Citizenship and the American state

Exploring the Boundaries of Legal Racial Exclusion

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2949820
AutoresD N Obinna (0000-0002-1915-8786, College of Liberal Arts, Mount St. Mary’s University, Emmitsburg, Maryland, autor de correspondencia)
Año2024
Volumen30
Número2
Páginas110-122
Fecha de publicación2024-03-03
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSocial Identities (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1350-4630 • E-ISSN: 1363-0296
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13504630.2024.2344542
OpenAlexW4395047727
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas35

Providing a compelling analysis of race, ethnicity, and culture, this manuscript unpacks the whiteness as citizenship model in the American context. This paper argues that citizenship rights have historically been dispensed to mean ‘whiteness’. That is, whiteness has been the definition of the ‘real American’ where racialized others are kept outside of the full rights and privileges of citizenship. Examining instances where individuals challenged whiteness in court, this manuscript deciphers how whiteness as a social classification excluded certain peoples based on their ‘racial fitness’ while including others as exemplary members. Likewise, this work also examines how territorial expansion altered notions of whiteness – especially in regard to Mexican Americans. Drawing reference to concepts such as the ‘Pocahontas Exception’, this work also examines how the whiteness as citizenship model allowed certain individuals with Native American ancestry to identify as ‘white’ while using the ‘one-drop rule’ to deem persons with African ancestry as ‘black’ thereby relegating them to second-class citizenship. As such, this manuscript argues that whiteness is endemic to the American democracy. Its connection is sealed through citizenship not only through the rights it grants but in the standing it confers

Citizenship · Democracy · Ethnic group · Political science · Politics · Sociology · White supremacy · Anthropology · Critical Race Theory in Education · Gender Studies · History · Latin American and Latino Studies · Law · Race, History, and American Society