A fine contribution to the swirling discussion around citizenship, birthright or otherwise.
A first-generation American considers the contentious and timely issue of citizenship.
“Many people complain these days about the divisiveness of political life in the United States, as if it were only a matter of disagreeing over policies and values, when it could be said that we are at odds with one another because we do not live in the same country.” So writes Hernández, the child of a Colombian mother and Cuban father, who recognized early on that citizenship is a matter of luck—in her father’s case, the fact that he fled Cuba just when the U.S., embroiled in the Cold War, began to issue green cards freely to Cuban exiles. Though born in the shadow of the Andes, Hernández writes, her mother became a citizen thanks to the Caribbean. More to the point, in an interesting twist of argument, Hernández proposes that her parents “became citizens of the United States because this country’s empire extended into the Caribbean.” As she writes, citizenship has always been a politicized and racialized issue: Asians were barred from admission from the 1880s to the 1950s, Blacks were denied citizenship until 1868 and Native Americans until 1924, and anyone who held a green card could be deported at any time upon committing the most minor of crimes. Today, the federal government is deporting citizens and noncitizens alike, a project that began 30-odd years ago with a Republican bid to end jus soli, or birthright, citizenship, the Constitution be damned. One judge—a Taiwanese immigrant—has backed President Trump’s policies by arguing that citizenship need not be granted to “invading aliens,” and he’s said to be next in line for a Supreme Court nomination. Preparing for the worst, Hernández, as a “queer Latina,” closes her narrative by applying for and receiving dual Colombian citizenship—just in case.
A fine contribution to the swirling discussion around citizenship, birthright or otherwise.Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2026
ISBN: 9780593730171
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Hogarth
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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