Nishikawa v. Dulles (1958)

Nishikawa v. Dulles (1958) is a U.S. Supreme Court ruling which held that a man who held dual citizenship in the United States and Japan could not have his American citizenship revoked because he had involuntarily served in the Japanese army during World War II. The plaintiff, Mitsugi Nishikawa, was a Nisei (second-generation Japanese American). He was born in 1916 in Artesia, California, to Japanese immigrant parents. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution mandates that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Nishikawa was American by birth. He was also Japanese, since his parents were Japanese and registered him as Japanese in the Japanese family registry. He also was a dual-citizenship holder. Nishikawa graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in engineering. To pursue his study and Japanese-language skill, he went to Japan in 1939. In 1941, while he was in Japan, he was conscripted into the Japanese army, and he engaged in war efforts in China, Indochina, the Philippines, and Manchuria as a mechanic.

After the war, Nishikawa applied for his passport at the U.S. consulate in Japan, but his citizenship was revoked because of section 401 of the Nationality Act of 1940, which said that “a person who is a national of the United States, whether by birth or naturalization, shall lose his nationality by entering, or serving in, the armed forces of a foreign state.” Nishikawa appealed to U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to reclaim his American citizenship. When this effort failed, he took his case to court. The issue in the case was whether he “voluntarily” served in the [Page 1618]Japanese army. Nishikawa testified that his service was a result of coercion by the Japanese conscription law and it was not his voluntary act.

The federal district court and the federal court of appeals denied his citizenship. They argued that if Nishikawa did not want to serve in the Japanese military, he should have consulted with the U.S. consulate before his conscription. They were also suspicious of the fact that Nishikawa went to Japan when the relationship between Japan and the United States was becoming antagonistic.

In his defense, Nishikawa maintained that the U.S. consulate in Japan could not do anything for Nisei. His service in the Japanese army was an unavoidable event. Nevertheless, the lower courts concluded Nishikawa voluntarily served in the Japanese army.

Nishikawa then appealed his case to the Supreme Court. In 1958, the Supreme Court found no evidence that Nishikawa had voluntarily served in the Japanese Army, and his American citizenship was restored.