Takao Ozawa v. United States, 260 U.S. 178 (1922), was a US legal proceeding. The United States Supreme Court found Takao Ozawa, a Japanese American who was born in Japan but had lived in the United States for 20 years, ineligible for naturalization. In 1914, Ozawa filed for US citizenship under the Naturalization Act of 1906. This act allowed only "free white persons" and "persons of African nativity or persons of African descent" to naturalize. Ozawa did not challenge the constitutionality of the racial restrictions. Instead, he claimed that Japanese people should be properly classified as "free white persons". Background Takao Ozawa was born on June 15, 1875 in Kanagawa, Japan. In 1894, he moved to San Francisco, California, where he attended school. After he graduated from Berkeley High School, Ozawa attended the University of California. In 1906, after graduating, he moved to Honolulu, Hawaii. After settling down in Honolulu, Ozawa learned English fluently, practiced Christianity, and obtained a job at an American company. While in Hawaii, he married a Japanese woman with whom he had two children. Ozawa's wife studied in the United States. His family spoke fluent English and focused on American culture more than they did on Japanese culture. On October 16, 1914, Takao Ozawa decided to apply for citizenship since he had lived in America for 20 years. Despite his US education, Ozawa did not get his citizenship easily. Ozawa tried to petition under the naturalization law, but he was ineligible as he was classified as Japanese. The courts' reaction Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice George Sutherland approved a line that lower court cases held, stating that "the words 'white person was only to indicate a person of what is popularly known as the Caucasian race." The courts stated that the Japanese were not considered as "free white persons" within the meaning of the law. Justice Sutherland wrote that the lower courts' conclusion that the Japanese were not "free white persons" for purposes of naturalization had “become so well established by judicial and executive concurrence and legislative acquiescence that we should not at this late day feel at liberty to disturb it, in the absence of reasons far more cogent than any that have been suggested." The Court declined to review the ethnological authorities relied on by the lower courts to support their conclusion or those advanced by the parties. Effects On the same day,