Dead Citizenship

 Memorial Day is an  appropriate time to reflect on the under appreciated contribution that immigrants have made to our country’s armed services and interests overseas. Around 68,711 foreign born individuals currently help  promote American interests abroad. 48% of these foreign born are non-citizens.  

In July 2002, President Bush signed an executive order that made noncitizens of the armed forces eligible for expedited US citizenship. Since then, 47,500 service members have naturalized and become U.S. Citizens.

The Arlington cemetery preserves the memory of these solider immigrants, many of whom fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Khanda, a religious symbol of Sikh faith, is carved into the white head stone that marks the grave of  Indian native Uday Singh.  One of the many foreign born members who earned citizenship by dying in Iraq, Uday Singh was the first Sikh to die in combat as a US soldier. A   1981 ban of “conspicuous” religious articles of faith for US army members would have prevented Uday from wearing a turban and expressing his faith openly  in the armed services.  The Khanda on his gravestone is a symbol of affirmation granting that Singh is an American and a Sikh, affirming his  religious identity in death that was  denied expression to him in his life.  

The human stories of immigrants who’ve become citizens only through death is really sad. Though from a while back, a story on the AP titled Dead Citizenship really broke my heart. “What use is a piece of paper?” cried Fredelinda Pena after another emotional naturalization ceremony, this one in New York City where her brother’s framed citizenship certificate was handed to his distraught mother. Next to her, the infant daughter he had never met dozed in his fiancée’s arms.

Cpl. Juan Alcantara, 22, a native of the Dominican Republic, killed Aug. 6, 2007 by an explosive in was  eulogized by a congressman “but to his sister, those tributes seemed as hollow as citizenship.’He can’t take the oath from a coffin,’ she sobbed.”

The Amnesty forum in this issue of the Boston Review puts Juan Alcantara’s and Uday Singh’s experiences in a philosophical context where citizenship: the legal recognition that one belongs to a political community becomes an ambiguous idea. Why should one’s nation of birth, a morally arbitrary factor affect one’s future? Why doesn’t the hardship and struggle that many irregular immigrants triumph over qualify them as model citizens, demonstrating the model virtues of determination and hope needed to make it in this country.

Joe Caren’s argument in the forum centers on the idea that the law should recognize irregular immigrants as citizens after a certain period of time. Time is a useful indicator of an individual’s rootedness in a community because it reflects the associations an individual has developed with those around him, the experiences accumulated, the taxes paid. But, time is not a foul proof indicator. Is Miguel Sanchez, the irregular immigrant that figures prominently in Caren’s story, more of a citizen than Juan Alcantara? Is one’s claim to citizenship quantifiable? It’s hard to play the game of who deserves citizenship more, but I think that while the passage of time is an important reflection of civic belonging, it can by no means stand as an isolated determinant. Fighting for US interests abroad without knowing whether you’ll make it back alive demonstrates a strong commitment to this country’s values and deserves to be recognized irrespective of how many  years a citizen has spent  in the nation.

This Memorial Day, President Obama when faced with the challenge of whether to send a wreath to the Confederate monument in Arlington, a tradition that goes back to President Wilson, made an incredibly smart move. President Obama sent the proverbial wreath to the confederate monument and to a monument commemorating African Americans who fought in the Civil War. President Obama was deferent to the precedent set by Presidents before him but also became the first President to play it slightly differently by sending a second wreath to a monument of perhaps greater significance. This play of symbolic politics reflects the tact of our President — a tact that will be needed when confronting the pragmatic concerns and moral arguments of immigration and the ways  the contributions of immigrants live on in our collective memory.