where communities are more racially and economically integrated, the rate of interracial marriages is high. Part II argues that the association between high rates of segregation and low rates of interracial marriages should prompt an exploration of factors that facilitate and perpetuate residential segregation. It also calls for an examination of ways to dismantle these contemporary barriers to the establishment of racially integrated neighborhoods and communities. Part II.A focuses on the ways that some cities are seeking to address residential segregation and housing discrimination in their jurisdictions. Part II.B considers private endeavors that policy makers ought to also consider in seeking to better integrate certain neighborhoods. Specifically, this Part discusses real estate developer James Rouse’s integrated planned community of Columbia, Maryland, which he established in 1967. Rouse’s attempt to integrate through private social engineering of American neighborhoods and cities offers important lessons for those who are invested today in creating conditions for diverse families to flourish

Sanctuary Cities and Local Citizenship

This article explores the ways in which sanctuary laws illustrate the tensions between national and local citizenship, and specifically examines the ways in which sanctuary cities have constructed membership for undocumented immigrants located within their jurisdictions

Citizenship for the Guest Workers of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands

This essay explores an underexamined yet compelling immigration issue: whether Congress should confer to long-term guest workers in the Common-wealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) a path to lawful permanent residence and citizenship. The issue has led to contentious debates between groups arguing for a fair and equitable result for the guest workers and groups advocating for the indigenous peoples of the CNMI who fear loss of political power. Contend-ing that both arguments raise important anti-subordination claims, this essay argues that resolution of the issue requires a close examination of the historical, cultural and economic factors that led to this issue. Ultimately, this essay argues that Congress should provide the guest workers with a path to become permanent members of the American polity. Yet, in doing so, Congress must be mindful of the political needs of the CNMI’s indigenous populations

Blood Quantum and Equal Protection

Modern equal protection doctrine treats laws that make distinctions on the basis of indigeneity defined on blood quantum terms along a racial/political paradigm. This dichotomy may be traced to Morton v. Mancari and more recently to Rice v. Cayetano. In Mancari, the Supreme Court held that laws that privilege members of Native American tribes do not constitute racial discrimination because the preferences have a political purpose – to further the right to self-government of tribes. Rice v. Cayetano crystallized the juxtaposition of the racial from the political nature of indigeneity by invalidating a law that privileged Native Hawaiians. That law, according to the Court, used an ancestral blood requirement to construct a racial category and a racial purpose. Close analysis of the legal construction of the dichotomy between the constitutive notion of indigeneity as either a racial and political identity has largely escaped scholarship. Scholars have examined and critiqued equal protection law’s racialized construction of blood quantum laws and to a lesser extent, their political construction. A more robust examination of the equal protection doctrinal approach itself in categorizing one as race and the other as political, however, has been lacking. This Essay aims to fill this void in scholarship by interrogating and critiquing the dichotomy of the racial versus political meaning of indigeneity based on blood quantum. In so doing, I make two interrelated points. First, I argue that the dichotomy obscures the structural inequalities in the current regulatory process that limits the conferral of federal tribal recognition to a select group of indigenous groups. An indigenous group’s acquisition of federal recognition is critical because, as Mancari shows, equal protection law equates such recognition with political status, which immunizes the group from strict scrutiny. Second, I examine cases in the U.S. territories that have been overlooked in equal protection cases involving blood quantum laws. These cases upheld property ownership restrictions that utilize blood quantum distinctions because they functioned to protect the property and cultures of the indigenous peoples in those territories. Continued marginalization of these territorial cases, I argue, would be a mistake. At minimum, these territorial cases help to advance a broader theory of indigeneity’s political meaning. This more expansive view of the political theory of indigeneity recognizes the relationships among culture, property and autonomy. More broadly, by interjecting these cases in the modern interpretation of blood quantum as a marker for either a racial or political identity, they demonstrate that equal protection law’s current approach sets up a false dichotomy. The implication of law’s recognition of cultural differences in the territories to “mainstream” equal protection law is significant given the doctrine’s resistance to cultural claims. Consequently, these cases facilitate retheorizing the way law views race, political identity, culture and property

Citizenship for the Guest Workers of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands

This essay explores an underexamined yet compelling immigration issue: whether Congress should confer to long-term guest workers in the Common-wealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) a path to lawful permanent residence and citizenship. The issue has led to contentious debates between groups arguing for a fair and equitable result for the guest workers and groups advocating for the indigenous peoples of the CNMI who fear loss of political power. Contend-ing that both arguments raise important anti-subordination claims, this essay argues that resolution of the issue requires a close examination of the historical, cultural and economic factors that led to this issue. Ultimately, this essay argues that Congress should provide the guest workers with a path to become permanent members of the American polity. Yet, in doing so, Congress must be mindful of the political needs of the CNMI’s indigenous populations

Rediscovering Oyama v. California: At the Intersection of Property, Race, and Citizenship

Oyama v. California was a landmark case in the history of civil rights. Decided in January 1948, Oyama held unconstitutional a provision of California\u27s Alien Land Law, which allowed the state to take an escheat action on property given to U.S. citizens that had been purchased by their parents who were not eligible to become citizens. At the time, the country\u27s naturalization law prohibited Japanese nationals from becoming U.S. citizens. Thus, the Alien Land Law applied primarily to Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans. Critically, the Supreme Court in Oyama recognized that the state\u27s attempted taking of a citizen\u27s property because his father was Japanese constituted a violation of his equal protection rights. In so doing, Oyama created a paradigm shift in the treatment of property rights of Japanese Americans. Despite its significance, Oyama has received surprisingly little attention in legal scholarship. Leading constitutional and property law casebooks have virtually ignored the case. This Article seeks to correct that oversight. As this Article argues, Oyama fills a neglected void in our collective historical understanding of race, property law, and citizenship. Equally important, it provides a timely normative and prescriptive response to contentious contemporary debates about the validity of state and local law restrictions on leaseholds against a select group of noncitizens, namely undocumented immigrants. By calling attention to the historical and contemporary contributions of this largely unnoticed case, this Article argues why Oyama should be included in the canons of property and constitutional laws

Rejecting Citizenship

A Review of Pursuing Citizenship in the Enforcement Era. By Ming Hsu Chen