Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America

Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America
ISBN-10
0525436049
ISBN-13
9780525436041
Category
Biography & Autobiography
Pages
209
Language
English
Published
2021-10-19
Publisher
Vintage
Author
Laila Lalami

Description

A New York Times Editors' Choice • Finalist for the California Book Award • Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction • Best Book of the Year: Time, NPR, Bookpage, Los Angeles Times In this brilliantly argued and deeply personal work, Pulitzer Prize finalist Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to U.S.citizen, using her own story as a starting point for an exploration of the rights, liberties, and protections that are traditionally associated with American citizenship. Tapping into history, politics, and literature, she elucidates how accidents of birth—such as national origin, race, and gender—that once determined the boundaries of Americanness still cast their shadows today, poignantly illustrating how white supremacy survives through adaptation and legislation. Weaving together her experiences with an examination of the place of nonwhites in the broader American culture, Lalami illuminates how conditional citizens are all those whom America embraces with one arm and pushes away with the other.

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