"[E] ven when the plain meaning did not produce absurd results but merely an unreasonable one `plainly at variance with the policy of the legislation as a whole'this Court has followed that purpose, rather than the literal words. "

Japanese aliens were not Caucasian and therefore ineligible for American citizenship, and in United States

Thirty years later the Court again taught that if giving the words of the statute their natural significance "leads to an unreasonable result plainly at variance with the policy of the legislation as a whole, we must examine the matter further. We may then look to the reason of the enactment and inquire into its antecedent history and give it effect in accordance with its design …

—holding that Japanese citizens were ineligible for US citizenship under the naturalization laws because the law was limited to “free white persons and to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent

—the Court held that a man of the "Japanese race born in Japan" was not a "white person" and therefore was not qualified to be naturalized under the country's then-racially restrictive naturalization laws.

—the Supreme Court held that Japanese were not 'white' and, accordingly, ineligible for naturalization.

—it is now established beyond successful challenge that a court may seek out any reliable evidence as to legislative purpose regardless of whether the statutory language appears to be clear.

In a unanimous determination that a person of Japanese ancestry could not naturalize, the Supreme Court described the racial restriction on naturalization as “a rule in force from the beginning of the Government, a part of our history as well as our law, welded into the structure of our national polity by a century of legislative and administrative acts and judicial decisions

It is necessary to go further and to say that, if the acquisition of that insular dependency had been foreseen, Congress would have so varied its comprehensive language as to exclude it from the operation of the act.

However, historic citizenship rights cases that similarly attempted to draw upon Asian Americans' “white” status

[CITATION] United States v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.