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citizenship

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Portrait of Creek men.
partner

A Federal Court Has Ruled Blood Cannot Determine Tribal Citizenship. Here’s Why That Matters.

The struggle over blood and belonging in American Indian communities.
by Alaina E. Roberts via Made By History on March 9, 2024
A courtroom or public civic room full of people, with white and black people sitting on opposite sides of a railing.

When Tribal Nations Expel Their Black Members

Clashes between sovereignty rights and civil rights reveal an uncomfortable and complicated story about race and belonging in America.
by Philip J. Deloria via The New Yorker on July 14, 2022
Political cartoon of Albert Gallatin attempting to stop a chariot driven by George Washington.

Nativism, Conspiracy Theories, and Mobs in Federalist America

Many people celebrate the U.S. as a nation of immigrants, but nativism has infused its politics from the outset.
by Sean P. Harvey via The Panorama on December 14, 2021
Profile portrait of Zitkala-Sa, a Native American woman, with long hair and beaded necklaces

Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (Zitkala-Ša): Advocate for the "Indian Vote"

The story of Indigenous women’s participation in the struggle for women’s suffrage is highly complex, and Zitkala-Ša’s story provides an illuminating example.
by Cathleen D. Cahill via National Park Service on December 14, 2020
Exhibit

“All Persons Born or Naturalized in the United States...”

A collection of resources exploring the evolving meanings of American citizenship and how they have been applied -- or denied -- to different groups of Americans.
The author's great-grandparents, Ida Brown and Nathan “Jack” Dashow, in their 1920 wedding photo.

How My Great-Grandmother Lost Her U.S. Citizenship The Year Women Got The Right to Vote

In 1920, my American-born great-grandmother, Ida Brown, married a Russian immigrant in New York City.
by Jayne Orenstein via Retropolis on August 13, 2020
partner

It’s Time to Fulfill the Promise of Citizenship

The rights we save may be our own.
by Hidetaka Hiroka, Natalia Molina via Made By History on July 29, 2018

Why We Doubt Capable Children

How we inherited our modern understanding of childhood from the 18th-century revolutionary era.
by Julia M. Gossard via The Junto on April 17, 2018
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Most Countries Have Given up Their Colonies. Why Hasn’t America? 

Because politicians prioritize military might over individual rights.
by David Vine via Made By History on September 28, 2017
Poster for "Independence for Puerto Rico."

Are Puerto Ricans Really American Citizens?

How it came to be that Puerto Rico came to have a separate but unequal status under American law.
by Charles R. Venator-Santiago via The Conversation on March 2, 2017

The Captive Aliens Who Remain Our Shame

On the origins of racial exclusion in the society that would become the United States of America.
by Annette Gordon-Reed via New York Review of Books on January 19, 2017
Alexander Hamilton painting by John Trumbul, 1792.
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Hamilton’s Real Immigration Story

The popular musical poses Alexander Hamilton as a symbol of the value of immigrants brought to America, but over time, his party became increasingly xenophobic.
by Livia Gershon, Phillip W. Magness via JSTOR Daily on September 2, 2025
JD Vance

J.D. Vance's Anti-Declaration

Truths self-evident no more.
by John Ganz via Unpopular Front on July 9, 2025
Japanese-American man in a military uniform.

He Spent His Life Trying to Prove That He Was a Loyal U.S. Citizen. It Wasn’t Enough.

How Joseph Kurihara lost his faith in America.
by Andrew Aoyama via The Atlantic on July 9, 2025
Rotunda features stone architecture and large paintings hanging on the walls.

The Originalist Case for Birthright Citizenship

Attempts to end birthright citizenship thwart an originalist interpretation of the Constitution.
by John Yoo, Robert Delahunty via National Affairs on July 9, 2025
Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, and Kristi Noem, look at rows of bunk beds behind chain link fence in a detention center.

Don’t Call it ‘Alligator Alcatraz.’ Call it a Concentration Camp.

This facility’s purpose fits the classic model, and its existence points to serious dangers ahead for the country.
by Andrea Pitzer via MSNBC on July 5, 2025
Photograph of Trump dressed as a king with frowning founding fathers behind him

Of Course the Founding Fathers Would Have Hated Trump

They rejected kings and were sincerely concerned about the possibility of a dictatorship. But we need to move past founder-worship and focus on justice.
by Nathan J. Robinson via Current Affairs on July 4, 2025
Scaffolding behind the statue of the rule of law outside the Supreme Court building.

Trump Is Wrong About Birthright Citizenship. History Proves It.

Lawmakers knew the Fourteenth Amendment would apply to the children of immigrants.
by Joshua Zeitz via Politico Magazine on June 29, 2025
A group of workers in hard hats walk through the shallow water of one of the Panama Canal's locks.

‘The Canal Is Ours’

Trump’s threats to take control of the Panama Canal have precipitated a struggle over the country’s sovereignty.
by Miriam Pensack via New York Review of Books on June 28, 2025
Statue of Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln Wasn't Born an Abolitionist, He Became One

We live in polarized times when freedom is threatened but this Juneteenth we should remind ourselves that we have overcome far worse.
by Manisha Sinha via The UnPopulist on June 19, 2025

The Revolutionary Idea That Remade the New World

Birthright citizenship is distinctly American—but not in the way Trump thinks.
by Greg Grandin via The Atlantic on June 10, 2025
Scroll and quill pen

Brutality and Opacity

Birthright citizenship under attack.
by Elisa Gonzalez via The Drift on May 29, 2025
A racially diverse group of children saying the Pledge of Allegiance while one holds an American flag.

Who Gets to Be an American?

Since the earliest days of the Republic, American citizenship has been contested, subject to the anti-democratic impulses of racism, suspicion, and paranoia.
by Michael Luo via The New Yorker on May 20, 2025
V. Ramirez's Army Corps badge.

How Real ID Excludes Real Americans

My dad’s birth certificate said Vicente. His passport said Vince. New legislation would have disenfranchised him.
by Catherine S. Ramírez via Zócalo Public Square on May 12, 2025
Drawing of the fight between two congressional representatives titled "Congressional pugilists," 1798.

Alien Enemies, Alien Friends, and the Concept of “Allegiance”

With controversy raging over the Alien Enemies Act, how should we understand the concept it invoked?
by Robert Natelson via Law & Liberty on March 24, 2025
The L.A. Eight, in 1987.

The Last Time Pro-Palestinian Activists Faced Deportation

Mahmoud Khalil’s case is eerily similar to that of the L.A. Eight when students were targeted not because of any criminal activity but because of their speech.
by David Cole via The New Yorker on March 18, 2025
Flags of Native American tribes at Omaha Beach memorial.

No, Native American Citizenship Does Not Support Limits on Birthright Citizenship

This defense misconstrues both the Constitution and the Supreme Court decisions relying on it.
by Bethany Berger via Lawfare on March 12, 2025
President Eisenhower; The silhouette of a hand pressing into a fence that is blocking the American flag.

The Shaky History of Mass Deportations

‘Operation Wetback’ and ‘Mexican Repatriation’ worked—until they didn’t.
by Benjamin Montoya via The Dispatch on March 5, 2025
Protestors use the celebrated Hamilton lyric, “Immigrants: We Get the Job Done” to protest the first inauguration of President Donald Trump.

“The Premise of Our Founding”: Immigration and Popular Mythmaking

On the tension between celebratory rhetoric and restrictive policy surrounding immigration.
by Connie Thomas via The Panorama on February 24, 2025
New citizens swearing an oath to the US at a naturalization ceremony.

The Forgotten Meaning of the Citizenship Clause

Universal birthright citizenship was never the original intent.
by Amy Swearer via Law & Liberty on February 13, 2025
A crib drawn with Stars and Stripes symbolism.

Birthright Citizenship Is a Sacred Guarantee

The attack on it is a violation of the nation’s post–Civil War rebirth.
by David W. Blight via The Atlantic on January 27, 2025
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