Birthright citizenship
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From Mark Dow:
The ACLU's national legal director is Cecillia Wang. She argued the birthright citizenship case, Trump v. Barbara, in front of the Supreme Court this month. This case heavily depends on the 1898 case Wong Kim Ark. I asked Cecillia — a birthright citizen herself — whether the names Wang and Wong are transliterations of the same word.
She replied by email: "I tried to figure out whether Mr. Wong has the same last name. My understanding is that we don't. Cantonese-speaking immigrants in the 19th century had their names transliterated through a different system, and perhaps not through any system but an ad hoc interaction with a customs official. "Wong" was most commonly used for two surnames, one now transliterated as Wang (meaning "king") and the other as Huang (meaning "yellow"). I think Wong Kim Ark was a Huang."
I'm sharing this, with Cecillia's permission, in case Language Log readers might have something to add.
Selected readings
- "The language of citizenship" (8/2/24)
- "Citizenship and syntax (updated, and updated again)" (7/25/18)
- "Chinese nationality" (2/20/22)
- "Linguistics Required for British Citizenship" (11/1/05)
J.W. Brewer said,
April 8, 2026 @ 10:13 pm
I can't solve this puzzle, but let me note that from an Anglophone perspective it is not particularly obvious that Wang and Huang are themselves not merely different romanizations of the same underlying syllable, at least assuming the wine-whine merger. I personally needed to resort to a different writing system to be convinced that ㄨㄤ and ㄏㄨㄤ were not homophones. (That doesn't mean they aren't homophonous in Cantonese, of course.)
We presumably don't know how Americanized versus "authentic" a pronunciation Wong Kim Ark gave to his own name. At least when speaking English. The list of "People with the surname" in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wong_(surname) sorts many of those listed by the specific character/kanji used for their non-romanized name, but Wong Kim Ark is in the "Other" group, presumably meaning that no one (with input into the wikipedia article) has any reliable information as to the non-romanized spelling of his name.
Jonathan Smith said,
April 8, 2026 @ 11:34 pm
Lawyers (e.g. J.W. Brewer) correct me, but how is the NYT now saying stuff like "… there is a personal element, as well. [Lawyer Cecilia] Wang, 55, is herself a birthright citizen." Is not jus soli the *general* basis for U.S. citizenship per the 14th amendment? Pretty sure after "birthright citizenship" is abolished, the only U.S. citizens will be naturalized ones or *real* jus sanguinis ones like me, cough. We'll decide what to do with the rest of you [explicit] when the time comes.
Also Wikipedia says the name Wong Kim Ark is Hoisanese and writes it "黄金德“ — but this could well just be a guess; it's not clear any contemporary docs had a Hanzispelling.
Jinfu Ke said,
April 9, 2026 @ 2:44 am
Re Jonathan: Wikimedia Commons seems to have a Hanzi signature of 黄金德.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wong_Kim_Ark_sigs.png
cervantes said,
April 9, 2026 @ 2:17 pm
I had a college classmate named Manley Huang. Naturally we always pronounced it Wang. How that syllable came to have a specific meaning in English I do not know.
Philip Taylor said,
April 9, 2026 @ 4:12 pm
Well, I have a cousin (by marriage) whose given name is Huang (Huang Nguyẽn, in full), and "naturally" I have always pronounced it "Huang" — I cannot imagine pronouncing it as "Wang", it would just feel completely wrong (and impolite).
Fen Yik said,
April 9, 2026 @ 5:08 pm
This article has a photo of one of Wong Kim Ark's immigration documents, also showing his Chinese name as 黃金德:
https://elpasomatters.org/2022/07/04/wong-kim-ark-vs-united-states-history-immigration-supreme-court/
The Cantonese homophony of 黃 (Mand. huáng, Cant. wong4) and 王 (Mand. wáng, Cant. wong4) is confusing enough that when someone says their surname is Wong in Cantonese, people often ask 大肚黃定係三畫王? 'Big belly Wong or three horizontal strokes Wong?' This disambiguates based on what the character looks like.
katarina said,
April 9, 2026 @ 6:35 pm
What puzzles me is how 德, "de" in Mandarin, "dug" (like English "dug") in Cantonese, became Ark in Wong Kim Ark (黃金德)'s name.
Chris Button said,
April 9, 2026 @ 7:31 pm
@ katarina
I think it's because it reflects Taishanese rather than Cantonese.
katarina said,
April 9, 2026 @ 11:43 pm
Oh, thanks Chris.
I looked up the Taishanese pronunciation and you are right.
David Marjanović said,
April 10, 2026 @ 8:58 am
It's not likely to matter here, but there's also a rare surname 汪 that's Wāng in Mandarin.
(…And now I'm wondering how the first tone happened. Could be the same mystery as lā, I guess…)
Chris Button said,
April 10, 2026 @ 4:06 pm
@ David Marjanović
What's wrong with the tone of 汪? It seems regular to me, and it shouldn't be the same as 王.
katarina said,
April 10, 2026 @ 5:36 pm
@ David Marjanović
Actually 汪 is not a rare surname. One encounters it now and then.
A famous person with that surname in recent history is Wang Jingwei 汪精衛, the head of a puppet government in China under Japan during WWII. He felt China was too weak to fight Japan and a negotiated peace with Japan would save lives. He was branded a traitor by the Chiang Kai-shek government.
Victor Mair said,
April 10, 2026 @ 8:00 pm
@katarina
I'm a personal friend of Wang Jingwei's 汪精衛 granddaughter, Pinky Wu.
katarina said,
April 11, 2026 @ 8:56 am
Oh. What does/did Pinky Wu do?
Victor Mair said,
April 11, 2026 @ 10:14 am
She graduated from CUHK and is a housewife / mother.
David Marjanović said,
April 11, 2026 @ 11:44 am
I simply failed to look it up: it had a glottal-stop initial in MC, so the tone is indeed regular.
Jonathan Smith said,
April 13, 2026 @ 10:03 am
Ah nice — "黄金德" it is then.
Re: homophonous surnames, cf. the two Zhāng 张 章 in Mandarin (and others) disambiguated in introductions etc. as "gōng-cháng Zhāng" 弓长张 'bow-long Zhang' and "lì-zǎo Zhāng" 立早章 'stand-early Zhang'.
Duncan said,
April 15, 2026 @ 9:51 pm
@ Philip Taylor:
I believe you mistook Cervantes' intention re: "naturally". Just take another look at that name, "Manley Huang", and tell me that, especially in "college classmate" age context, it doesn't "naturally" "beg the pronunciation", regardless of how one would "naturally" pronounce "Huang" on its own.
(Of course in LL context especially, "beg the pronunciation" is an equally "natural" (and much more SFW) allusion to "begs the question", such that much like those college kids with "Manley Huang", I just couldn't resist the usage once it occurred to me. =:^)