"Born in the U.S.A., But Who Belongs Here?"
Tracing the roots of citizenship in a nation built by immigrants and the enslaved.
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Each week, I write for those of us who know what it means to cross borders—by choice, necessity, or inheritance. As immigrants, migrants, refugees, and their descendants, we often feel pressured to simplify our identities, but that’s both impossible and unnecessary. From our stories of leaving and arriving to the politics of migration and the fight for change, I explore how the personal, political, and historical intersect—through our ports of entry.
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I must've been about eight to ten years old when my mother barked at me to come sit with her in front of the television. "Watch this with me! It's important."
She had PBS on—this was pre-cable days. On TV, groups of what looked like Asian families were walking around, carrying luggage, sad and depressed.
"They kicked them out of their homes! These kids were born in America, just like you. See, it could happen to anyone!" my mother was both astonished and excited at the same time. I remember being confused by her reaction—how could she be both outraged and almost thrilled to share this dark piece of history with me? But looking back, I understand. She was showing me how precarious our place in America could be.
The documentary was about the Japanese American internment during World War II—over 120,000 people of Japanese descent, most of them U.S. citizens, were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to live in remote, guarded camps across the country. All because after the Pearl Harbor attack, they looked like the "enemy." Japanese-American families were given just days to pack up their lives, forced to abandon their homes, businesses, and most of their belongings to live in makeshift barracks surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards.
My mother was providing the first lesson of what it means to belong in America— how quickly a country could turn against its own people, how citizenship alone wasn't always enough to protect you.
The Roots of American Belonging
In 1790, the U.S. passed its first naturalization law, and it was pretty exclusive. It said that “free white persons” could gain citizenship if they’d lived in the country for two years and had a “good character.” Children of these new citizens, if they were under twenty-one, automatically got citizenship too. But here’s the thing: the law left out huge parts of America. Enslaved Black people? Nope, sorry. Native Americans? Not a chance in hell.
Birthright citizenship was born out of one of America's darkest chapters: slavery. The 14th Amendment, passed in 1868 after the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, was straightforward: if you’re born here, you’re a citizen—period. It was written to protect formerly enslaved Black Americans, ensuring they had full rights and citizenship. But its impact didn’t stop there—it set the stage for how birthright citizenship would be understood for generations to come.
Yet, there’s a glaring irony. While the 14th Amendment extended citizenship to anyone born in the U.S., Native Americans were left out. Legal gymnastics about “jurisdiction” excluded them. The original inhabitants of this land didn’t gain citizenship until 1924—more than half a century later. It’s a sharp reminder of how deeply the U.S. struggled with its definition of who truly belonged.
This constitutional guarantee would face its first major test in 1895. Wong Kim Ark, born and raised in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant parents, was trying to come back home after a visit to family in China. But when he arrived at the seaport, officials stopped him from disembarking. He was forced to live on a ship in San Francisco Harbor for months, while his attorney fought to prove his right to citizenship.
They claimed he wasn’t a citizen, despite being born on American soil. The Chinese Exclusion Act, in effect from 1882 until 1943, blocked Chinese immigration and naturalization at the time. The stakes were massive. If Wong lost his case, it wouldn't just affect him, it would impact generations of Americans born to immigrant parents.
When Wong's case reached the Supreme Court in 1898, they ruled in his favor. His case became a shield for future generations—including those Japanese American citizens who would later be interned, and today's children of undocumented immigrants whose citizenship rights keep coming under attack.
The Global Context and Modern Challenges
While birthright citizenship is fundamental to U.S. immigration policy, it's not universal. Many European countries, including Germany and even the U.K, have more restrictive citizenship laws. In the U.S., children obtain their citizenship at birth through the legal principle of jus soli (“right of the soil”)—that is, being born on U.S. soil.
Before I was born, my parents lived in Germany for five years on temporary visas. They deliberately chose to move to the United States to ensure that I would be born with American citizenship. It wasn't just about convenience—it was about protection, about giving their child an unquestionable right to belong.
Since his time in office, Donald Trump has repeatedly challenged this fundamental right. In 2018, he called it a "crazy policy" and explored ways to end it through executive orders. His administration proposed redefining what it means to be "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States, suggesting that children born to undocumented parents shouldn't qualify for citizenship.
The debate often centers around "birth tourism"—the practice of traveling to the U.S. specifically to give birth in order to secure U.S. citizenship for the child. However, studies show that birth tourism is far less widespread than the rhetoric suggests. In fact, estimates indicate that only a small fraction of births in the U.S. come from foreign nationals seeking citizenship for their children. The reality is that the vast majority of births in the U.S. are from families already residing here, whether as citizens, immigrants, or visa holders.
Any change to birthright citizenship could have devastating consequences. It could create a permanent underclass of people who, despite being American by birth, might be forever treated as outsiders, stripped of the protections and privileges that citizenship traditionally guarantees.
Despite these modern challenges, birthright citizenship in the U.S. is actually rooted in both Roman and English legal traditions. Historically, it was used as a tool by empires to expand their labor forces.
“For more than two millennia, the birthright citizenship idea introduced foreigners – often people of different races and religions – to otherwise homogeneous states such as ancient Rome, the British Empire era of England and Colonial America,” said Michael LeRoy, a professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois in an interview. “Those realms of power adopted birthright citizenship in order to exploit a competitive edge in terms of the sheer number of workers at their disposal over their colonial rivals. Over time, those countries flourished because of a more diverse and skilled workforce.”
To LeRoy’s point, the 14th Amendment wasn’t just about justice for the newly freed slaves—it was also about ensuring a steady stream of labor to fuel the nation’s growth.
Today, as we watch debates rage about who "deserves" to be American, who belongs here, and who gets to call this place home—these stories aren't just history. They're warnings, lessons, and reminders that the fight for belonging is never really over. It just takes new forms with each generation. Both Wong Kim Ark and the internment of Japanese Americans show us how citizenship—even when it's constitutionally guaranteed—can be as fragile in the face of fear and prejudice.
Enrich your mind:
Opinion: A Century of Native American Citizenship (Cherokee Phoneix)
The Plot Against Birthright Citizenship (Mother Jones)
The U.S. Forced Them Into Internment Camps. Here’s How Japanese Americans Started Over (National Geographic)
Thanks for providing historical context for birthright citizenship, Jennifer. I find the long precedent of a diverse workforce as a competitive advantage to be interesting, although I really just wished we as a nation (and as the human race) didn't waste so much energy on devising new ways to exclude groups of people. Humans are always at their best when they cooperate.