Luce-Celler Act lets Indians become US citizens again

Who: President Harry S. Truman, who signed it; Representative Emanuel Celler, who with Clare Boothe Luce had proposed it in 1943 (Wikipedia); and J. J. Singh, president of the India League of America, who the UC Davis Punjabi and Sikh Diaspora archive says played a decisive role in its passage. A Truman Library photograph of the signing shows J. J. Singh and Dr Anup Singh, secretary of the National Commission for India's Freedom, standing with Celler.

What: The Act, Public Law 79-483, was signed on 2 July 1946. According to the Truman Library's caption, it set annual immigration quotas of 100 each for Filipinos and "East Indians" and authorised the naturalisation of Filipinos and East Indians already in the country who met the requirements for citizenship. Before it, Indian nationals could not naturalise (Wikipedia). The Act reopened naturalisation to Indians after the Supreme Court's 1923 ruling against Bhagat Singh Thind had closed it. Naturalised Indians could now own property in their own names and petition for immediate family (Wikipedia); the UC Davis archive adds that Punjabi pioneers could own homes and farmland and bring their families. Nearly 8,000 South Asians immigrated in the next two decades, UC Davis says.

Where: The United States, by an Act of Congress; its effects were felt by Punjabi farming families, in California and elsewhere.

Why it mattered: It ended a bar on Indian citizenship that had lasted more than two decades. Dalip Singh Saund was elected to Congress in 1956, the first Asian American in that office, the UC Davis archive says. The next change came with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, signed by President Lyndon Johnson, which abolished the national quota system and favoured family reunification and skilled workers. Punjabi families around Yuba City then sponsored hundreds of relatives, UC Davis says.