Publication Date

8-2024

Abstract

The theme for this symposium, “We the People: Citizenship, Race, and Equality,” grew out of my concern for unequal citizenship for immigrants and non-white marginalized persons in their enduring quest to obtain fuller citizenship and belonging. More specifically, the theme furthers a dialogue sparked by my past writing on the structural limits on equal citizenship. In Pursuing Citizenship, I argued that citizenship entails both substantive and formal citizenship and that people cannot fully belong without formal citizenship. Uncovering the importance of formal citizenship led to some important policy reforms, including a reduction in the naturalization backlog under the Biden administration. While I did not discount the importance of substantive citizenship, my emphasis responded to a turn away from formal citizenship among scholars, some of whom felt institutionalist assumptions around citizenship insufficiently acknowledged the persistent structural obstacles and the resulting creative responses in communities that do not rely on citizenship. In response to my book, those scholars expressed a desire to know more about the role that race played in my findings. There were threads of the race story—for example, in the contrast between the white, Canadian green card holder who delayed naturalization, the Latinx green card holders who leaped to the polls, and the ambivalence that Chinese high-skilled workers and international students felt about remaining in a country that did not want them—but the role of race in the marginalization of noncitizens was not central to the story I told.

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

UC Law Journal

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