10 The Nation. August 12/19, 2019
G
o back. If you’re a nonwhite Ameri-
can, chances are that you’ve heard
this taunt at some point in your
life. Maybe it came from bullies in
the schoolyard. Go back. We don’t
want you here. Or it was delivered as a joke, told
by colleagues around the watercooler. Hey, if you
don’t like it here, you can always go home. Or it came
from one of your own relatives, in the middle of
a heated argument during Thanksgiving dinner.
America, love it or leave it. The locale may change,
the wording may be different, but the idea re-
mains the same. You’re not fully American.
The president gave this rac-
ist message his executive approval
when he tweeted that four progres-
sive female representatives—all of
them from racial, ethnic, or reli-
gious minority communities—
should “go back” to the “totally
broken and crime-infested” coun-
tries “from which they came.” This
was followed up by a rally in Green-
ville, North Carolina, where he
once again dressed down the four duly elected
legislators, focusing his ire on Representative
Ilhan Omar (D-MN). The predominantly white
crowd responded to his rant by chanting, “Send
her back!”
The demand to “go back” rests on an assump-
tion that the archetypal American is white—an
idea that dates back to the early days of this na-
tion. The first piece of legislation to delineate
the boundaries of Americanness was the Natu-
ralization Act of 1790, which limited citizenship
to “free white persons.” Some of the rights that
came from this status, such as the right to vote,
were further restricted to propertied white men.
Under this view, rich white men were to be gov-
erned by consent, and everyone else was to be
governed by force.
Over the next 230 years, restrictions on
citizenship—and the rights and liberties associ-
ated with it—were incrementally loosened and
tightened and loosened again. For example, the
14th Amendment granted citizenship to all peo-
ple born in the United States, including formerly
enslaved people, but it was followed by a slew of
laws in the South that made it virtually impos-
sible for black people to vote. Other limitations
on citizenship flowed from immigration laws,like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the
Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, that sought to prevent
or decrease the arrival and eventual naturalization
of different groups of nonwhite people.
So when the president tells his supporters
that four female representatives of color should
“go back,” he’s articulating this antiquated idea,
rooted in settler colonialism and white suprem-
acy, about who gets to be American. It’s a phi-
losophy that regards whites as full citizens, who
are entitled to all rights and protections under
the law, and nonwhites as conditional citizens,
whose rights are subject to challenge if they dare
to express criticism of their country.
Donald Trump is the man who
titled a book Crippled America, com-
plained that “the American dream
is dead,” and called our country
“stupid.” But when Omar and Repre-
sentatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,
Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib
speak candidly about government
policies and their effects on the most
vulnerable among us, he tells them
to “go back.” America is their home only if they
are silent or in agreement with him.
This racist approach to citizenship has been
central to Trump’s
political career. Three
years ago, for example,
when Gold Star par-
ents Khizr and Ghaza-
la Khan appeared at
the Democratic Na-
tional Convention to
share the story of their
son and to denounce
Trump’s proposed
ban on Muslim immi-
gration, the Republi-
can nominee and his
allies attacked their
son’s allegiances. Capt. Humayun Khan, who
died in the Iraq War in 2004, was smeared as a
stealth jihadist. At the time, I wrote in this space
about the conditionality of the Khans’ citizenship:
Even after their son made the ultimate sacrifice
for his country, they did not have the right to
speak freely.
Much of what the president has done or cham-
pioned since taking office—the Muslim ban, theThe demand
to “go back”
rests on an
assumption
that the
archetypal
American
is white.Conditional Citizenship
Who gets to belong in Donald Trump’s America?
ACTIVISM
Protesting in
Good Faith
A
s Donald Trump ramps
up his attacks on im-
migrants, grassroots re-
ligious organizations are pushing
back. At one demonstration in
mid-July, hundreds of Catholics
led by the groups Faith in Public
Life and Faith in Action filled
the US Capitol to object to the
administration’s treatment of
migrant children at the border.
Protesters lay on the floor of the
rotunda in the shape of a cross,
holding photos of minors who
died in government custody.
Seventy people were arrested,
including several nuns.
Just two days earlier, Never
Again Action, a coalition of
young Jews who oppose Im-
migration and Customs Enforce-
ment, and Movimiento Cosecha,
a group fighting for the rights of
undocumented immigrants, led
a march from the National Mall
to ICE headquarters in DC. The
rally drew about 1,000 people,
with protesters chanting “‘Never
again’ means close the camps.”
Never Again Action’s name
speaks to the group’s determi-
nation to shut down immigrant
detention centers and to mem-
bers’ belief that it’s beneficial
to invoke the Nazis’ treatment
of Jews when discussing the
detention camps at the border.
These organizations and oth-
ers like them are adamant that
their faith means fighting for the
vulnerable and marginalized.
Social conservatives have tried
to monopolize the language of
religion for the right, but these
groups highlight the continued
strength of religious social
justice movements on the left.
—Celisa Calacal
BETWEEN
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LEFT:^ AP^ /^CAROLYNKASTER;TOP^ RIGHT:^ ANDY^ FRIEDMANLaila Lalami