Yamashita v. Hinkle

Yamashita v. Hinkle, 260 U.S. 199 (1922), was a decision of the United States Supreme Court that upheld the constitutionality of the state of Washington's Alien Land Law.[1] The law prohibited Asians from owning property. Washington's attorney general maintained that in order for Japanese people to fit in, their "marked physical characteristics" would have to be destroyed, that "the Negro, the Indian and the Chinaman" had already demonstrated assimilation was not possible for them. The U.S. Supreme Court heard the case, brought by Takuji Yamashita, and affirmed this race-based prohibition, citing its immediately prior issued decision in Takao Ozawa v. United States. Ozawa had upheld the constitutionality of barring anyone other than "free white persons" and "persons of African nativity or ... descent" to naturalize, and affirmed the racial classifications of previous court decisions.

Yamashita v. Hinkle
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 3–4, 1922 Decided November 22, 1922
Full case name	Takuji Yamashita, et al. v. Hinkle, Secretary of State of the State of Washington
Citations	260 U.S. 199 (more) 43 S. Ct. 69; 67 L. Ed. 209, 1922 U.S. LEXIS 2358
Holding
Washington's Alien Land Law is not unconstitutional.
Court membership
Chief Justice William H. Taft Associate Justices Joseph McKenna · Oliver W. Holmes Jr. Willis Van Devanter · Mahlon Pitney James C. McReynolds · Louis Brandeis George Sutherland
Case opinion
Majority	Sutherland, joined by unanimous

Washington's Alien Land Law would not be repealed until 1966.