Identity is complicated. Part of my identity is that I am an American, but these days I am questioning what that means, to be American. One disillusionment of my conception came when I realized that liberals and conservatives both want America to be strong and good, but they have such different opinions about how to be strong and good. The differences inspire talking heads to incessantly ridicule other people’s viewpoints, and these insults become the dialogue playing in the heads of millions of Americans, a dialogue that becomes visceral hatred. Americans hate Americans, which makes the phrase “I’m proud to be an American” a little fuzzy. For me, anyway.

Another chink in the armor of my Americanism came with the admission of the sins of our past, sins that have crept into our present and will become our future if things don’t change. Slavery and genocide, specifically. Some of us went to war to defend slavery! As a kid, I saw a flag at a fair that said, “The South will rise again!” and it had skeletons climbing from the grave and carrying a flag. I thought it was cool, and for me it represented tough resilience, something I wanted. Years later, I learned what it meant, which confused me. How could that flag even be for sale in America? Are there Americans today who want to defend that economic system dependent on the oppression of a segment of the population—a system that would only benefit a few wealthy landowners? A system that subjects fellow humans to depraved conditions and treatment? Yes. Many Americans have expressed that they would own slaves if it were legal (to which Mark Charles replies that this assumes they aren’t the ones enslaved!). And then there’s the genocide of Native Americans, people that we paid to have killed, as if they were an overabundant invasive species that needed its numbers reduced or eliminated. But we were the invaders. Wait, so I don’t belong here in the first place?

Recently, there is a new dent in the protective covering of my Americanism, the question of whether I am a citizen. I always thought that being born here made me American. Not anymore. But then I saw an error in my thinking: being American does not equate to citizenship. To be a citizen does not mean that you find your identity and heritage in a location or people group, it means to be given certain rights that separate you from non-citizens. African slaves brought to America who then bore children here did not birth citizens, they birthed enslaved children with no rights. Citizenship can be in degrees, as well. For instance, women could be American citizens, but they did not have the right to vote until just over 100 years ago. Jim Crow laws turned the citizenship of black Americans into a façade, a flimsy covering over their re-enslavement. Maybe, considering all this, the questioning of birthright citizenship is valid? After all, we can choose who we give rights to and how many rights we grant, as we have for the majority of this country’s existence.

I don’t want that. What I want is to be proud of my country, and returning to oppressive ways does not accomplish that. I fear I am in the minority . . . no, I know I am. Because a majority of this country voted for the man who is trying to end birthright citizenship (and a number of other policies and programs that work against oppression). My fear is valid because the current Administration started by deporting illegal immigrants who were also significant criminals, but they ended up deporting mothers and their (born in America) children with no criminal history whatsoever.

My grandfather is full-blood Chinese. When Mao Zedong took over China, my grandfather was going to college in America and found it difficult to return. He married an American woman from Nebraska and had a family here. My dad is Chinese-American, but if immigration statuses can be revoked, what does that do to the citizenship of my dad, and me, who were born here? My ex-wife, the mother of my daughter, was born in Ukraine—what does it mean for my daughter if her mother’s immigration status changes? (Oh wait, they’re white, they’ll be ok.) Personally, it seems if someone is born here, is raised in our schools and way of life, and wants to remain and be a citizen of this country, they would be as American as you can get, because aren’t all of us white people ultimately immigrants? (Full disclosure: I am a Caucasian descendant of Caucasians and only adopted into a Chinese-American family, so I am probably safe from deportation.) A case in point, my dad was born and raised here, visited China as a kid, but as an adult he chose to join the US Army and defend this country and our way of life, and he was so nationalistic that I blame him for my being indoctrinated into this ideal of Americanism I find myself questioning today. He is a Chinese-American, and the most devoted of citizens this country could hope for, and this is because he was raised in this country and was given the privileges of citizenship. Why are we kicking people out who want to be American?

Which brings me back to my beginning—what does it mean to be American? When so many people voted a man into office who wants to call into question our citizenship and loyalty to this country, I have to wonder what I am. But I was born and raised here in the ways of this place we call America. So maybe I’m not an American. I am a BornHereAn, and I belong here.