Migration and U.S. Citizenship: A Curriculum Proposal

Citizenship is a kind of membership–the political kind. And in a society that is trying to sustain a democracy, citizenship entails a way of relating to other citizens–resolving conflicts with dialogue, persuasion, elections, and respect but not violence. “Speech takes the place of blood, and acts of decision take the place of acts of vengeance” (Pocock, 1998, p. 32). Citizenship has long been associated with territory. One can be a member of other kinds of communities, such as a faith community or a profession, without implying location. Catholics and Buddhists, for example, can be found almost anywhere, their location peripheral to their membership. But to be a citizen is to belong lawfully to a territory that is a political community. Arendt (1968) wrote that a citizen “is by definition a citizen among citizens of a country among countries.” And a citizen’s “rights and duties must be defined and limited...by the boundaries of a territory” (p. 81). Must be. Arendt is expressing not a preference but a fact. Membership in a territorial state–a nation–is what gives a person, as she put it, “the right to have rights.” Citizenship designates who is and isn’t a member of a polity. DREAM activists may be living in the United States, and they may feel “at home” here but, in fact, while they are “at home,” they are not citizens. They have not been granted the status of lawful membership. This may be wrong or right–it is an ongoing policy controversy about which people have strong feelings. It is but one example, worldwide, of conflict over the boundaries of citizenship. To think critically and ethically about who can be a citizen of the United States, who ought to be, and on what terms, is the subject of Angela Banks’s Correspondence should be sent to Walter C. Parker, Social Studies Education (Professor Emeritus) and Political Science (Affiliate Professor Emeritus), University of Washington, Seattle, 122 Miller Hall, Seattle, WA 98195-3600, USA. E-mail: denver@uw.edu Opinions expressed in this column do not represent views or official positions of the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME). Similarly, reviewed resources carry no “official endorsement” by NAME. The authors are solely responsible for selecting and reviewing the resources featured in the column and we strongly encourage readers to examine resources prior to purchasing. Materials submitted for review in this column should be submitted directly to: Ming Fang He, Language, Culture, Identity, Power, and Place in Multicultural, Multiracial, and Multilingual Education, Department of Curriculum, Foundations and Reading, College of Education, Georgia Southern University, P. O. Box 8144, Statesboro, GA 30460-8144.