In today’s conversations, we talk a lot about racial identity and national identity — sometimes as if the two are naturally connected. But in America, these ideas didn’t grow up together. They were fused over time through law, culture, and politics, often in ways designed to determine who belonged and who didn’t.
Understanding how these identities became intertwined helps explain everything from immigration debates to citizenship fights to how families talk about where they come from. And it shows why people across many communities — not just one — have had to navigate complicated ideas about who they are and where they fit.
In the 1700s and early 1800s, people in America identified themselves by:
Race existed as an idea, but it wasn’t yet tied to the idea of being “American.”
Early laws restricted citizenship largely to property-owning men.
Race wasn’t the central factor — yet.
As the United States expanded westward, built a slave economy, restricted immigration, and displaced Indigenous communities, race became a political tool. The state began defining national identity not by allegiance or geography, but by who the government wanted inside the circle of belonging.
Between the 1790s and 1920s, laws explicitly tied “American identity” to certain racial groups:
Citizenship was limited to “free White persons.”
This was the first time race and nation were legally fused.
As settlers expanded west, the federal government created contradictory systems where Indigenous nations were treated as foreign, dependent, or domestic — depending on political convenience.
Laws targeted Chinese, Japanese, South Asian, Mexican, Middle Eastern, and other immigrants, using race to decide who could fully belong.
These made “American” synonymous with “White” in many public institutions, even though the country was always multiracial.
These laws regulated identity itself, determining who counted as “white” or “non-white” for purposes of citizenship, marriage, voting, and schooling.
People in Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii, and the Philippines experienced national identity differently — some gaining citizenship, some not, depending on politics and race.
Denied equal citizenship rights for most of U.S. history, even after formal emancipation.
Forced into a category of “foreign” within their own homelands, then later “domestic dependent nations,” then later U.S. citizens.
Faced decades of exclusion, despite generations of families establishing roots.
Experienced shifting classifications depending on census rules, court decisions, or political tensions.
Groups once seen as “not fully American” — Irish, Italian, Jewish, Eastern European — became absorbed into “whiteness,” reshaping both racial and national identity.
Often found their national identity questioned or erased depending on racial classification rules.
In every case, race and nation weren’t naturally linked — they were linked by policy.
Even after the exclusion laws were dismantled, the habits built during that era stayed in place:
Today’s discussions about identity, belonging, and “who is American” carry deep historical roots.
Because identity isn’t just about ancestry.
And nationality isn’t just about paperwork.
For centuries, the United States used race to draw the boundaries of belonging — deciding who had access to citizenship, land, education, marriage, and opportunity.
When we understand how these boundaries were built, it becomes easier to see:
This story isn’t just about the past — it explains the world we’re living in.
Library of Congress — Race and Citizenship Collections
https://www.loc.gov/
National Archives — Naturalization and Exclusion Laws
https://www.archives.gov/
Smithsonian NMAAHC — Race and Belonging Collections
https://nmaahc.si.edu/
PBS — Race and Citizenship Documentary Materials
https://www.pbs.org/
Migration Policy Institute — Historical Immigration Context
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/