Given the difficulties facing either the historical or the scientific approach, it is not surprising that jurists have sought an alternative means of defining racial groups. The most important alternative is the social perception approach, which assigns racial identification by reference to common perceptions or beliefs about race. The Supreme Court gave authoritative expression to this approach in Thindh, when it held that the naturalization act encompassed “only persons of what is popularly known as the Caucasian race.” Applying the logic of this expression, the social perception test would ask whether Jews are popularly considered to be members of a distinct racial group.

As early as 1878, the first racial prerequisite case, In re Yup, turned on social perceptions as well as scientific evidence. Denying citizenship to a Chinese applicant, a California district court rationalized that the “words ‘white person’ … in this country, at least, have acquired a well settled meaning in common popular speech, and they are constantly used in the sense it acquired in the literature of the country, as well as in common parlance.”