How have legal rulings contributed to the attractiveness of whiteness and to who gets defined as white?
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Legal rulings have played a significant role in shaping who is defined as "white" and why being seen as white became attractive for many immigrant groups. Being classified as white offered practical benefits like the right to vote and better job opportunities. Gualtieri also describes how there is a "psychological compensation" tied to being white, providing social advantages and a sense of belonging in a society that placed high value on whiteness.
Legally, whiteness is enforced as an exclusive identity because the court decides who gets access to that identity, making it special and desirable - especially to Syrian immigrants in the US. For instance, the Gualtieri reading discusses George Dow, a Syrian immigrant who was initially denied citizenship because he wasn’t considered white. However, after community pushback, the court eventually ruled that Syrians were "white persons" granting them the legal status needed for citizenship.
This single legal decision effectively changed the racial status of an entire group, showing how getting access to the identity of whiteness was something that gave them access to essential rights and privileges otherwise denied to them. Regardless, the identity of racial groups is often always changing, based on those groups seeking inclusion as well as the legal system that consistently upholds a racial hierarchy that prioritizes whiteness.