Conditional Citizens

Starred review from February 3, 2020
In this eloquent and troubling account, novelist and National Book Award–finalist Lalami (The Other Americans) draws on her personal history as “an immigrant, a woman, an Arab, and a Muslim” to argue that becoming a U.S. citizen does not necessarily mean becoming “an equal member of the American family.” Recalling that the first time a U.S. customs agent examined her American passport, he wanted to know how many camels her husband had to trade in for her, Lalami critically assesses political rhetoric from 9/11 through President Trump’s border wall; skillfully unpacks charged words such as “allegiance” and “assimilation”; reflects on Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh through the lens of her own experience calling out workplace sexual harassment; and examines the erasure of Muslims from American history. “Conditional citizenship,” she writes, “is characterized by the burden of having to educate white Americans about all the ways in which one is different from them.” Lalami offers essential insights into how racism and sexism function in American society, and makes a persuasive case for preserving the “gray zones” between religious, ethnic, and national identities as a way to push back against tribalism and sectarianism. This profound inquiry into the American immigrant experience deserves to be widely read.

February 15, 2020
The award-winning novelist gathers eight essays that examine the meaning of citizenship in 21st-century America. Drawing on history, politics, and her own personal experience, Lalami, a creative writing professor and American Book Award winner, explores the "contradictions between doctrine and reality" that problematize what it means to be an American. To make her points, she uses the concept of "conditional citizenship," a state of partial (and revocable) acceptance/integration into American society based on factors such as race and faith. In the opening essay, "Allegiance," Lalami writes about the frightening attitudinal changes she witnessed as a new Muslim American citizen in the wake of 9/11. Suddenly, the "slice of citizenship apple pie" she had been extended was withdrawn as hate crimes against law-abiding Muslim Americans spiked and presidential bans against certain nations eventually became a new normal. The author reminds readers how white supremacist attitudes have always existed by recalling the historical treatment of other nonwhite communities. In "Inheritance," Lalami extends the concept of conditional citizenship to include not only nonwhites and non-Christians but also nonmales. Even in the U.S., women are often told to be grateful for the rights they have. The author convincingly argues that such attitudes "subtly discourage" women from achieving equality with men and accessing the full citizenship they deserve. In "Borders," she goes on to emphasize the fragility of all American citizenship. She reveals how the U.S. has 136 internal checkpoints within 100 miles of its geographical borders and how the 200 million Americans living in those zones could be subject to deportation if they "fail to persuade [border patrol] agents" that they are citizens. While walls may seem to offer security, as Lalami points out, the climate change that "unfettered industrialization" has created will eventually render both walls and checkpoints useless. Consistently thoughtful and incisive, the book confronts the perils of our modern age with truths to inspire the coalition-building necessary to American cultural and democratic survival. A bracingly provocative collection perfect for our times.

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Starred review from April 1, 2020
In the opening pages of this propulsive, fascinating, and infuriating account of citizenship in the U.S., acclaimed Moroccan American novelist Lalami (The Other Americans, 2019) explains how her relationship with her adopted nation and its bureaucratic apparatus is "affected in all sorts of ways by . . . being an immigrant, a woman, an Arab, and a Muslim." Lalami employs highly charged personal anecdotes (on two different occasions, U.S. Customs officers asked her husband how much livestock he traded for her) to launch an eye-opening, uncomfortable examination of the many ways U.S. citizens find themselves differentiated based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, and language. These "conditional citizens" are "people whose rights the state finds expendable in the pursuit of white supremacy." Beginning with negative media depictions of Arabs in the early 2000s, such as in the Fox TV series 24, Lalami broadens her scope to address the plights of Latinx, Black, Asian, and Native American groups that have faced immigration restrictions, racist profiling, forced migration, and genocide. Though certainly timely for the current political moment, Lalami historicizes these trends, which turn out to be as American as apple pie. Lalami treats this complex, incendiary topic with nuanced consideration and blistering insight.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

March 1, 2020

Lalami (The Other Americans) explores what it means to be a naturalized citizen in the U.S. post 9/11 and post Trump. Lalami, a novelist and professor who was born in Morocco and educated abroad, provides anecdotes about her own life and experience. She is a Muslim who is married to an American, and her citizenship did not exempt her from scrutiny, bias, and suspicion. She delves into topics that concern not only Muslim Americans but all immigrants, which include faith, allegiance, and assimilation. She speaks movingly about her own mother-in-law, a Cuban-American woman whose moral support she deeply valued, even as she was overtaken by dementia. Traveling internationally and speaking to groups of people on book tours has given Lalami unique insight into some of the indignities that immigrants face, as well as the scope of misinformation that can spread across communities. She argues that, for some naturalized citizens in the U.S., citizenship will always be conditional, at least until we truly reckon with our white supremacist roots. VERDICT Lalami's conclusions are not groundbreaking and have been investigated in other works, but she is a gifted writer and her informative narrative shines when she shares her own experiences. [See Prepub 11/11/19.]--Barrie Olmstead, Lewiston P.L., ID

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2019

A Pulitzer Prize finalist whose The Other Americans stood short-listed for the National Book Award at press time, novelist Lalami here uses her journey from Moroccan immigrant to U.S. citizen to explore the rights and privileges associated with being an American and clarify what it means to be a "conditional citizen." Race, gender, and national origin still impinge on full citizenship, she argues, and she sees white men generally as still being in the position of the landowners of yore.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.