
Citizenship
Notes on an American Myth
Daisy Hernandez(Author)
Random House Inc (Publisher)
Will be published approx. on 17. February 2026
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-0-593-73017-1 (ISBN)
Description
A provocative, personal, blazingly intelligent examination of one of the most vexing questions facing the United States today: Who is, and should be, a citizen?
“[A] fascinating, urgently needed new book.”—Chicago Tribune
“How did ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free’ turn upside down to where we are today? Everyone needs to read this book, citizens and non-citizens alike. Brilliant!”—Sandra Cisneros
“The most comprehensive book on citizenship/immigration I’ve ever read. A must-read!”—Javier Zamora
“The book I have always wanted to read.”—Jose Antonio Vargas
“Personal, profound, engaging, and comprehensive . . . this is an essential book for these contentious times.”—Booklist (starred review)
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR: Chicago Review of Books, Autostraddle, Publishers Lunch
In this one-of-a-kind book, Daisy Hernández fiercely interrogates one of the most complicated subjects of contemporary life and politics: citizenship. Braiding memoir, history, and cultural criticism, she exposes the truths and lies of how we define ourselves as a country and a people. Turning to her own family’s stories—her mother arrived from Colombia, while her father was a political refugee from Castro’s Cuba—Hernández shows how the very idea of citizenship is a myth, one of the stories we tell ourselves about the American soul and psyche.
Reframing our understanding of what it means to be an American, Citizenship is an urgent and necessary account of the laws, customs, and language we use to include and exclude, especially those who come from Latin America. With her scholar’s mind and memoirist’s gift for narrative, Hernández weaves a story both personal and national, while reckoning with our country’s ongoing debate about who belongs and providing fresh ways of thinking about citizenship. At once bracing, fearless, and tender, Citizenship is a powerful portrait of one family’s experiences in the borderlands of citizenship and an honest illumination of the country in which we live.
“[A] fascinating, urgently needed new book.”—Chicago Tribune
“How did ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free’ turn upside down to where we are today? Everyone needs to read this book, citizens and non-citizens alike. Brilliant!”—Sandra Cisneros
“The most comprehensive book on citizenship/immigration I’ve ever read. A must-read!”—Javier Zamora
“The book I have always wanted to read.”—Jose Antonio Vargas
“Personal, profound, engaging, and comprehensive . . . this is an essential book for these contentious times.”—Booklist (starred review)
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR: Chicago Review of Books, Autostraddle, Publishers Lunch
In this one-of-a-kind book, Daisy Hernández fiercely interrogates one of the most complicated subjects of contemporary life and politics: citizenship. Braiding memoir, history, and cultural criticism, she exposes the truths and lies of how we define ourselves as a country and a people. Turning to her own family’s stories—her mother arrived from Colombia, while her father was a political refugee from Castro’s Cuba—Hernández shows how the very idea of citizenship is a myth, one of the stories we tell ourselves about the American soul and psyche.
Reframing our understanding of what it means to be an American, Citizenship is an urgent and necessary account of the laws, customs, and language we use to include and exclude, especially those who come from Latin America. With her scholar’s mind and memoirist’s gift for narrative, Hernández weaves a story both personal and national, while reckoning with our country’s ongoing debate about who belongs and providing fresh ways of thinking about citizenship. At once bracing, fearless, and tender, Citizenship is a powerful portrait of one family’s experiences in the borderlands of citizenship and an honest illumination of the country in which we live.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Random House USA Inc
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 213 mm
Width: 145 mm
Thickness: 33 mm
Weight
408 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-593-73017-1 (9780593730171)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
02/2026
Hogarth
€15.99
Available for download
Person
Daisy Hernández is the author of The Kissing Bug, winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the inaugural title for the National Book Foundation’s Science + Literature Program. Her memoir, A Cup of Water Under My Bed, won Lambda Literary’s Dr. Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award and was a Publishing Triangle Award finalist. She co-edited the classic feminist anthology Colonize This! and is an associate professor of creative writing at Northwestern University.