1790
Naturalization Act denies all ethnic minorities U.S. citizenship (for whites only)

1830
Indian Removal Act initiates Trail of Tears for the so-called “Five Civilized Tribes”

1848
Guadalupe Hidalgo grants U.S. citizenship to residents of lands ceded to U.S.

1853
California Supreme Court denies right of Chinese to testify in courts based on ban against Native American testimony.  Court rules Native American laws apply to Chinese according to Bering Sea thesis.

1855
U.S. Supreme Court rules in Chan Yong case that Chinese not ”white,” therefore ineligible for citizenship under 1790 Naturalization Act.

1857
Dred Scott decision:
1)         Excluded all Africans from naturalized citizenship
2) Native-born African Americans had no rights to U.S. Citizenship

1866
Civil Rights Act, U.S citizenship for native-born except Native Americans

1868
Fourteenth Amendment guarantees U.S. citizenship to naturalized and native-born, did not include Native Americans at this time

1870
Naturalization Act, U.S. citizenship granted to “aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent”

1882
Chinese Exclusion Law banning all Chinese workers from the U.S.

1895
Plessy decision “separate but equal” also restrictions on voting rights

1897
 Texas courts declare Mexican Americans “not white”

1898
Puerto Rico conquered. Jones Act granting U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans

1901
Citizenship to so-called “Five Civilized Tribes”

1917
Jones Act granting U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans

1922
U.S. Supreme Court rules Takao Ozawa not “white,” therefore ineligible for citizenship.  While born in Japan, Ozawa was educated in U.S. and was Christian.

1923
U.S. Supreme Court rules Asian Indians ineligible for naturalized citizenship.  Court argues that the intention of the Founding Fathers was to “confer the privilege of citizenship upon the class of persons they knew.”

1924
Indian Citizenship Act, Native Americans granted U.S. citizenship

1929-1935
Repatriation programs, native-born U.S. citizens sent to Mexico

1935
 California law declares Mexican Americans are foreign-born Indians

1943
Congress rescinds Chinese Exclusion Law and grants Chinese the right to become naturalized citizens

1941-1945
Internment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps, including native-born citizens

1954
Brown, ending separate but equal

1965
Voting Rights Act, full citizenship granted

1975
Amendment to Voting Rights Act requiring electoral ballots an information be multilingual