Abdul Goffer Mondul was born in India in 1881, and moved to the United States in 1898, when he about 17.

We don’t know much about his early story, but it’s quite likely that he was part of the Bengali Harlem wave of immigration that Vivek Bald has written about.

Mondul applied for citizenship in 1906, when he was 25, presumably while living in Texas.

He shows up in the newspapers three years later, in 1909, with a U.S. District Attorney argued that he’s ineligible for citizenship because of his race.

The DA pointed to the law, which stated “The provisions of this title apply to aliens being free white persons and to aliens of African descent,” and proceeded to argue that Mondul was neither White nor African. Mondul and his attorney pushed back, citing a “number of authorities from the State of Utah in support of his claim.”

We see Mondul again in the newspapers shortly thereafter, celebrating a huge win: a district judge ruled in Mondul’s favor.

That’s the last I see of him in the papers, and it’s not clear to me whether or not he was subsequently granted citizenship.

(Most accounts describe Bhicaji Franyi Balsara as the first Indian to become a naturalized U.S. citizen. I haven’t seen Mondul’s story show up in writing on the racial classification of Indians in the United States.)