Mediating Belonging, Inclusion, and Death
Mediating Belonging, Inclusion, and Death
This chapter critiques the act of giving posthumous citizenship to the deceased Latinas/os soldiers in the U.S. immigration law. Placing the mediation of these events against the backdrop of liberalism as well as the notions of consent and voluntarism, the chapter argues that giving posthumous citizenship to the soldiers was an illiberal practice, whereby the deceased people's personal biographies was being substituted for fantastic narratives of the “infantile citizen,” in order to justify their citizenship. This act is supported by ethnocentric discourses of citizenship and nationalism, which assumed that Latino soldiers desired naturalization. In addition, this case generates the idea that the volunteer army equally targets all Americans as potential conscripts.
Keywords: immigration law, posthumous citizenship, infantile citizen, ethnocentric discourses, personal biographies
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