{"product_id":"citizenship-isbn-9780593730171","title":"Citizenship","description":"\u003cb\u003eA provocative, personal, blazingly intelligent examination of one of the most vexing questions facing the United States today: Who is, and should be, a citizen?\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“[A] fascinating, urgently needed new book.”—\u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“How did ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free’ turn upside down to where we are today? Everyone needs to read this book, citizens and non-citizens alike. Brilliant!”—Sandra Cisneros\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The most comprehensive book on citizenship\/immigration I’ve ever read. A must-read!”—Javier Zamora\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The book I have always wanted to read.”—Jose Antonio Vargas\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Personal, profound, engaging, and comprehensive . . . this is an essential book for these contentious times.”—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR: \u003ci\u003eChicago Review of Books, Autostraddle, Publishers Lunch\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this one-of-a-kind book, Daisy Hernández fiercely interrogates one of the most complicated subjects of contemporary life and politics: citizenship. Braiding memoir, history, and cultural criticism, she exposes the truths and lies of how we define ourselves as a country and a people. Turning to her own family’s stories—her mother arrived from Colombia, while her father was a political refugee from Castro’s Cuba—Hernández shows how the very idea of citizenship is a myth, one of the stories we tell ourselves about the American soul and psyche.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReframing our understanding of what it means to be an American, \u003ci\u003eCitizenship\u003c\/i\u003e is an urgent and necessary account of the laws, customs, and language we use to include and exclude, especially those who come from Latin America. With her scholar’s mind and memoirist’s gift for narrative, Hernández weaves a story both personal and national, while reckoning with our country’s ongoing debate about who belongs and providing fresh ways of thinking about citizenship. At once bracing, fearless, and tender, \u003ci\u003eCitizenship \u003c\/i\u003eis a powerful portrait of one family’s experiences in the borderlands of citizenship and an honest illumination of the country in which we live.“The most comprehensive book on citizenship\/immigration I’ve ever read. Daisy Hernández marvelously blends her family's story with the story of citizenship itself. In her pen, everything is illuminated to a point in which we can understand our present moment better. This book is a must-read!”\u003cb\u003e—Javier Zamora, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eSolito\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I have spent the better part of my life exploring what it means to be American, and now Daisy Hernández has written the book I have always wanted to read: a rigorous deconstruction of the existential issue of our time.”\u003cb\u003e—Jose Antonio Vargas, author of \u003ci\u003eDear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen\u003c\/i\u003e and winner of the Pulitzer Prize\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[\u003ci\u003eCitizenship\u003c\/i\u003e] promises to expose how being a citizen here is not what we have been led to believe. Everyone should read this. The more we understand the United States’ history, our laws, and immigrant narratives, the more we will all understand—and have empathy for—each other.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eLatina Media Co\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Hernández, already widely recognized as an expert at integrating sophisticated reporting and personal memoir, here brings her lucky audience a perfect volume for our extreme times. Her wide-ranging perspective on America’s most intimate moral crisis, combined with a highly readable style, both reflects the lived experience of immigration and makes it accessible for all readers. This is a relevant and moving book, to be read in community and widely discussed in book clubs, in classrooms, in libraries, and on subways. . . . A gift.”\u003cb\u003e—Sarah Schulman, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“How did ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free’ turn upside down to where we are today? With integrity and intelligence,\u003ci\u003e Citizenship \u003c\/i\u003edocuments this story. Daisy Hernández has clearly done her homework. Everyone needs to read this book, citizens and non-citizens alike. . . . Brilliant!”\u003cb\u003e—Sandra Cisneros\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“As we reel in social and political chaos, with the noise around words like ‘immigrant,’ ‘birthright,’ and ‘citizen’ especially confounding, it’s reassuring to have an astute and composed writer like Daisy Hernández to guide us back to reason.\u003ci\u003e Citizenship\u003c\/i\u003e offers a remarkable narrative that blends family chronicle with a historical account of America’s cruel policies, revealing that despite persistent adversity we continue to strengthen our communities.”\u003cb\u003e—Rigoberto González, award-winning poet and professor\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I have deeply admired Daisy Hernández’s previous work, and\u003ci\u003e Citizenship\u003c\/i\u003e has cemented my status as her ultimate fan. Her singular voice and profound insights feel more essential than ever. This is a book that demands to be read by everyone.”\u003cb\u003e—Reyna Grande\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003cb\u003eauthor of \u003ci\u003eThe Distance Between Us\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In this potent synthesis of history, cultural critique and personal, Daisy Hernández explores the complex meaning of American citizenship . . . She provides a profoundly intimate and pressing analysis of inclusion and exclusion by examining the laws, language and cultural attitudes that define membership. \u003ci\u003eCitizenship\u003c\/i\u003e is a bold, provocative investigation of what it really means to be an American.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—BookTrib\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Award-winning writer and journalist Hernández courageously delves into the concept of citizenship in this personal, profound, engaging, and comprehensive study. . . . Based on rigorous scholarship documented in exhaustive notes, this is an essential book for these contentious times.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A fine contribution to the swirling discussion around citizenship, birthright or otherwise.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Kirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eDaisy Hernández\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Kissing Bug,\u003c\/i\u003e winner of the PEN\/Jean Stein Book Award and the inaugural title for the National Book Foundation’s Science + Literature Program. Her memoir, \u003ci\u003eA Cup of Water Under My Bed,\u003c\/i\u003e won Lambda Literary’s Dr. Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award and was a Publishing Triangle Award finalist. She co-edited the classic feminist anthology \u003ci\u003eColonize This!\u003c\/i\u003e and is an associate professor of creative writing at Northwestern University.\u003cb\u003eInvitations\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe year I turned forty, my mother, sister, and I flew north to Toronto, and together, almost giddy, we marched to the United States consulate. We squinted in the morning sun, and I took selfies with the consulate’s glass door in the background until a security guard jogged over and said, You can’t take photos here. You have to erase them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy mother’s eyes narrowed at me. She did not understand the man’s English, but she knew from his tone that I was the guilty party.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s a selfie, I stammered.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDoesn’t matter, the guard said. It’s a security issue. You can’t take pictures.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI tried, but failed, to find the words to tell the guard that once upon a time my mother had needed to exist beyond the borders of the United States to receive a fiancé visa, and she had come here to Toronto, to this building. She had been pregnant with me. I wanted to tell the man that my Colombian mother was an extremely shy woman, but once when I asked her how she had convinced immigration officials that she was not marrying my Cuban father for a green card, that she actually did love the man, Mami had puffed her chest and exclaimed, I was pregnant! What more proof is there?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe sun dazzled overhead, and I wanted to tell the security guard: There’s a story here about citizenship and language, about the policies of the state and the bodies of women. There’s a story here about defiance. A story about the narratives we, as a nation, tell about who we are. For my mother and me, it started at this gray building with the hard glass and an American flag sagging in the morning light. But I glimpsed my mother’s face: her dark, worried eyes, her lips a firm line insisting that I follow the rules, as if the uniformed man were my father. I bit my lip and deleted the photographs, erasing Mami’s smile, my sister’s curls, the gloss of my red lipstick, and the doors to the consulate.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSatisfied, the guard turned away, and I tucked the phone into my pocketbook. I had managed to keep twenty-one photographs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn northern New Jersey, in the early 1970s, my mother looked like a young Cher. She had thick black hair and a face that could be interpreted as Italian or Greek, Armenian or Jewish. When she wasn’t cleaning offices or working at a clothing factory, she sauntered through Jersey City in bell-bottoms and fitted tops. Those who didn’t understand Spanish probably mistook her for one of the most recent arrivals in that part of the state: the women fleeing Fidel Castro’s new Cuba.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA decade later, in 1981, at the age of six, I began silently recording my mother’s stories about citizenship. She did not use the terminology of those years: resident aliens, nonresident aliens, illegal aliens. She did not even tell me about visas or green cards. She spoke only of invitations.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHer stories were told at night, in the bedroom she shared with Papi, when he was working at the factory until dawn and it was only her, me, and my sister. All the lights off, we huddled under the comforter, my toddler sister on one side of Mami and my six-year-old body on the other, in that bedroom at the end of our railroad apartment in Union City. I must have said, Tell me a story, and she started with the first invitation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy mother was in her twenties in this story. At the factory in Bogotá, during the late 1960s, she and a friend bent their heads over men’s blazers, day after day, the tailor’s chalk in their hands. They marked the fabric so the seamstresses would know where to stitch the pockets, so the men would have a place for their secrets. My mother and her friend lunched together with their co-workers, sometimes feasting on sopas brimming with potatoes and carne, and other times delighting in freshly baked buñuelos and pandebono. One day, her friend announced that she was joining her son in Jersey City. In the dark, my mother whispered, She said to me, When I get to the United States, I’ll send for you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe woman kept her promise. She mailed a letter, and here the story took a difficult turn. My mother did not want to go north, but everyone told her not to be stupid. There was money to be made in the United States, more than she could imagine. She could work and come back. No one spoke about the recession in the United States, because the worst moments inside the empire were better than those at the edges, and besides, over there, the factories paid in dollars. Mami hesitated. An older sister urged her to go, and before Mami could decide, her sister bought the airline ticket with her own savings. What could I do? my mother asked in the dark. I left, she said with a sigh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCocooned under blankets, her sad voice in my black hair, I made a note to not trust the invitations of women, not even the ones I liked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy mother did not tell me that she had to apply for a visa to the United States. She did not mention that procuring such a visa was not easy. People were routinely turned away. She did not tell me about the papers she submitted and the man at the United States consulate in Bogotá who approved her request. She did not speculate, at least not to me, on what that man thought when he looked at her: twenty-eight, childless, unmarried, living at home with her parents, a woman who would return or a woman the country did not need. She arrived in New York City, at John F. Kennedy International Airport, in the winter of 1970.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy mother never spoke of colonialism. She said nothing of fear or la migra. I was a child, and she was my mother, and so even though she had never read a novel set in Victorian London about wealthy women, she crafted a story where women extended invitations.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn northern New Jersey, she found work and two, maybe three years later, a local woman invited her to coffee. Someone had nicknamed the woman La Coca-Cola. I interrupted Mami to ask, Why did they call her that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe was as popular as Coca-Cola, my mother replied, matter-of-fact.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLa Coca-Cola brewed coffee on her kitchen stove. Maybe the woman served the café both ways: a tiny cup overloaded with sugar for the white Cuban man she had invited and ceramic mugs brimming with milk, sugar, and coffee for my mother and her sister Rosa.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy then my auntie had also become the recipient of invitations. In Colombia, Tía Rosa had taught elementary school in the campo, but once my mother settled in Jersey, she sent her a letter asking her to visit, and a man at the consulate approved Tía Rosa for a visa. My auntie boarded an airplane bound for New York City, then rented an apartment with Mami. By then, Tía Rosa was forty years old, more than a decade older than my mother, and with short curls, she had the confidence of a zealous talent manager, a woman who saw opportunity in every conversation. She had no patience for the factories with their demanding hours and their sewing machines squealing like small animals. Tía Rosa started cleaning the homes of the well-to-do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLa Coca-Cola invited my mother and Tía Rosa to meet a handsome man, a Cubano. In his mid-thirties and thin, Ygnacio turned up with his shirt tucked into his jeans, his black hair cropped short. He smiled easily and wore a stylish flimsy jacket that ended high on his waist and made him look even taller and more flaco than he was. He said very little but smiled.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnother invitation arrived for Mami. Ygnacio wanted to take her out. He showed up with pastries and sent more invitations. She said yes. He bought a red Chevy so he could drive her down the shore. He proposed marriage on a park bench, the trees flush with summer leaves and house sparrows. Let’s get married, he said, and there it was: another invitation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy mother did not tell me stories of the Cold War. Neither did my father. He grew up in the mountains in Cuba, on the outskirts of Fomento, in a one-room home without running water or a toilet. He had a third-grade education. He was the kind of man the Communists intended to save from the clutches of capitalism, but Papi had his own ideas. He planned to be rich, and when the war began, he had already joined the army of the dictator Fulgencio Batista. In the late 1950s, that’s where the money was. A poor man could work his way up the ranks of the military, or at least have a uniform and a paycheck.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe revolution swept the island. The revolution won. Along with other soldiers, Papi, hours from Havana, surrendered his pistol to the new government. A year later, friends told him to flee. They whispered that the new government had begun its revenge by disappearing enemies of the state. In the first days of 1961, John F. Kennedy’s administration broke off diplomatic relations with Fidel Castro’s government, and the same week Papi boarded an airplane for South Florida with five pesos from a cousin in his pocket.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy mother could have said it this way: Citizenship is a game of tic-tac-toe. Your father was X and I was O. Here, on the sidewalk, the United States and the Soviet Union chalked three squares across, then up and down, until nine openings appeared. Your father was X and I was O. The Soviets supported Castro’s Communist government, and the Americans began offering green cards in 1966 to the Cuban exiles who reached the United States. Your father was born in Cuba. Your father had a Cuban passport. Your father landed on American soil. Your father won.","brand":"Hogarth","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48233029337317,"sku":"NP9780593730171","price":29.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780593730171.jpg?v=1767723756","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/citizenship-isbn-9780593730171","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}