Julian Leus, ASA 115 SS1 2019, Week 3

Deenesh Sohoni's article Unsuitable Suitors argues that state-level anti-miscegenation laws, barring marriages between whites and various Asian-American ethnic groups, was highly influenced by nationwide legal conceptions of race and ethnicity. The most notable point in this article was that––in the eyes of the law–– African Americans fell under a more general racial umbrella term of "African, Negro, or black," largely based on phenotypal characteristics documented as "African" " (599-600). Unlike African Americans, Asian ethnic groups did not fall under a general racial category like "Asiatic" or "Oriental", in large part because of differing U.S. political relationships with Asian countries, such as the Philippines being a protectorate of the U.S. and thus making Filipino immigrants "U.S. nationals". In the context of late 19th and early 20th century conceptions of race, the general umbrella terms "Mongolian, or yellow" for Chinese and Japanese immigrants could not be applied to Filipinos, Koreans, and Asian Indians because of their distinction as "Malays, or brown" folx. This specific distinction is where Sohoni's argument becomes very clear and strong: that U.S. legal system, through the power of Supreme Court rulings, could not only reflect scientific racial categories, but also produce and reproduce new racial discriminations into the law. This is especially true in the case of anti-miscegenation laws for Asian ethnic groups who did not fall under the Mongolian racial umbrella, namely Filipinos, Koreans, and Asian Indians.

State court cases cited by Sohoni reveal the divisiveness of presiding judges in using anthropological racism, protected by the authority of "scientific knowledge", in the creation of anti-miscegenation laws between not only "Mongolian" Asians, but also "Malay" Asians, with white people. This reading connects to the overarching theme of the week of colorism, or the justification for discrimination based on skin color phenotype.

Question: What social movements and/or political pressures caused anti-miscegenation laws to be repealed in Loving v. Virginia in 1967?