Constitution Day And Citizenship Day

"In this volume ten expert historians and legal scholars examine the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the first federal civil rights statute in American history. The act declared that all persons born in the United States were citizens without regard to race, color, or previous condition of slavery. Designed to give the Thirteenth Amendment practical effect as former slave states enacted laws limiting the rights of African Americans, this measure for the first time defined U.S. citizenship and the rights associated with it." -From summary.

Text of the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

"Over time, the Fourteenth Amendment--which at last provided African Americans with full citizenship and prohibited any state from denying any citizen due process and equal protection under the law--changed almost every detail of our public life. Democracy Reborn tells the story of this desperate struggle, from the halls of Congress to the bloody streets of Memphis and New Orleans." -From publisher.

Contents: 1. The Roads to Citizenship; 2. Citizenship and Inequality; 3. Voices of Immigrants; 4. Citizenship Ceremonies; 5. Welcoming and Defining; 6. Naturalization in Theory and Practice; Appendix. Results of Multivariate Analysis Predicting Citizenship Status among Immigrants.

"Traces the parallel development of early black print culture and legal and cultural understandings of U.S. citizenship. Considering a variety of texts by both canonical and lesser-known authors, Derrick R. Spires demonstrates how black writers articulated an expansive, practice-based theory of citizenship." -From summary.

"An examination from an archaeological perspective of how those in power have tried to mold the citizenship and composition of the United States and the various and often conflicting strategies that have been employed to "Americanize" both immigrant and native non-white populations." -From summary.

Contents: Framing the question of citizenship : membership, exclusionary inclusion, and Latinos in the national political imaginary -- Political theory and constructs of membership: difference and belonging in liberal democracies -- Reconceptualizing citizenship : membership, belonging, and the politics of racialization -- Associative citizenship : civil society, rights claims and expanding the public sphere -- Grounded rights claims : contesting membership and transforming citizenship in Latino urban communities -- Critical theory and the politics of solidarity : contradictions, tensions, and potentiality -- Concluding reflections : contesting membership/transforming Latino citizenship.

"The American state, this collection argues, was formed and evolved in a more dialectical relationship between citizens and government authority than is generally acknowledged. Suggesting points of comparison between an American narrative of state development-previously thought to be exceptional-and those of Europe and Latin America, the contributors break fresh ground by investigating citizenship in its historical context rather than by reference only to its capacity to confer privileges." -From summary.

"Patrick Weil examines the twentieth-century legal procedures, causes, and enforcement of denaturalization to illuminate an important but neglected dimension of Americans' understanding of sovereignty and federal authority: a citizen is defined, in part, by the parameters that could be used to revoke that same citizenship." -From summary.

" In 1774, everyone in British North America was a subject of King George and Parliament. In 1776 a number of newly independent "states," composed of "American citizens" began cobbling together a Union to fight their former fellow countrymen. But who was an American? What did it mean to be a "citizen" and not a "subject"? And why did it matter?" -From summary.

"Recent global security threats, economic instability, and political uncertainty have placed great scrutiny on the requirements for U.S. citizenship. The stipulation of literacy has long been one of these criteria. In Producing Good Citizens,Amy J. Wan examines the historic roots of this phenomenon, looking specifically to the period just before World War I, up until the Great Depression." -From summary.