What If No One Were Born American?

Eric Liu On the Duties of Citizenship

At the launch of the Zócalo Public Square/Cal Humanities “Searching for Democracy” series, author, civic entrepreneur, and former Clinton speechwriter Eric Liu, a fellow at the Center for Social Cohesion, asked the audience to consider an issue that pervades all aspects of American life: citizenship. It’s one that cuts across political belief, class, and geography, but “most of us, most of the time, don’t think or talk about” it.

American conversations about citizenship–what the fathers of the nation and the framers of the Constitution fought for–are thin and polarized. The left …

Who Gets To Be a Citizen?

Help Me In Coming Up With Answers

What is citizenship in America? It is a legal status. It is a thing conferred by the accident of birth or by bureaucratic process. It is a cultural concept, and …

Keeping the United States United

At Washington Conference, Studying What Divides and Unites Americans

Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor opened a conference on social cohesion in the United States by offering up the method of bringing people together she used as majority …