What Does It Mean to Be American?
A lesson on the importance of the 14th Amendment from ACLU of Northern California ED, Abdi Soltani
On a recent Thursday evening in June, I had the opportunity to hear the Executive Director of the ACLU of Northern California, Abdi Soltani, speak as part of the San Francisco Global Shapers Hub’s series of Shaper Talks. The room was full, and it was clear from people’s body language that they were there to learn and engage. Abdi was soft-spoken, which only made the room seem to lean ever closer to him, hanging on his every word.
Among the many moving stories he shared with us, of both successes and failures, the 14th Amendment was the thread connecting them all. While the 13th Amendment abolished slavery, “the 14th was necessary to make it abundantly clear that anyone born on US soil is a US citizen”, he explained. It is also critical because after first affirming that anyone born here is a citizen, it then explicitly says “any person” affirming that everyone, regardless of being a citizen or not, is afforded due process under the law.
For those (like me) who have forgotten the text from their high school history class. Section 1 of the 14th Amendment reads as follows:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Soltani was born in LA to Iranian parents. His mother fully intended for him to be born at home in Iran, however she and his father were traveling across the US, and by the time she visited the doctor, she was deemed too far along in her pregnancy to travel. “This baby is being born in Los Angeles,” he told her. But rather than taking his citizenship for granted, Soltani questions it. “What is the source of my citizenship?” he asked,
“It’s not the fact that my parents lost track of time. It’s rooted in the plight of the slaves, the unfinished promise of equality in this country.”
As Soltani uttered the words, the room was silent, every ear tuned towards him. This clearly resonated with an audience almost evenly split between immigrants and those born on US soil. Personally, I found myself thinking of the living legacy of history. No entity or moment exists alone in a bubble. History ebbs and flows, touching the present day in a myriad ways. The legacy of legislation being just one.
While studying my Masters in Human Rights, I had the opportunity to explore the ways in which rights are conferred on people. It’s generally accepted that rights are granted to individuals by states. This makes sense, because governments have sovereign power over their territory, resources, and citizens. Simply put, who, besides the state, has the power to enforce freedom of speech and freedom of religion, has the resources available to ensure accessibility to free education and healthcare, or has the authority to guarantee equal representation before the law? Of course, conversely, the state also has the power to deny and abuse all of those rights. And perhaps no other entity is better situated to do so.
World War II was one of the first times the world faced such a huge refugee crisis, as the one we have today. Millions of stateless people having had their citizenships revoked. My grandparents were two of them. Coming to the US in 1939 from Vienna, they did not become US citizens until 1945. This means that for 6 years they existed in limbo, as citizens of nowhere. It is thanks to the 14th Amendment that they were granted rights in their new home, and the same goes for the refugees reaching our shores today. As Emma Lazarus says in her poem “The New Colossus”, a portion of which is engraved on the Statue of Liberty:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
To me, this is what is means to be American. We have enshrined in our 14th Amendment a duty even to those who are not citizens of the United States. “Any person”, as it reads, deserves due process and equal protection before the law. And “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, … are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” My dad was born in Pittsburgh in 1940, 1 year after his parents came to the US. Thus my dad was an American citizen 5 years before his parents became citizens. So, where does my citizenship come from? It originates not in my having been born at a hospital in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, but in the struggle of my grandparents to reach the United States, and in both the slaves and free African-Americans before them, denied their citizenship for so many years despite being born on the same land as their white counterparts.
