Read : Jacky HaHa Read : Children of Blood and Bone Read : Notes on a Silencing Read : Every Last Secret Read : Memorial Drive A Daughters Memoir Read : Last Couple Standing
What does it mean to be American? In this starkly illuminating and impassioned book Pulitzer Prize---finalist Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to U.S. citizen using it as a starting point for her exploration of the rights liberties and protections that are traditionally associated with American citizenship. Tapping into history politiWhat does it mean to be American? In this starkly illuminating and impassioned book Pulitzer Prize---finalist Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to U.S. citizen using it as a starting point for her exploration of the rights liberties and protections that are traditionally associated with American citizenship. Tapping into history politics and literature she elucidates how accidents of birth--such as national origin race and gender--that once determined the boundaries of Americanness still their shadows today.Lalami poignantly illustrates how white supremacy survives through adaptation and legislation with the result that a caste system is maintained that keeps the modern equivalent of white make landowners at the top of the social hierarchy. Conditional citizens she argues are all the people with whom America embraces with one arm and pushes away with the other.Brilliantly argued and deeply personal Conditional Citizens weaves together Lalami's own experiences with explorations of the place of nonwhites in the broader American culture.(less)