Global Migrations and Imagined Citizenship: Examples From Slavery, Chinese Exclusion, and When Questioning Birthright Citizenship

These theoretical approaches motivate this Essay to ask the following about legal citizenship determinations: (a) what is the global movement in persons that leads to the citizenship question?; and (b) what is the imagined community articulated by the legal determination of citizenship? From these questions, a legal inquiry into national identity and citizenship gains historical, global, and cultural perspectives. The next three sections briefly describe the examples of slavery, Dred Scott, and citizenship; Chinese migration to the U.S., Chinese Exclusion measures, and citizenship; and citizenship as seen from a migration experience of U.S.-pull and Mexico-push. For each of the cases their respective sections, Sections II through IV, present these legal citizenship determinations and then identify relevant global migration and imagined community contexts.