Weeks before his appearance in Los Angeles Superior Court, a naturalization and immigration agent had moved to deny Shishim's citizenship petition on the grounds that his "Arab identity," synonymous with Muslim identity, did not meet the legal mandate of whiteness. Judge Hutton seemed persuaded by the immigration examiner's position, which deemed immigrants from the region Shishim originated from as hostile to American democracy and values, unassimilable, and Muslim unless proven otherwise. However, although Shishim was an Arab, he was also a Christian. In fact, the overwhelming majority of Arabs in the United States in 1909 were Christians.

XREF: Reverses modern assumptions that Arab identity implies Muslim identity; echoes how racial and religious categories were legally constructed in early 20th-century naturalization cases.

Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Unde…, loc. 179