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on the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s executive order that would undo birthright citizenship. That long-established legal principle was enshrined in the 14th Amendment. In part, it says: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens."

In her new book, professor and writer Daisy Hernandez says that legal definition is just one layer of a complicated idea. Citizenship is really about who gets to belong. 

“We are citizens of the stories we tell,” she writes. “We belong to the stories we scribe about democracy and authoritarianism, about borders and neighbors, about love and grief and one another.” 

Hernandez joins host Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas for a remarkably relevant discussion about her book, “

.” She uses her own family’s immigration story as a starting point to examine how class, race, sexism and nationalism all impact who gets to claim U.S. citizenship. She and Miller also talk about how citizenship has evolved over the course of American history, often becoming a proxy for race.

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Americans have been arguing about what it means to aspire to and possess U.S. citizenship almost from the beginning. A new book from professor Daisy Hernandez argues, through a personal and historical lens, that how we define this basic right says a lot about how we view race, class and the soul of this country. 

Daisy Hernandez on the many layers of 'Citizenship'

A side by side of an author and her book cover.

Daisy Hernandez on the many layers of 'Citizenship'

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