A NYT cartoon addresses a still-contested question
Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
Christian nationalists accept as given that one becomes a Christian by being “saved” (infant baptism for Catholics). They are much more stingy about what it takes to become an American despite one of the defined avenues being born into it. The 14th Amendment stipulates no ideological prerequisites.
That’s a good thing, since so many of our MAGA zealots have rejected the fundamental tenets of Americanism, especially the democratic process and majority rule. They’d like to disenfranchize Americans who don’t agree with their beliefs. They want to restore the monarchy, perhaps by force. They’ve already chosen a king.
But guess what? They’re still Americans. Maybe in name only, but they are saved from expulsion by meeting the minimum requirements in the constitution for which they’ve shown they have little use unless they are allowed to subjugate the rest of the country.
Usually, the side-eye is directed at new arrivals.
Let me recall a story readers have heard before:
My mother still tells the story of her mother (2nd generation Irish with a fresh memory of when her family members were treated as Latinos are now). She sat her down before sending my mother to school for the first time and looked her square in the face.
“When they ask at school what you are, you tell them you’re an American.”
When as a child she returned to Japan after a few years in the States, RumiHara realized she was an American too. It’s more than about where you are born.
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