Throughline
Throughline
NPR
Who gets to be an American citizen?
15 minutes Posted Apr 7, 2026 at 7:05 am.
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The 14th Amendment guaranteed equal citizenship after the Civil War, but who exactly counted as a citizen? Today on the show, the story of Wong Kim Ark, a man born in San Francisco to Chinese parents, whose Supreme Court case defined birthright citizenship more than a century ago.

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