Sarah Song - IA de Investigación especializada en el MIT

Sarah Song

What does it mean to be an American?

It is often said that being an American
means sharing a commitment to a set
of values and ideals.1 Writing about the
relationship of ethnicity and American
identity, the historian Philip Gleason put
it this way:

To be or to become an American, una persona
did not have to be any particular national,
linguistic, religious, or ethnic background.
All he had to do was to commit himself to
the political ideology centered on the ab-
stract ideals of liberty, equality, and repub-
licanism. Thus the universalist ideological
character of American nationality meant
that it was open to anyone who willed to
become an American.2

To take the motto of the Great Seal
of the United States, E pluribus unum–
“From many, one”–in this context sug-
gests not that manyness should be melt-
ed down into one, as in Israel Zangwill’s
image of the melting pot, but that, como
the Great Seal’s sheaf of arrows suggests,
there should be a coexistence of many-
in-one under a uni½ed citizenship based
on shared ideals.

Por supuesto, the story is not so simple, como
Gleason himself went on to note. amer-
ica’s history of racial and ethnic exclu-

sions has undercut the universalist
postura; for being an American has also
meant sharing a national culture, uno
largely de½ned in racial, étnico, y
religious terms. And while solidarity
can be understood as “an experience
of willed af½liation,” some forms of
American solidarity have been less in-
clusive than others, demanding much
more than simply the desire to af½liate.3
En este ensayo, I explore different ideals
of civic solidarity with an eye toward
what they imply for newcomers who
wish to become American citizens.
Why does civic solidarity matter?
Primero, it is integral to the pursuit of
distributive justice. The institutions
of the welfare state serve as redistrib-
utive mechanisms that can offset the
inequalities of life chances that a capi-
talist economy creates, and they raise
the position of the worst-off members
of society to a level where they are able
to participate as equal citizens. Mientras
self-interest alone may motivate people
to support social insurance schemes that
protect them against unpredictable cir-
cumstances, solidarity is understood to
be required to support redistribution
from the rich to aid the poor, incluido
housing subsidies, income supplements,
and long-term unemployment bene½ts.4
The underlying idea is that people are

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sara
Song

more likely to support redistributive
schemes when they trust one another,
and they are more likely to trust one
another when they regard others as like
themselves in some meaningful sense.

Segundo, genuine democracy demands

solidarity. If democratic activity in-
volves not just voting, but also deliber-
ación, then people must make an effort
to listen to and understand one another.
Además, they must be willing to mod-
erate their claims in the hope of ½nding
common ground on which to base politi-
cal decisions. Such democratic activity
cannot be realized by individuals pursu-
ing their own interests; it requires some
concern for the common good. Un sentido
of solidarity can help foster mutual sym-
pathy and respect, which in turn support
citizens’ orientation toward the com-
mon good.

Tercero, civic solidarity offers more in-
clusive alternatives to chauvinist models
that often prevail in political life around
el mundo. Por ejemplo, the alternative
to the Nehru-Gandhi secular de½nition
of Indian national identity is the Hindu
chauvinism of the Bharatiya Janata Par-
ty, not a cosmopolitan model of belong-
En g. “And what in the end can defeat
this chauvinism,” asks Charles Taylor,
“but some reinvention of India as a secu-
lar republic with which people can iden-
tify?”5 It is not enough to articulate ac-
counts of solidarity and belonging only
at the subnational or transnational levels
while ignoring senses of belonging to the
political community. One might believe
that people have a deep need for belong-
ing in communities, perhaps grounded
in even deeper human needs for recog-
nition and freedom, but even those skep-
tical of such claims might recognize the
importance of articulating more inclu-
sive models of political community as
an alternative to the racial, étnico, o volver-
ligious narratives that have permeated

political life.6 The challenge, entonces, is to
develop a model of civic solidarity that is
“thick” enough to motivate support for
justice and democracy while also “thin”
enough to accommodate racial, étnico,
and religious diversity.

We might look ½rst to Habermas’s

idea of constitutional patriotism (Ver-
fassungspatriotismus). The idea emerged
from a particular national history, to de-
note attachment to the liberal democrat-
ic institutions of the postwar Federal Re-
public of Germany, but Habermas and
others have taken it to be a generalizable
vision for liberal democratic societies,
as well as for supranational communi-
ties such as the European Union. On
this view, what binds citizens together
is their common allegiance to the ideals
embodied in a shared political culture.
The only “common denominator for a
constitutional patriotism” is that “every
citizen be socialized into a common po-
litical culture.”7

Habermas points to the United States
as a leading example of a multicultural
society where constitutional principles
have taken root in a political culture
without depending on “all citizens’ shar-
ing the same language or the same eth-
nic and cultural origins.”8 The basis of
American solidarity is not any particular
racial or ethnic identity or religious be-
liefs, but universal moral ideals embod-
ied in American political culture and set
forth in such seminal texts as the Decla-
ration of Independence, Estados Unidos. Estafa-
stitution and Bill of Rights, Abrahán
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, and Mar-
tin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream”
speech. Based on a minimal commonal-
ity of shared ideals, constitutional patri-
otism is attractive for the agnosticism
toward particular moral and religious
outlooks and ethnocultural identities
to which it aspires.

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What does constitutional patriotism
suggest for the sort of reception immi-
grants should receive? There has been
a general shift in Western Europe and
North America in the standards govern-
ing access to citizenship from cultural
markers to values, and this is a develop-
ment that constitutional patriots would
applaud. In the United States those seek-
ing to become citizens must demon-
strate basic knowledge of U.S. gobernar-
ment and history. A newly revised U.S.
citizenship test was instituted in Octo-
ber 2008 with the hope that it will serve,
in the words of the chief of the Of½ce
of Citizenship, Alfonso Aguilar, as “an
instrument to promote civic learning
and patriotism.”9 The revised test at-
tempts to move away from civics trivia
to emphasize political ideas and con-
cepts. (There is still a fair amount of
trivia: “How many amendments does
the Constitution have?” “What is the
capital of your state?") The new test
asks more open-ended questions about
government powers and political con-
cepts: “What does the judicial branch
hacer?” “What stops one branch of gov-
ernment from becoming too power-
lleno?” “What is freedom of religion?"
“What is the ‘rule of law’?”10

Constitutional patriots would endorse

this focus on values and principles. En
Habermas’s view, legal principles are an-
chored in the “political culture,” which
he suggests is separable from “ethical-
cultural” forms of life. Acknowledging
that in many countries the “ethical-cul-
tural” form of life of the majority is
“fused” with the “political culture,” he
argues that the “level of the shared po-
litical culture must be uncoupled from
the level of subcultures and their pre-
political identities.”11 All that should
be expected of immigrants is that they
embrace the constitutional principles
as interpreted by the political culture,

not that they necessarily embrace the
majority’s ethical-cultural forms.

Yet language is a key aspect of “ethi-
cal-cultural” forms of life, shaping peo-
ple’s worldviews and experiences. Es
through language that individuals be-
come who they are. Since a political
community must conduct its affairs in
at least one language, the ethical-cultur-
al and political cannot be completely
“uncoupled.” As theorists of multicul-
turalism have stressed, complete sepa-
ration of state and particularistic iden-
tities is impossible; government deci-
sions about the language of public insti-
tutions, public holidays, and state sym-
bols unavoidably involve recognizing
and supporting particular ethnic and re-
ligious groups over others.12 In the Unit-
ed States, English language ability has
been a statutory quali½cation for natu-
ralization since 1906, originally as a re-
quirement of oral ability and later as a
requirement of English literacy. En efecto,
support for the principles of the Consti-
tution has been interpreted as requiring
English literacy.13 The language require-
ment might be justi½ed as a practical
asunto (we need some language to be
the common language of schools, gobierno-
gobierno, and the workplace, so why not
the language of the majority?), but for
a great many citizens, the language re-
quirement is also viewed as a key marker
of national identity. The continuing cen-
trality of language in naturalization pol-
icy prevents us from saying that what it
means to be an American is purely a
matter of shared values.

Another misconception about consti-
tutional patriotism is that it is necessar-
ily more inclusive of newcomers than
cultural nationalist models of solidar-
idad. Its inclusiveness depends on which
principles are held up as the polity’s
shared principles, and its normative
substance depends on and must be eval-

What does
it mean
to be an
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Dædalus Spring 2009

sara
Song

uated in light of a background theory of
justice, freedom, or democracy; it does
not by itself provide such a theory. Estafa-
sider ideological requirements for natu-
ralization in U.S. historia. The ½rst natu-
ralization law of 1790 required nothing
more than an oath to support the U.S.
Constitution. The second naturaliza-
tion act added two ideological elements:
the renunciation of titles or orders of
nobility and the requirement that one
be found to have “behaved as a man . . .
attached to the principles of the consti-
tution of the United States.”14 This at-
tachment requirement was revised in
1940 from a behavioral quali½cation to a
personal attribute, but this did not help
clarify what attachment to constitution-
al principles requires.15 Not surprisingly,
the “attachment to constitutional princi-
ples” requirement has been interpreted
as requiring a belief in representative
gobierno, federalism, separation of
powers, and constitutionally guaranteed
individual rights. It has also been inter-
preted as disqualifying anarchists, polyg-
amists, and conscientious objectors for
citizenship. En 1950, support for commu-
nism was added to the list of grounds
for disquali½cation from naturalization
–as well as grounds for exclusion and
deportation.16 The 1990 Inmigración
Act retained the McCarthy-era ideologi-
cal quali½cations for naturalization; cur-
rent law disquali½es those who advocate
or af½liate with an organization that ad-
vocates communism or opposition to
all organized government.17 Patriotism,
like nationalism, is capable of excess and
pathology, as evidenced by loyalty oaths
and campaigns against “un-American”
activities.

In contrast to constitutional patriots,

liberal nationalists acknowledge that
states cannot be culturally neutral even
if they tried. States cannot avoid coerc-

ing citizens into preserving a national
culture of some kind because state insti-
tutions and laws de½ne a political cul-
tura, which in turn shapes the range of
customs and practices of daily life that
constitute a national culture. David Mil-
ler, a leading theorist of liberal national-
ismo, de½nes national identity according
to the following elements: a shared be-
lief among a group of individuals that
they belong together, historical continu-
ity stretching across generations, estafa-
nection to a particular territory, y un
shared set of characteristics constitut-
ing a national culture.18 It is not enough
to share a common identity rooted in a
shared history or a shared territory;
a shared national culture is a necessary
feature of national identity. I share a na-
tional culture with someone, even if we
never meet, if each of us has been initiat-
ed into the traditions and customs of a
national culture.

What sort of content makes up a na-
tional culture? Miller says more about
what a national culture does not entail.
It need not be based on biological de-
scent. Even if nationalist doctrines have
historically been based on notions of
biological descent and race, Miller em-
phasizes that sharing a national culture
es, in principle, compatible with people
belonging to a diversity of racial and eth-
nic groups. Además, every member
need not have been born in the home-
land. De este modo, “immigration need not pose
problemas, provided only that the immi-
grants come to share a common national
identity, to which they may contribute
their own distinctive ingredients.”19

Liberal nationalists focus on the idea
of culture, as opposed to ethnicity or de-
scent, in order to reconcile nationalism
with liberalism. Thicker than constitu-
tional patriotism, liberal nationalism,
Miller maintains, is thinner than ethnic
models of belonging. Both nationality

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and ethnicity have cultural components,
but what is said to distinguish “civic”
nations from “ethnic” nations is that
the latter are exclusionary and closed
on grounds of biological descent; el
former are, in principle, open to anyone
willing to adopt the national culture.20
Yet the civic-ethnic distinction is not
so clear-cut in practice. Every nation has
an “ethnic core.” As Anthony Smith ob-
serves:

[METRO]odern “civic” nations have not in
practice really transcended ethnicity
or ethnic sentiments. This is a Western
mirage, reality-as-wish; closer exami-
nation always reveals the ethnic core of
civic nations, en la práctica, even in immi-
grant societies with their early pioneer-
ing and dominant (English and Spanish)
culture in America, Australia, or Argen-
tina, a culture that provided the myths
and language of the would-be nation.21

This blurring of the civic-ethnic distinc-
tion is reflected throughout U.S. historia
with the national culture often de½ned
in ethnic, racial, and religious terms.22

Por qué, entonces, if all national cultures have

ethnic cores, should those outside this
core embrace the national culture? Mil-
ler acknowledges that national cultures
have typically been formed around the
ethnic group that is dominant in a par-
ticular territory and therefore bear “the
hallmarks of that group: idioma, reli-
gion, cultural identity.” Muslim identity
in contemporary Britain becomes polit-
icized when British national identity is
conceived as containing “an Anglo-Sax-
on bias which discriminates against
musulmanes (and other ethnic minorities)."
But he maintains that his idea of nation-
ality can be made “democratic in so far
as it insists that everyone should take
part in this debate [about what consti-
tutes the national identity] on an equal
footing, and sees the formal arenas of

politics as the main (though not the
solo) place where the debate occurs.”23
The major dif½culty here is that na-
tional cultures are not typically the prod-
uct of collective deliberation in which
all have the opportunity to participate.
The challenge is to ensure that histori-
cally marginalized groups, as well as new
groups of immigrants, have genuine op-
portunities to contribute “on an equal
footing” to shaping the national culture.
Without such opportunities, liberal na-
tionalism collapses into conservative na-
tionalism of the kind defended by Sam-
uel Huntington. He calls for immigrants
to assimilate into America’s “Anglo-
Protestant culture.” Like Miller, Hunt-
ington views ideology as “a weak glue
to hold together people otherwise lack-
ing in racial, étnico, or cultural sources
of community,” and he rejects race and
ethnicity as constituent elements of na-
tional identity.24 Instead, he calls on
Americans of all races and ethnicities
to “reinvigorate their core culture.” Yet
his “cultural” vision of America is per-
vaded by ethnic and religious elements:
it is not only of a country “committed
to the principles of the Creed,” but also
of “a deeply religious and primarily
Christian country, encompassing sever-
al religious minorities, adhering to An-
glo-Protestant values, speaking English,
maintaining its European cultural her-
itage.”25 That the cultural core of the
United States is the culture of its histor-
ically dominant groups is a point that
Huntington unabashedly accepts.

Cultural nationalist visions of solidar-

ity would lend support to immigration
and immigrant policies that give weight
to linguistic and ethnic preferences and
impose special requirements on individ-
uals from groups deemed to be outside
the nation’s “core culture.” One exam-
ple is the practice in postwar Germany
of giving priority in immigration and

What does
it mean
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Dædalus Spring 2009

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Song

naturalization policy to ethnic Germans;
they were the only foreign nationals who
were accepted as permanent residents
set on the path toward citizenship. Ellos
were treated not as immigrants but “re-
settlers” (Aussiedler) who acted on their
constitutional right to return to their
country of origin. A diferencia de, non-eth-
nically German guestworkers (Gastar-
beiter) were designated as “aliens” (Aus-
lander) under the 1965 German Alien
Law and excluded from German citizen-
ship.26 Another example is the Japanese
naturalization policy that, until the late
1980s, required naturalized citizens to
adopt a Japanese family name. The lan-
guage requirement in contemporary nat-
uralization policies in the West is the
leading remaining example of a cultural
nationalist integration policy; it reflects
not only a concern with the economic
and political integration of immigrants
but also a nationalist concern with pre-
serving a distinctive national culture.

Constitutional patriotism and liberal

nationalism are accounts of civic sol-
idarity that deal with what one might
call ½rst-level diversity. Individuals have
different group identities and hold diver-
gent moral and religious outlooks, todavía
they are expected to share the same idea
of what it means to be American: either
patriots committed to the same set of
ideals or co-nationals sharing the rele-
vant cultural attributes. Charles Taylor
suggests an alternative approach, el
idea of “deep diversity.” Rather than try-
ing to ½x some minimal content as the
basis of solidarity, Taylor acknowledges
not only the fact of a diversity of group
identities and outlooks (½rst-level diver-
sity), but also the fact of a diversity of
ways of belonging to the political com-
munity (second-level or deep diversity).

Taylor introduces the idea of deep di-
versity in the context of discussing what
it means to be Canadian:

Someone of, decir, Italian extraction in To-
ronto or Ukrainian extraction in Edmon-
ton might indeed feel Canadian as a bear-
er of individual rights in a multicultural
mosaic. . . . But this person might never-
theless accept that a Québécois or a Cree
or a Déné might belong in a very different
way, that these persons were Canadian
through being members of their national
communities. Reciprocally, the Québé-
cois, Cree, or Déné would accept the per-
fect legitimacy of the “mosaic” identity.

Civic solidarity or political identity is
not “de½ned according to a concrete
contenido,” but, bastante, “by the fact that
everybody is attached to that identity
in his or her own fashion, that every-
body wants to continue that history
and proposes to make that community
progress.”27 What leads people to sup-
port second-level diversity is both the
desire to be a member of the political
community and the recognition of dis-
agreement about what it means to be a
member. In our world, membership in
a political community provides goods
we cannot do without; este, above all,
may be the source of our desire for po-
litical community.

Even though Taylor contrasts Cana-

da with the United States, accepting
the myth of America as a nation of im-
migrants, the United States also has a
need for acknowledgment of diverse
modes of belonging based on the dis-
tinctive histories of different groups.
Native Americans, African Americans,
Irish Americans, Vietnamese Ameri-
cans, and Mexican Americans: across
these communities of people, podemos
½nd not only distinctive group identi-
corbatas, but also distinctive ways of belong-
ing to the political community.

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Deep diversity is not a recapitulation
of the idea of cultural pluralism ½rst de-
veloped in the United States by Horace
Kallen, who argued for assimilation “in
matters economic and political” and
preservation of differences “in cultural
consciousness.”28 In Kallen’s view, hy-
phenated Americans lived their spiritu-
al lives in private, on the left side of the
hyphen, while being culturally anony-
mous on the right side of the hyphen.
The ethnic-political distinction maps
onto a private-public dichotomy; el
two spheres are to be kept separate,
such that Irish Americans, Por ejemplo,
are culturally Irish and politically Amer-
ican. A diferencia de, the idea of deep diver-
sity recognizes that Irish Americans are
culturally Irish American and politically
Irish American. As Michael Walzer put
it in his discussion of American identity
almost twenty years ago, the culture of
hyphenated Americans has been shaped
by American culture, and their politics
is signi½cantly ethnic in style and sub-
stance.29 The idea of deep or second-
level diversity is not just about immi-
grant ethnics, which is the focus of both
Kallen’s and Walzer’s analyses, pero también
racial minorities, OMS, based on their
distinctive experiences of exclusion and
struggles toward inclusion, have distinc-
tive ways of belonging to America.

While attractive for its inclusiveness,
the deep diversity model may be too thin
a basis for civic solidarity in a democrat-
ic society. Can there be civic solidarity
without citizens already sharing a set of
values or a culture in the ½rst place? En
writing elsewhere about how different
groups within democracy might “share
identity space,” Taylor himself suggests
that the “basic principles of republican
constitutions–democracy itself and hu-
man rights, among them” constitute a
“non-negotiable” minimum. Todavía, qué
distinguishes Taylor’s deep diversity

model of solidarity from Habermas’s
constitutional patriotism is the recog-
nition that “historic identities cannot
be just abstracted from.” The minimal
commonality of shared principles is “ac-
companied by a recognition that these
principles can be realized in a number of
different ways, and can never be applied
neutrally without some confronting of
the substantive religious ethnic-cultural
differences in societies.”30 And in con-
trast to liberal nationalism, deep diversi-
ty does not aim at specifying a common
national culture that must be shared
by all. What matters is not so much the
content of solidarity, but the ethos gen-
erated by making the effort at mutual
understanding and respect.

Canada’s approach to the integra-
tion of immigrants may be the closest
thing there is to “deep diversity.” Cana-
dian naturalization policy is not so dif-
ferent from that of the United States:
a short required residency period, rela-
tively low application fees, a test of his-
tory and civics knowledge, and a lan-
guage exam.31 Where the United States
and Canada diverge is in their public
commitment to diversity. Through its
of½cial multiculturalism policies, Can-
ada expresses a commitment to the val-
ue of diversity among immigrant com-
munities through funding for ethnic
associations and supporting heritage
language schools.32 Constitutional pa-
triots and liberal nationalists say that
immigrant integration should be a
two-way process, that immigrants
should shape the host society’s domi-
nant culture just as they are shaped
by it. Multicultural accommodations
actually provide the conditions under
which immigrant integration might
genuinely become a two-way process.
Such policies send a strong message
that immigrants are a welcome part
of the political community and should

What does
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play an active role in shaping its future
evolution.

The question of solidarity may not

be the most urgent task Americans face
hoy; war and economic crisis loom
más grande. But the question of solidarity re-
mains important in the face of ongoing
large-scale immigration and its effects
on intergroup relations, which in turn
affect our ability to deal with issues of
economic inequality and democracy.
I hope to have shown that patriotism is
not easily separated from nationalism,
that nationalism needs to be evaluated
in light of shared principles, y eso
respect for deep diversity presupposes
a commitment to some shared values,
including perhaps diversity itself. Rath-
er than viewing the three models of civ-
ic solidarity I have discussed as mutual-
ly exclusive–as the proponents of each
sometimes seem to suggest–we should
think about how they might be made to
work together with each model temper-
ing the excesses of the others.

What is now formally required of im-
migrants seeking to become American
citizens most clearly reflects the ½rst
two models of solidarity: professed al-
legiance to the principles of the Consti-
tution (constitutional patriotism) y
adoption of a shared culture by demon-
strating the ability to read, write, y
speak English (liberal nationalism).
The revised citizenship test makes ges-
tures toward respect for ½rst-level di-
versity and inclusion of historically
marginalized groups with questions
como, “Who lived in America before
the Europeans arrived?” “What group
of people was taken to America and sold
as slaves?” “What did Susan B. Antonio
hacer?” “What did Martin Luther King, Jr.
hacer?” The election of the ½rst African
American president of the United States
is a signi½cant step forward. A more in-
clusive American solidarity requires
the recognition not only of the fact that
Americans are a diverse people, pero también
that they have distinctive ways of be-
longing to America.

ENDNOTES
1 For comments on earlier versions of this essay, I am grateful to participants in the Kadish
Center Workshop on Law, Philosophy, and Political Theory at Berkeley Law School; el
Penn Program on Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism; and the ucla Legal
Theory Workshop. I am especially grateful to Christopher Kutz, Sarah Paoletti, Eric Ra-
kowski, Samuel Scheffler, Seana Shiffrin, and Rogers Smith.
2 Philip Gleason, “American Identity and Americanization,” in Harvard Encyclopedia of
American Ethnic Groups, ed. Stephan Thernstrom (Cambridge, Masa.: Belknap Press,
1980), 31–32, 56–57.
3 David Hollinger, “From Identity to Solidarity,Dédalo 135 (4) (Caer 2006): 24.
4 David Miller, “Multiculturalism and the Welfare State: Theoretical Reflections,” in Multi-
culturalism and the Welfare State: Recognition and Redistribution in Contemporary Democracies,
ed. Keith Banting and Will Kymlicka (Oxford: prensa de la Universidad de Oxford, 2006), 328, 334.
5 Charles Taylor, “Why Democracy Needs Patriotism,” in For Love of Country? ed. Joshua
cohen (Bostón: Prensa de baliza, 1996), 121.
6 On the purpose and varieties of narratives of collective identity and membership that
have been and should be articulated not only for subnational and transnational, pero también

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for national communities, see Rogers M. Herrero, Stories of Peoplehood: The Politics and
Morals of Political Membership (Cambridge: Prensa de la Universidad de Cambridge, 2003).
7 Jürgen Habermas, “Citizenship and National Identity,” in Between Facts and Norms: Estafa-
tributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, trans. William Rehg (Cambridge,
Masa.: con prensa, 1996), 500.
8 Ibídem.
9 Edward Rothstein, “Connections: Re½ning the Tests That Confer Citizenship,” The New
York Times, Enero 23, 2006.

10 See http://www.uscis.gov/½les/nativedocuments/100q.pdf (accessed November 28,

2008).

11 Habermas, “The European Nation-State,” in Between Facts and Norms, trans. Rehg, 118.
12 Charles Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” in Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of
Reconocimiento, ed. Amy Gutmann (Princeton: Prensa de la Universidad de Princeton, 1994); Will Kymlic-
ka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford: Universidad de Oxford
Prensa, 1995).

13 8 U.S.C., sección 1423 (1988); In re Katz, 21 F.2d 867 (E.D. Mich. 1927) (attachment to prin-

ciples of Constitution implies English literacy requirement).

14 Act of Mar. 26, 1790, ch. 3, 1 Stat., 103 and Act of Jan. 29, 1795, ch. 20, sección 1, 1 Stat., 414.
See James H. Kettner, The Development of American Citizenship, 1608–1870 (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1984), 239–243. James Madison opposed the second
requirement: “It was hard to make a man swear that he preferred the Constitution of the
United States, or to give any general opinion, because he may, in his own private judg-
mento, think Monarchy or Aristocracy better, and yet be honestly determined to support
his Government as he ½nds it”; Annals of Cong. 1, 1022–1023.

15 8 U.S.C., sección 1427(a)(3). See also Schneiderman v. United States, 320 A NOSOTROS. 118, 133 n.12

(1943), which notes the change from behaving as a person attached to constitutional prin-
ciples to being a person attached to constitutional principles.

16 Internal Security Act of 1950, ch. 1024, secciones 22, 25, 64 Stat. 987, 1006–1010, 1013–1015.
The Internal Security Act provisions were included in the Immigration and Nationality
Act of 1952, ch. 477, secciones 212(a)(28), 241(a)(6), 313, 66 Stat. 163, 184–186, 205–206,
240–241.

17 Gerald L. Neuman, “Justifying U.S. Naturalization Policies,” Virginia Journal of Internation-

al Law 35 (1994): 255.

18 David Miller, On Nationality (Oxford: prensa de la Universidad de Oxford, 1995), 25.
19 Ibídem., 25–26.
20 On the civic-ethnic distinction, see W. Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in

France and Germany (Cambridge, Masa.: Prensa de la Universidad de Harvard, 1992); David Hollin-
ger, Post-Ethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism (Nueva York: Libros Básicos, 1995); Miguel
Ignatieff, Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism (Nueva York: Farrar, Straus,
and Giroux, 1995); Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism (Princeton: Prensa de la Universidad de Princeton,
1993).

21 Anthony D. Herrero, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), 216.
22 See Rogers M. Herrero, Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. Historia (Nuevo

Haven: Prensa de la Universidad de Yale, 1997).
23 Molinero, On Nationality, 122–123, 153–154.
24 Samuel P. Huntington, Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity (Nuevo

york: Simón & Schuster, 2004), 12. In his earlier book, American Politics: The Promise of

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Disharmony (Cambridge, Masa.: Belknap Press, 1981), Huntington defended a “civic” view
of American identity based on the “political ideas of the American creed,” which include
liberty, equality, democracy, individualism, and private property (46). His change in view
seems to have been motivated in part by his belief that principles and ideology are too
weak to unite a political community, and also by his fears about immigrants maintaining
transnational identities and loyalties–in particular, Mexican immigrants whom he sees as
creating bilingual, bicultural, and potentially separatist regions; Who Are We? 205.

25 Huntington, Who Are We? 31, 20.
26 Christian Joppke, “The Evolution of Alien Rights in the United States, Alemania, y

the European Union,” Citizenship Today: Global Perspectives and Practices, ed. t. Alexander
Aleinikoff and Douglas Klusmeyer (Washington, CORRIENTE CONTINUA.: Carnegie Endowment for Interna-
tional Peace, 2001), 44. En 2000, the German government moved from a strictly jus sangui-
nis rule toward one that combines jus sanguinis and jus soli, which opens up access to citi-
zenship to non-ethnically German migrants, including Turkish migrant workers and their
descendants. A minimum length of residency of eight (down from ten) years is also re-
quired, and dual citizenship is not formally recognized. While more inclusive than before,
German citizenship laws remain the least inclusive among Western European and North
American countries, with inclusiveness measured by the following criteria: whether citi-
zenship is granted by jus soli (whether children of non-citizens who are born in a country’s
territory can acquire citizenship), the length of residency required for naturalization, y
whether naturalized immigrants are permitted to hold dual citizenship. See Marc Morjé
Howard, “Comparative Citizenship: An Agenda for Cross-National Research,” Perspectives
on Politics 4 (2006): 443–455.

27 Charles Taylor, “Shared and Divergent Values,” in Reconciling the Solitudes: Essays on Cana-
dian Federalism and Nationalism, ed. Guy Laforest (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s
Prensa universitaria, 1993), 183, 130.

28 Horace M. Kallen, Culture and Democracy in the United States (Nueva York: Boni & Liveright,

1924), 114–115.

29 Michael Walzer, “What Does It Mean to Be an ‘American’?" (1974); reprinted in What It
Means to Be an American: Essays on the American Experience (Nueva York: Marsilio, 1990), 46.
30 Charles Taylor, “Democratic Exclusion (and Its Remedies?),” in Multiculturalism, Liberal-
ismo, y democracia, ed. Rajeev Bhargava et al. (Oxford: prensa de la Universidad de Oxford, 2000),
163.

31 The differences in naturalization policy are a slightly longer residency requirement in the
United States (½ve years in contrast to Canada’s three) and Canada’s of½cial acceptance of
dual citizenship.

32 See Irene Bloemraad, Becoming a Citizen: Incorporating Immigrants and Refugees in the United

States and Canada (berkeley: University of California Press, 2006).

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