On this day, March 26, in 1790

The United States Naturalization Law of 1790 went into effect. This act provided the first guidelines for granting U.S. citizenship. One of these guidelines specified that citizens must be ‘free white people,’ excluding Native Americans, indentured servants, slaves, free African-Americans, and later Asian Americans. It is legislation like this that has historically allowed groups of marginalized white people, such as Irish and Italian-Americans, to reap the benefits of whiteness, while simultaneously maintaining the oppression of people-of-color.