You Are Not American: Citizenship Stripping from Dred Scott to the Dreamers

by Amanda Frost

Citizenship is invaluable, yet our status as citizens is always at risk--even for those born on US soil.

Over the last two centuries, the US government has revoked citizenship to cast out its unwanted, suppress dissent, and deny civil rights to all considered un-American--whether due to their race, ethnicity, marriage partner, or beliefs. Drawing on the narratives of those who have struggled to be treated as full members of We the People, law professor Amanda Frost exposes a hidden history of discrimination and xenophobia that continues to this day.

The Supreme Court's rejection of Black citizenship in Dred Scott was among the first and most notorious examples of citizenship stripping, but the phenomenon did not end there. Women who married noncitizens, persecuted racial groups, labor leaders, and political activists were all denied their citizenship, and sometimes deported, by a government that wanted to redefine the meaning of American. Today, US citizens living near the southern border are regularly denied passports, thousands are detained and deported by mistake, and the Trump administration is investigating the citizenship of 700,000 naturalized citizens. Even elected leaders such as Barack Obama and Kamala Harris are not immune from false claims that they are not citizens eligible to hold office.

You Are Not American grapples with what it means to be American and the issues surrounding membership, identity, belonging, and exclusion that still occupy and divide the nation in the twenty-first century.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, American History, Race, Book Club, Social Justice

248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 26, 2021

Reviews

[Carol Tilley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Accessible and engaging history about a maddening subject.

[Emeline Blohm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really really good. Gives a great historical and legal context to birthright citizenship and denaturalization in an accessible, narrative format that focuses on individual stories. US history is deeply disturbing and unfortunately current events are no less so.

[Adria · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoughtful and well-written book about what US citizenship means. Is citizenship only for those who were born on US soil? Is it only for white people born on US soil? What rights does the 14th amendment guarantee?

[Caroline F · Rating 5 out of 5]

TOUGH read but a must read in this political climate

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having finished this book on the same day 45's 1776 Commission released its report on American History Education (there were no historians on the commission) it further engrained the idea that we really haven't been teaching American History and Civics. There is a dark side folks. Since Europeans first landed on North America's shores "American" society has been dominated by racism, misogyny, and bigotry. Minorities were considered (and some "Americans" still consider them) second class citizens. White women were not (and still are not) considered equal to men. This book does a fine job in pointing out the differences in the treatment of minorities and women and white males.
Among the things I was not taught in school (oh so many years ago) was Dred Scott was married and had two children. The case actually was brought by his wife. Another issue not taught was the idea of coverture caused women who had been US citizens all their lives to lose their US citizenship if they married foreign males, but American males could take foreign wives and their wife would automatically become an American Citizen.
Members of other minority groups had their citizenship taken away, the Chinese in the early 1900s, the Japanese during WW II.
People who exercised their right to protest and exercised their first amendment rights were denaturalized because the white male dominated political system didn't like what they said.
Perhaps the group most discriminated against are Mexicans. Many were American citizens because the border changed in mid- 1800s. In the 1930s, 1950s, and in the current century they have been rounded up and there citizen ship questioned.
I learned a lot from this book and recommend it especially to those who haven't had an honest history and civics education.

[Kate Ringer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not usually someone who listens to histories, but I thought this was an ok one for my commute, despite, the audiobook sounding really robot-y. I'm trying to read nonfiction that isn't just about women's sexuality, so this was an attempt to do that. I had never learned about American women's citizenship being revoked for marrying noncitizens in the early 1900s, so that was interesting. I didn't know that during the Red Scare, many leading Communist figures had their citizenship revoked. Apparently during the Great Depression, thousands of American citizens of Mexican-American heritage were rounded up by law enforcement and forced to "repatriate" to Mexico, despite the fact that many of them had never been there, or hadn't been in decades. Of course the most recent history was the most disturbing, especially Operation Janus (a initiative that began in the Obama era to revoke the citizenship of anyone who was found to have made small errors in their naturalization paperwork.) Seriously, this is what our government decides to spend money on? America is racist as fuck, and it has been since its inception.

OPEN OUR BORDER!

[Adam Becker · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very interesting anthology cataloging a sadly long list of occasions when the force of U.S. law and government was wielded as a weapon used by the majority to exert power and control over a minority group.
I learned quite a bit I hadn't heard of before about such events as the Dred Scott case, the post-Civil War Chinese immigration boom and the handling of people of Japanese and German descent during WWII. No doubt there are entire books devoted to the subject matter explored in each chapter of this book, but by bringing them all together in one place it really drives home the message that our history is filled with episodes of the weak being trampled by the powerful, and government being the tool used to do the job. A reminder that government power needs very strong guardrails and clearly defined limitations or it will be exploited by those who can take control of the levers of power.

[DW Rowlands · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really interesting book, and I'm fairly embarrassed that I hadn't known about some of the issues and cases Frost discusses, including that there was an attempt to deny Hiram Revels his seat in Congress on the basis that he had not been "nine years a citizen" since, until the 14th Amendment was ratified, the Dred Scott decision had rendered him a non-citizen. I also hadn't know that interned Japanese-American citizens during World War II were pushed to renounce their citizenship so that they could be deported, because white residents of Western states didn't want them to be able to return home after the war. Nor did I know that Wong Kim Ark won the Supreme Court case that birthright citizenship applied to the children of immigrants in part because the Solicitor General of the United States who argued the government's case against him was a former Confederate officer who tried to argue that the Fourteenth Amendment was, itself, unconstitutional.

[Gerry Connolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

You Are Not an American is a chilling account of the US government’s abuse of immigration laws to exclude and/or punish groups and individuals in the last two centuries. Chinese were explicitly excluded by law, us born citizens deported, labor leaders (Harry Bridges was tried four times to deport him) pursued, US women who married foreigners stripped of their citizenship, the 14th amendment ignored, Mexican-Americans rounded up and deported. And today Trump raised the birther issue with Obama and the birthright issue for children of immigrants born here (including wanting to disqualify Kamala Harris). Amanda Frost catalogues a depressing list of brazen discrimination that would make the Statue of Liberty weep. The issues remain very much alive and festering.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this via Audible. Wow, what a relevant read. I am rating this a 4.0. I felt like a bunch of cases going on in the US today, and in fact, a lot of US policy happening should be reviewed with the help of this book. It is heartbreaking and mind blowing how much mental gymnastics we have been through with regards to citizenship. One example: women who lost their citizenship upon the moment they were married to a foreigner (without them even knowing that was a law) while at the exact same time men who married foreign women meant those women immediately became citizens.

Content FYIs: No language or sex. Some mentions of violence and a lot of discussion of racist/mysoginistic/xenophobic policies and practices.

[César Hernández · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this eminently readable book, legal scholar Amanda Frost tracks contests over citizenship in all their ugliness. Through vignettes of several people who have had their United States citizenship threatened or actually stripped, Frost reveals the human impact of battles over citizenship. The book's one downside is that it was sometimes difficult to track the connecting themes from chapter to chapter. Despite that, one feature of citizenship stripping episodes is clear: most of the people targeted are politically vulnerable. Citizenship, Frost shows, is always a political contest.

[PasoBear · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Now more than ever these words ring true. May we as a nation always raise a lamp that those in search of a better life help us to see and understand the words on which this nation was founded.

It hurts to read the atrocities committed upon US Citizens, citizens by birth. Well worth the read.

[Rowan · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is so much in this book that was never taught in school. Even when attending AP American history classes in the late 2010s, barely a quarter of this was ever even mentioned. I think it is so crucial to know all of the history of America, the good and the bad. The parallels seen today are astonishing, and yet after finishing this book, it doesn't seem all that surprising that similar situations are occurring.
I highly recommend this book to everyone, regardless of beliefs. One can deny history, or one can learn from it.

[Alex W Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

As President Trumps ascends to his second presidency this book captures the dangerous belief that the 14th Amendment doesn’t protect those who are born in the US to parents of illegal immigrants. It also shows case by case examples of how the government has gone to great lengths to remove citizens for exercising their constitutional rights simply because they look different, speak different or convey different ideas. This book’s shows that nobody is safe from government denaturalization

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

A heartbreaking and informative read that accomplishes its goals without becoming overwhelming. While focusing on legal arguments and cases against various marginalized groups, the text is easy to read and understand for non-attorneys. Highly recommended as a necessary examination of American history.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clear and well-written with an extensive bibliography and footnotes to support quotes and statements of fact. The personal vignettes of individuals whose citizenship was stripped keep the book engaging rather than a dry, depressing slog through the history of xenophobia in the United States.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the organization and the voice. I had heard of many of the cases but Frost was good at relevant details and also putting things in context with what else was going on. I especially appreciated the context of citizen stripping from German vs Japanese Americans in World War II.

[tartaruga fechada]

Manufactured Trilogies #50: We will all cross borders
Part 1:
- Signs Preceding the End of the World (Herrera)
- The Passport (Muller)
- Brooklyn (Toibin)
Part 2:
+ You Are Not American: Citizenship Stripping From Dred Scott to the Dreamers (Frost)
+ Solito (Zamora)
+ Frontera (Anta)

[Andréa]

Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss.

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative and timely.

[Rumbi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely fascinating and eye-opening book. Several times, I said out loud - wow, really?

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved how Frost examined the policies and legal cases through the lenses of the extraordinary individuals who challenged the status quo.

[Tabitha Temple · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone in America should read this. That's the whole review. Please, just read this. I hope that this book and books like it help people empathize with people navigating the current regime.