Rights and Responsibilities of Citizens and Non-Citizens (2024)

Standard 4.2: Rights and Responsibilities of Citizens and Non-Citizens

Describe the rights and responsibilities of citizens as compared to non-citizens. (Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for History and Social Studies) [8.T4.2]

FOCUS QUESTION: What Are the Rights and Responsibilities of United States Citizens and Non-Citizens?

The Bill of Rights (the Constitution’s first 10 amendments) and civil rights laws set forth the rights (protections under the law) of all Americans.

As summarized by theACLU (American Civil Liberties Union, 2022) you have specific rights:

• when stopped by the police
• as a student
• as a voter
• against discrimination based on sex, race, ethnicity, or national-origin
• as an immigrant
• to practice religious beliefs
• as an LGBTQ individual
• to engage in political protest
• as a prisoner
• as an disabled person
• in some some states protections of abortion rights

Rights come with responsibilities (obligations that citizens are expected to perform) such as paying taxes, serving on a jury when called, defending the country, and participating in the democratic process. Exercising one’s rights and fulfilling one’s responsibilities are the features of active and engaged citizenship in this country.

Non-citizens also have rights and responsibilities as members of American society, but their situations are complicated by legal rules and political pressures.

1.INVESTIGATE: Rights of Citizens and Non-Citizens

93% of the people living in the United States are citizens; 7% are non-citizens (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2020). One recent estimate puts the number of non-citizens at 22.6 million (CAP Immigration Team & Nicolson, 2017).

The rights of individuals under the Constitution apply to citizens and non-citizens alike. Since the Constitution uses the term "people" or "person" rather than "citizen," many of the "basic rights, such as the freedom of religion and speech, the right to due process and equal protection under the law apply to citizens and noncitizens. How those rights play out in practice is more complex" (Frazee, 2018, para. 6-7).

Non-citizens, no matter what their immigration status, generally have the same rights as citizens when law enforcement officers stop, question, arrest, or search them or their homes.

Learn more:Citizenship Rights and Responsibilities & Constitutional Rights of Non-Citizens.

Media Literacy Connections: Portrayals of Immigrants in Television and Film

Portrayals of immigrants and the immigrant experience are frequent themes in television and film.

Aportrayalis how an individual or group is presented in media, but such representations may or may not be factually accurate. Sometimes these representations offer an idealized view of the immigrant experience. While the Statue of Liberty portrays a nation welcoming newcomers, the reality is that the United States was and is not a land of opportunity for many who come here.

In other instances, immigrants may be presented in harmfully stereotypical terms, often as criminals or threats. In the reportChange the Narrative, Change the World: How Immigrant Representation on Television Moves Audiences to Action, researchers from the University of Southern California found viewers who saw programs with more inclusive immigration storylines had more welcoming, supportive attitudes toward immigrants than those who did not.

In these activities, you will explore whether current portrayals and representations of immigrants in television and film media are accurate or stereotypical, and while so doing, consider: "What does media representation of immigrants mean to immigrants?"

• Activity 1: Write a Letter of Praise or Protest (Persuasive Writing)
• Activity 2: Evaluate the Representation of Immigrants in the Movies

Online Resources for the Rights of Citizens and Non-citizens

• LEARNING PLAN: When Some Students are Undocumented, and Some Are Not: Teaching Civics in Mixed-Citizenship Classrooms, Social Education (November/December 2020).
• Becoming American: Exploring Names and Identities, Facing History and Ourselves
• Rights of Non-Citizens under the Equal Protection Clause, from Exploring Constitutional Conflicts
• Incorporation, Bill of Rights Institute.
  • The Supreme Court has incorporated the numerous rights from the Bill of Rights against actions by the government.

2. UNCOVER: Civil Liberties Denied: Page Act, Chinese Exclusion Act, andInternment of Japanese Americans during World War II

Immigrating to the United States and being a citizen of the country has not meant that peoples' rights and civil liberties have been fully protected at all times. The Page Act of 1875, 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, and the Internment of Japanese Americans during World War II are examples of deeply rooted anti-Asian racism in United States history. German people also faced internment in the United States during World War I.

The Page Act (1875) and Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)

The Chinese Exclusion Act established a 10 year ban on Chinese laborers coming to the United States, making it the first significant federal law restricting immigration to the country. It was made permanent in 1903 and was not officially condemned by Congress till 2011. Here is a detailed summary of the Act from the National Archives.

Learn more about the Exclusion Act from this video posted on the History of Racial Injustice Calendar.

While the Chinese Exclusion Act dramatically altered immigration policies, an earlier law, the Page Act of 1875, effectively restricted Chinese women from coming to the United States. As University of Massachusetts history major Bri Hastry noted, the Page Act revealed "discrimination as well as the stereotyping of Asian women as being a sexual threat and being involved in prostitution. This skewed gender ratios of Asians in the US and paved the way for other discriminatory immigration acts" while showing the double complexities of being a woman and a racial minority in the American society of the time.

You can learn more from Chinese Exclusion Act and the Exclusion of Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Chinese Women, a video and learning plan from the Asian American Education Project.

The Internment of Japanese Americans

Following the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 which mandated moving 120,000 Japanese-Americans from their homes to one of 10 internment camps in the western part of the United States. Most of the people relocated were U.S. citizens or legal permanent resident aliens.

The U.S. also engaged in a parallel internment system in which some 2200 Latin Americans of Japanese descent were taken from countries including Peru, Bolivia and Colombia and confining them in the United States (America's Forgotten Internment, Politico Magazine, December 2121).

Internment camps, officially called "relocation centers," were located in California, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and Arkansas. Over 50% of those interned were children.

• To learn about the camps, viewBuilding History 3.0: An Interactive Explorations of the Japanese American Incarceration in Minecraft.

Constitutional safeguards given to United States citizens were ignored or bypassed in the name of national defense. People were detained for up to four years, without due process of law or any factual basis, and forced to live in remote camps behind barbed wire and under the surveillance of armed guards.

Actor George Takei and his family were imprisoned in Rohwer, Arkansas, as documented in his autobiography To The Stars (1995). Takei and three co-writers have since collaborated on They Called Us Enemy, a graphic memoir about his experiences in the camp (2019). Takei later became well-known for his role on televsion show Star Trek.

In 1944, two years after signing Executive Order 9066, President Roosevelt revoked the order. The last internment camp was closed by the end of 1945. There was no official apology from the United States government until passage of The Civil Liberties Act of 1988. In 1991, President George H. W. Bush wrote a letter of apology to each surviving internment camp member who also received a $20,000 check from the government (Letter from President George Bush to Japanese Internees).

Largely forgotten today were the experiences of Japanese-American soldiers who fought for the United States in western Europe. Many of these soldiers were Nisei (American-born children of Japanese immigrants), and former members of the Hawaii National Guard. They experienced the contradiction of fighting to liberate Europe and close down German concentration camps while other Japanese-Americans were interned in camps at home.

• Learn more about the hidden history ofJapanese-American Soldiers in World War II from the website Re-Imagining Migration.

Online Resources for Internment and Suspension of Civil Liberties during Wartime

• Japanese Internment from Library of Congress
• Japanese, German, and Italian American Enemy Alien Internment (Texas Historical Commission)
• Lesson Plans from the ManzanarNational Historic Site focus on the experiences at one of the primary internment camps.
• A More Perfect Union: Japanese Americans & the U.S. Constitution (Smithsonian Museum of American History)
  • Images, music and text explores the experience of citizens placed in detention camps during World War II.
• Two important legal cases were brought against the United States concerning Japanese internment:
  • Hirabayashi v. United States (1943)
  • Korematsu v. United States (1944)
• World War I: Internment Camp (Tar Heel Junior HIstorian, May 1993)
  • Describes what happened in North Carolina to German passengers and crew of German ships that stayed in American ports when the U.S. declared war on Germany in 1917.
    
• Fort Douglas World War I German Internment Camp (Intermountain Histories, 2023)
  • German POWs and those defined as "enemy aliens" were placed in this camp in Utah.
• Internal Affairs: Untold Case Studies of World War I German Internment. Jacob L. Wasserman, Yale University (2016).
• What World War I Civilian Internment Can Teach Us about Today. Matthew Stibbe, Sheffield Hallam University.
  • At least 800,000 civilians were imprisoned during the First World War, but little is known about their experiences.

3. ENGAGE: What Individuals Who Fought for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Should Have a National Holiday or Day of Recognition?

There are currently 12 legal federal holidays in the U.S.: New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday, Inauguration Day (once every 4 years), George Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, Juneteenth National Independence Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Armistice Day/Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

There are also a number of what the National Constitution Center calls civic holidaysintended to honor America's past, including Constitution Day (September 17), Election Day (the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November), Bill of Rights Day (December 15), Law Day (May 1), Flag Day (June 14), and Earth Day (April 22).

Meanwhile, there are individuals and groups who fought for civil rights and civil liberties who remain neglected or omitted from history books and state-level history curriculum frameworks. Check out the Fighting for Justice series of picture books presenting the stories of civil rights change makers; the first two books are Fred Korematsu Speaks Out (2017) and Biddy Mason Speaks Out (2019).

What additional holidays or days of recognition should be established to celebrate and honor change-making individuals and groups?

Indigenous People's Day and International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples

In 2021, more than 50 cities and states celebrated Indigenous People's Day (Running Strong for American Indian Youth) along with or as a replacement for Columbus Day. August 9 is the United Nations-sponsored International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples that focuses attention on the needs, rights, and historical mistreatment of indigenous communities around the world.

Fred Korematsu

In 1942, a 23-year-old Japanese American named Fred Korematsu refused an order to move to one of the government’s wartime internment camps. He was arrested, convicted, and jailed for his actions. Along with two other resistors, he appealed his case to the Supreme Court which upheld his conviction. That conviction was eventually overturned in 1983.

To honor his fight for civil rights and civil liberties, Fred Korematsu Day was enacted in California in 2010. It was the first state-wide day in the United States to be named after an Asian American. Hawaii, Virginia, and Florida have since passed laws honoring Fred Korematsu to perpetuity. Learn more at It's Fred Korematsu Day: Celebrating a Foe of U.S. Internment Camps, and Honoring a Japanese-American Who Fought Against Internment Camps.

National Women's Holiday

Since none of the legal federal holidays honor women, a national women's holiday has been proposed for August 26, the date of the signing of the 19th Amendment. Other ideas for a holiday for women's rights include March 8, International Women's Day or February 15, Susan B. Anthony's birthday (which is already a holiday in California, New York, West Virginia, Florida, and Wisconsin).

What national holiday would you create to honor the accomplishments of women and the struggle for women's rights?

Over-Looked or Little-Known Days of Recognition

Have you heard of these important, but not always well-known days of recognition?

• Buffalo Soldiers Day on July 28 honors 180,000 Black Americans who served in six U.S. Army regiments after the Civil War. Buffalo Soldiers were among the first to work as rangers at Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Sequoia & Canyons National Parks. Buffalo soldier Charles Young became the first Black American to earn the rank of colonel in the Army.

• National Tap Dance Day is May 25, designated by Congress in 1989 to honor the legendary African American dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson; May 25 is Robinson's birthday.
• Chávez-Huerta Day happens in Texas on the Monday that precedes March 31 in all the schools of the Houston Independent School District to honor the efforts of César Chávez and Dolores Huerta to earn rights for farmworkers throughout the United States.
• Transgender Day of Visibilitywas formally declared March 31 in 2022 by President Joe Biden, the first U.S. President to do so; the day has been celebrated internationally since 2009.
• Quock Walker Day (Massachusetts Emancipation Day) enacted in 2022 to celebrate the July 8, 1783 Massachusetts Supreme Court decision declaring slavery unconstitutional under the state's constitution.
  • Link for more information to Abolition of Slavery in the North after the American Revolution.
• Negro Election Day, the first Saturday in July, was established as a civic holiday in Massachusetts to honor the first Black voting and self-governing system.
  • Begun in Salem in 1740 when enslaved men chose their own King or Governor. The practice expanded to other towns in Massachusetts. That elected figure served as a mediator and liaison between slaves, elected colonial leaders and white slave owners, also holding court trials and deliberating punishment for non-law-abiding slaves in their communities (First Black Self-Governing System Negro Election Day History, 2018).

The Politics of Holidays and Recognitions

Proposals to add new holidays generate strong political disagreements. Some lawmakers and public policy advocacy groups object to giving government workers another paid day off. For example, in voting against making Juneteenth a state holiday in Connecticut, one Republican state legislator noted that state workers could take 46 paid days off a year—15 vacation days, 15 sick days, three personal days and now 13 holidays, adding “Nine weeks! I don’t see anyone in the private sector getting that much time off with pay” ("Juneteenth is Not a Legal Holiday in Most States," Pew Trusts, June 17, 2022).

State days of recognition, in contrast to holidays, do not necessarily mean a paid day-off for state workers.

Efforts to honor individuals for their significant, but long overlooked historical efforts are underway throughout the United States:

• Recognitions include holidays, days of recognition, and parks and monuments.
  • In July 2023, President Joe Biden established theEmmett Till and Mamie-Till Mobley National Monument, the country's 425th national park. The park's three locations in Mississippi and Chicago focus on "Emmett Till’s lynching and funeral, the acquittal of his murderers and the subsequent activism by his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley."
• Ten states and numerous communities celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day instead of Columbus Day (IndianYouth.org., 2022). At the same time, and despite its racist history, there are states and communities that continue to celebrate the Confederacy and Confederate war heroes with days of recognition (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2019).
• The Naming Commission, a Pentagon committee created by Congress following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, is charged with removing Confederate ties from military installations. In 2023, two ships were renamed: USS Robert Smalls to honor the African American Civil War hero and USS Marie Tharp to honor the woman ocean geologist who documented the process of continental drift.

Students can be effective advocates for honoring those who fought for civil rights and civil liberties. In the early 1980s, students from Oakland Tech High School class of 1981 - "The Apollos" - engaged in a four-year campaign to get the state of California to establish a day honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Their efforts were successful when California became the fourth state to have a MLK Day (the national holiday was established in 1986). In 2109, students at the school wrote and performed a play about the efforts of the Apollos (California High School Students Who Lobbied for State MLK Holiday Honored in Oakland Tech Play).

Younger students can be actively involved too, as in this example: Amherst Elementary School Students Launch Campaign for Indigenous People's Day.

Who would you nominate for a National Holiday or Day of Recognition for efforts to achieve civil rights and civil liberties?

Standard 4.2 Conclusion

In the United States, every citizen has rights and responsibilities as a member of a democratic society. Non-citizens have rights too, although they differ from those of citizens.INVESTIGATE explored the specific rights of citizens and non-citizens. UNCOVER focused on the suspension of citizenship rights during the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. ENGAGE asked whether days of recognition should be given to Fred Korematsu or other women and men who fought to establish and preserve civil rights and civil liberties throughout American history.