Yamashita v. Hinkle
Yamashita v. Hinkle, 260 U.S. 199 (1922), was a decision of the United States Supreme Court that upheld the constitutionality of the state of Washington's Alien Land Law. The law prohibited Asians from owning property. Washington's attorney general maintained that in order for Japanese people to fit in, their "marked physical characteristics" would have to be destroyed, that "the Negro, the Indian and the Chinaman" had already demonstrated assimilation was not possible for them. The U.S. Supreme Court heard the case, brought by Takuji Yamashita, and affirmed this race-based prohibition, citing its immediately prior issued decision in Takao Ozawa v. United States. Ozawa had upheld the constitutionality of barring anyone other than "free white persons" and "persons of African nativity or ... descent" to naturalize, and affirmed the racial classifications of previous court decisions. Washington's Alien Land Law would not be repealed until 1966. 