www.washingtonpost.com

Demonizing Dual Citizens

By Marcela Sanchez
Special to washingtonpost.com
Thursday, October 27, 2005; 10:30 PM

A year after Samuel Huntington's book "Who Are We?'" portrayed Hispanic immigrants as the greatest threat to U.S. national unity, Stanley Renshon has written a book that is likely to once again stir up suspicions toward the foreign-born -- particularly those who have gone a step further by becoming naturalized citizens while maintaining citizenship in their countries of origin.

In "The 50 Percent American: Immigration and National Identity in an Age of Terror'' (Georgetown University Press), Renshon, a professor of political science at the City University of New York, argues that dual citizens have a "shallower attachment to the American national community.''

In Renshon's mind, "the question of American national identity and the strength of our attachments to the American national community are ... in an age of terrorism ... perhaps the most important domestic national issue facing this country.''

The danger, Renshon contends, is that dual citizens have been brought up outside the United Sates and their attentions are divided between their adopted home and their countries of origin. According to Renshon, attachment to a nation is patriotism, something which dual citizens critically lack.

What Renshon is really searching for, as was Huntington before him, is a rationale for why immigrants today threaten the long-term national interests and viability of the United States. But to find one, Renshon pursues arguments that defy common sense and reveal a bizarre generalization that all immigrants are potentially terrorists.

The connections that dual citizens maintain to their countries of origin -- voting in elections, investing in family and business affairs -- are worrisome to Renshon. These connections create conflicts of interest that would be a liability if the United States were ever at war with one of 150 countries that today allow some form of dual citizenship.

Renshon would throw away any positive impact that a naturalized citizen's American experience might have on his land of origin. Never mind that, as President Bush said during his most recent speech about the war on terror, the United States and the world are confronting not a traditional enemy "under a single command'' but a loose network of Islamic radicalism that may find temporary bases inside single states. In most cases, states are the best allies in rooting out those terrorists.

Renshon, a psychoanalyst, goes on to argue that dual citizens are unable --- without the help of government -- to create the emotional connections which are the basis for national attachment. He recommends that government create welcome centers, offer free English classes and improve civic education in schools for the new arrivals.

In other words, immigrants need professional help to make up for their inability to create sufficient attachments to the world in which they live.

In Renshon's world, dual citizens sound like potential sociopaths.

Last month, after 15 years of living in this country, I became one of those dual citizens. Now it seems I've gone from being a threatening immigrant to becoming a threatening naturalized citizen. I find it absolutely ridiculous that anyone would suggest that after all these years, my emotional attachments to this country and its people are deficient.

True, I may never feel exactly the same as my native-born husband does when he hears "America the Beautiful." But I can say in all honesty that I don't hold any deeper or more committed personal attachments than those I have for the people and the way of life in this country.

During World War I, when U.S. nationalism and suspicion of foreigners had reached new heights, President Woodrow Wilson declared that "any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this republic.'' German-Americans, the single largest ethnic group in the United States at the time, were particularly suspect. Teaching German was banned in schools; German street names were changed; sauerkraut was even renamed "victory cabbage.''

George L. Sprattler, the father of the woman I now call Grandma, was depressed and humiliated. He had come to the United States as a Lutheran missionary from Germany and for nearly 15 years had organized congregations and orchestras in the Pacific Northwest. By 1914 he was a U.S. citizen. Yet his church was closed, he was banned from preaching in German and required by law to sell Liberty Bonds. Still, two of his sons went on to serve in the U.S. military during World War II and his daughter became the matriarch to one of the most American of families I've ever known.

And I'm proud to be a part of it.