I'm still a citizen?

Well, you'll all be happy to know that your favorite librarian is still an American citizen. For now.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court—oh, how I choke writing that title—affirmed that the 14th Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship. Just as it did in 1898 in US v. Wong Kim Ark. One would have thought it "settled law". But many things that we thought were settled seem to not be so in this our Brave New World.

Of course, as a birthright citizen, this case is of special concern to me. My parents had green cards when I was born; would that have been enough? Would that have been enough for any current green card holders who bore children in the US? 

And, contrary to the headlines, the decision was not 6-3 against the regime. It was 5-4 on the core constitutional question, as to whether the amendment guarantees citizenship to anyone born in the United States. Four of the justices have decided that no, it doesn't. That, my friends, is no balm to my soul.

My fate and the fates of millions rests on the geometry of politics. And there is a good percentage of my for-now-fellow-citizens who see me as illegitimate. As other. As an unperson. I am improperly American. I should, at best, have been allowed succor in this country as a second-class dweller, a sojourner, with no right to any of the benefits of citizenship. And I should have considered myself lucky for that. But, really, what they want is for me to not exist. To have never had a chance in this land of the free and home of the brave.

This is what happens when voters who should know better don't take their responsibilities with the seriousness they merit. When we have a political culture which values spectacle over sobriety. When voters across the political spectrum which to be plied with pleasing bromides rather than hard truths. When anyone expects anything out of voters in the world's oldest democracy. 

This nation is broken. Its people are broken. And you can blame Russia and China and Saudi Arabia and psyops and influence campaigns all you want. But at the core this is a Republic which is sick. Its people are sick. Any campaigns by foreign enemies would have no purchase had we a common sense of being American. We do not. No, I have not been subjected to the same racism as my Black brothers and sisters. Their strength is a model for me. But I am no stranger to racist asides, disguised as amazement that I'm so well-spoken and well-educated. And along with that amazement, disdain, because at heart I don't belong here.

Immigrants and children of immigrants have to take this into the core of our beings: Our place here is always conditional. It always has been, from the first waves of Irish immigration in the mid-19th century to today. In her senescence my mother would repeat some "fact" she heard: that not until you've been in the country for four generations are you considered "American". And I cannot deny there's wisdom in that. But here's the greater truth: unless you're part of the normative white majority, your status is always at risk, always at sufferance. It is never secure. The fact that this case was decided so closely is evidence of that. And is of no comfort.