Naturalization : A Queer Genealogy of US Citizenship, Race, and Sexuality / Siobhan B. Somerville.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Somerville, Siobhan B., Author.

Language:

English

Spanish

Subjects (All):

Naturalization--United States--History.

Naturalization.

Citizenship--United States--History.

Citizenship.

Emigration and immigration law--United States--History.

Emigration and immigration law.

Settler colonialism--United States.

Settler colonialism.

Race discrimination--Law and legislation--United States.

Race discrimination.

Queer theory--Political aspects--United States.

Queer theory.

United States--Emigration and immigration.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Durham Duke University Press, [2026]

Language Note:

In Spanish, Castilian.

Summary:

Amid contentious debates about citizenship, borders, and belonging, naturalization tends to stand apart, widely celebrated as the culmination of immigrant narratives and American ideals of liberalism. In Naturalization , Siobhan B. Somerville unsettles this story, showing how the process of citizen-making has historically been embedded in normative assumptions about race, indigeneity, and sexuality that have sustained the US settler colonial project. Tracing an alternative genealogy of naturalization from the eighteenth century through the mid-twentieth, Somerville investigates overlooked stories not only of immigrants but also of Indigenous people, formerly enslaved people of African descent, and inhabitants of US territories, many of whom became US citizens through collective naturalization, often without their consent. Somerville's interdisciplinary approach to a wide-ranging archive-including federal law, photographs, letters, and memoirs-shows how naturalization has long functioned as both a powerful metaphor and a contradictory material practice at the core of the US settler colonial state.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

Introduction

1. Naturalization and the Origins of the White Settler Nation: John Remond and the Naturalization Act of 1790

2. Unsettling Naturalization: The Dawes Act and Citizenship Ceremonies

3. Settling the Question of Black Citizenship: Dred and Harriet Scott and the Civil Rights Act of 1866

4. National Attachments, Colonial Dispossession: Collective Naturalization in US Territories

5. Heterosettler Citizenship and the "Racial Break": The 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act and Boutilier v. INS (1967)

Conclusion: Naturalization Now

Acknowledgments

APPENDIX. AN INCOMPLETE LIST OF KEY DATES FOR A QUEER GENEALOGY OF NATURALIZATION

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed August 05 2026)

ISBN:

1-4780-6261-4