Not White Enough
Not White Enough demonstrates how the lines between law and politics blurred for decades to enable a two-tiered system of justice where constitutional guarantees of equality under law were no longer upheld for all people. Goldstone examines each of the key Supreme Court decisions—including Wong Kim Ark, Ozawa, and Thind—as not simply jurisprudence but as expressions of political will. He chronicles the political history of racism that made Japanese internment almost inevitable, highlighting the key roles San Francisco mayors James D. Phelan and Eugene Schmitz, political boss Abe Ruef, California attorney general Ulysses Webb, and future Chief Justice Earl Warren played in instigating some of the most egregious anti-Asian legislation, all for political convenience and gain. Goldstone also illustrates Chinese and Japanese immigrants’ courage and determination to carve out a place for themselves in a country that did everything it could to reject them.