Citizenship is invaluable, yet our status as citizens is always at risk - even for those of us born on US soil.
INTRODUCTION
The Significance of Citizenship
CHAPTER 1
Citizen Slave
CHAPTER 2
Confederate Citizen
CHAPTER 3
Birthright Citizen
CHAPTER 4
Citizen Suffragist
CHAPTER 5
Citizen Stateswoman
CHAPTER 6
Blut Citizen
CHAPTER 7
Suspect Citizen
CHAPTER 8
Expelled Citizen
CHAPTER 9
Twenty-First-Century Citizen
Acknowledgments
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Image Credits
Index
Amanda Frost is a professor of law at American University, and she writes and teaches in the fields of constitutional, immigration, and citizenship law. Her work has been published in numerous academic journals, as well as The Atlantic, the New York Times, The American Prospect, the Washington Post, and Slate. Connect with her on Twitter @amanda_frost1.
“A sharp history that shows the precarious nature of American
citizenship.”
—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
“A highly informative work that gives depth and humanity to an
often-overlooked issue.”
—Library Journal, Starred Review
“This troubling investigation of American exclusionism hits the
mark.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A sobering chronicle of the US government’s attempts—both
successful and unsuccessful—to expatriate its citizens, and in so
doing, define itself by exclusion.”
—Christian Science Monitor
“Dana Stoutenburg provides a well-paced delivery as he relates the
personal stories, historical references, cultural implications, and
present-day challenges. Timely and relevant, the audiobook asks
vital questions about identity, connection, and power.”
—AudioFile Magazine
“Beautifully and engagingly written, Amanda Frost’s You Are Not
American describes the disturbing history of citizen stripping in
the United States through the eyes of those involved in the
country’s most important court cases on the topic. Frost shows how
the manipulation of the rules for losing citizenship reflected some
of this country’s most gripping political struggles—over slavery,
women’s suffrage, communism, immigration, and world wars—and how
far we have yet to go to assure the promise of birthright
citizenship enshrined in the US Constitution’s Fourteenth
Amendment. A must-read!”
—Richard L. Hasen, author of Election Meltdown
“You Are Not American could not be more timely in its exploration
of ‘citizenship stripping’ in American history. Through lively
chapters exploring particularly illuminating examples, Frost
exposes how the US government has used the power to expatriate
those it considers not fully ‘American’ to discriminate and exclude
based on race, religion, marital status, or viewpoint. Compelling
reading.”
—Caroline Fredrickson, author of The Democracy Fix
“Amanda Frost powerfully analyzes repeated instances in US history
when US citizenship was stripped—or was attempted to be stripped—to
achieve a combination of racial and political ends. Amanda Frost
outlines how African Americans, Latina/os, women, Japanese
Americans, and others suffered the loss of citizenship and the
rights that all US citizens possess. As the nation faces a racial
reckoning, You Are Not American should be required reading lest
these deplorable racial episodes are forgotten.”
—Kevin R. Johnson, dean, University of California at Davis School
of Law
“As the debate over immigration and citizenship grows more
corrosive, Amanda Frost has provided a useful and highly readable
corrective to misinformation. ‘Birthright citizenship’ and its role
in building American democracy are under assault in the
twenty-first century. At such a time, reading You Are Not American
is an important act of citizenship.”
—Garrett Epps, author of Democracy Reborn
“This book reads like a dream; not only is the reader absorbed by
each story, but the author has skillfully woven those stories into
a fabric to show the big picture. Cumulatively, the reader gets an
appreciation for the hard-fought legal battles to achieve that
condition that many of us take for granted: American
citizenship.”
—Lea S. Vandervelde, author of Redemption Song
“One of the defining struggles of the American experience has been
over who gets to claim the rights and opportunities of citizenship.
In You Are Not American, Amanda Frost clarifies the stakes of these
battles in a moving, masterful, and deeply humane account of why we
keep fighting about issues that test our core commitment to liberty
and equality for all—our very capacity for democracy.”
—Daniel J. Sharfstein, author of Thunder in the Mountains
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