As the United States today celebrates the Fourth of July, that perennial reaffirmation of national identity, the country's most cherished marker of civic privilege is facing a barrage of public scrutiny and attack not seen in almost a century.
Long virtually absent from public discussion, citizenship has reemerged as a front-line topic of debate in Congress, academia and in communities across the nation. It has been the focus of contentious legislative hearings, noisy protest marches and sundry "reform" proposals--even as there has been a proliferation of mass swearings-in of new citizens, including ceremonies for 7,000 in Los Angeles on Thursday.
Republicans have accused the Clinton administration of carelessly hastening election year citizenship applications as a partisan weapon--an echo of 19th century cries of fraud as Tammany Hall and other political machines herded new arrivals to the voting booth. Some in Congress and elsewhere are pushing for new restrictions on who may become a citizen.
In the meantime, last year's federal welfare act set aside decades of practice to erect sharp new divisions in the rights of citizens and noncitizens--distinctions now being challenged in federal court. And one possible outcome of the current campaign finance scandal sweeping Washington is an outright ban on political contributions by noncitizen legal immigrants.
The widespread perception that immigrants are being targeted continues to prompt vast numbers to apply for citizenship--a record 1.1 million took the oath in the most recent fiscal year, a stunning jump of almost fivefold in just four years. Applications will rise an additional 50% this year, officials say.
Historian Reed Ueda of Tufts University concluded: "Citizenship seems to have assumed a role in our society that it hasn't had since the early 20th century."
Although today's controversies somewhat mirror historical debates about citizenship, the unprecedented diversity of today's new citizens has added a new--and provocative--element.
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As the millennium approaches, citizenship in the United States has become a de facto front in the culture wars, a test of how multicultural America defines itself: as a nation fragmenting or uniting. Citizenship, like bilingualism and affirmative action, is now a cultural battlefield.
"It used to be we had a myth of a common culture that helped define citizenship," said Frank Wu, law professor at Howard University. "But today those myths are in doubt."
