Go Read It: Gendering the Birthright Citizenship Debate

If the talk by various lawmakers of repealing "birthright citizenship," or citizenship by virtue of being born on U.S. soil, sounds surreptitiously anti-woman, it is. It's as familiar and toxic as the right-wing's bogeyman, the "welfare queen." Only, this is a way to transfer the negative feeling conservatives have attached mostly to African American women to Latina (and Asian) women instead. It's hateful talk and it's spreading from the home of racial-profiling law SB1070, Arizona, to Texas.

The idea is the same: dehumanize women of color and their children, characterize them as dependent on social programs meant for "real people," and deny their families dignity and legitimacy. By denying children of immigrants citizenship, 14th amendment repealers hope to deport undocumented parents and their citizen children, thereby uprooting and breaking up families.

It's an ugly trick and as old as the hills. Claims about reliance on social services are not even true. And it definitely speaks to the lesser impulses of our country and makes a mockery of the sentiments embodied by the Statue of Liberty.

Feminists need to read it: Gendering the Birthright Citizenship Debate, by Michelle Chen, Colorlines.

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k. She was 6 years old when her parents, immigrants from China and permanent residents of the U.S. at the time, became U.S. citizens. She is a citizen of the U.S. by virtue of being born in the state of Wisconsin. She'll get into the face of anyone who thinks repealing birthright citizenship is a worthwhile idea--that means you, Senators Kyl & Graham.