Blood, Soil and Birthright: Critical Discourse Analysis of Contemporary Legal Debates on US Citizenship

In keeping with the 2016 Latina/o Studies Association conference theme to disrupt facile constructions of citizenship we present a critical discourse analysis of the current legal debate regarding US citizenship. Using an... [ view full abstract ]

In keeping with the 2016 Latina/o Studies Association conference theme to disrupt facile constructions of citizenship we present a critical discourse analysis of the current legal debate regarding US citizenship. Using an entirely replicable method, we analyze three widely-cited legal articles with radically different views on how US citizenship should be formulated. The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution grants citizenship to every child born on US soil—in principal—not in fact. This 150-year-old formulation is not permanent, but is politically contingent. Conservative legal theorists vigorously argue that the formulation is both undemocratic and fails to address four 21st century national concerns. One is inconsistent allotment of citizenship, since American Samoans are not granted US citizenship in spite of birth in a US territory. Two is the so-called ‘maternity tourism’ industry that brings pregnant foreign nationals to the US to give birth on US soil. Three is the automatic citizenship granted to some 4.5 million US born children. In the wake of 9/11, is four, in the case of Yaser Hamdi. Hamdi is a Saudi-raised Taliban fighter who, because he was born in Louisiana, was entitled to treatment as a US citizen. Legal cases involving these four concerns are working their way up the court system.
We use a law journal article written by Lino Graglia to represent the conservative, consent-based theory of citizenship. Next, Matthew Ing defends the status-quo view of US citizenship in spite of these four concerns. The renowned historian of US citizenship, Mai Ngai, articulates the third legal position.
We focus on the conceptual metaphors underlying their legal arguments. In the last 20 years, cognitive science studies have come to the view that humans are motivated to use our biological experience to make analogical (metaphorical) sense of the rest of our experience. In everyday discourse (whether in casual, professional or scientific settings) speakers typically do not attend to the metaphors they use. By predisposition and dint of use people naturalize these semantic mappings, and hence configure their understanding of their world in terms of these conceptual metaphors. Conceptual metaphor theory findings have demonstrated how metaphoric guidance pervades cultural, social, and ideological thinking. While not a substitute for formal legal analysis, our method offers a new tool to systematically study legal discourse.
We find the rival legal stances argued in terms of irreconcilable metaphors. We also demonstrate that the claim to restrict citizenship is more logically coherent than the status quo claim. Consequently, if the Roberts Court choses to review one of the cases involving citizenship, then we believe this activist court is liable to change the current formulation. We also find each legal stance to be deficient to address today’s concerns. Finally, at the risk of being brazen, we offer our own proposal for US citizenship that we think addresses the aforementioned 21st century concerns.