We the People: The 500-Year Battle Over Who is American(American Ways)

"We the People." The Constitution begins with those deceptively simple words, but how do Americans define that "We"? In We the People, Ben Railton argues that throughout our history two competing yet interconnected concepts have battled to define our national identity and community: exclusionary and inclusive visions of who gets to be an American. From the earliest moments of European contact with indigenous peoples, through the Revolutionary period's debates on African American slavery, 19th century conflicts over Indian Removal, Mexican landowners, and Chinese immigrants, 20th century controversies around Filipino Americans and Japanese internment, and 21st century fears of Muslim Americans, time and again this defining battle has shaped our society and culture. Carefully exploring and critically examining those histories, and the key stories and figures they feature, is vital to understanding America—and to making sense of the Trump era, when the battle over who is an American can be found in every significant debate and moment.

About the Author :
Ben Railton is Professor of English Studies and Coordinator of American Studies at Fitchburg State University in Massachusetts. He writes the daily AmericanStudies public scholarly blog, is a prolific public scholarly Tweeter with more than 38680 followers, and is a frequent contributor to websites such as HuffPost, Talking Points Memo, We’re History, the Washington Post’s Made by History blog, and the Saturday Evening Post, for which he has written a biweekly online column since January 2018. Dr. Railton is the author of four books, including his most recent, History and Hope in American Literature: Models of Critical Patriotism (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), a CHOICE recommended title.

Review :
. . .a timely survey of conflicting answers to the question posed throughout US history: Who is an American? [Railton] first details the effects of the exclusionary approach on each group discussed, and then shows how individuals from each group have contributed to American culture. . . Highly Recommended. In this accessible introduction, journalist and English professor Railton explores the dichotomy of inclusivity and exclusivity that has defined the American ethos since the country’s inception, highlighting some of this struggle’s villains and heroes over five centuries. He begins with insightful commentary on the “melting pot” metaphor; is it a vessel that accepts multiple cultures and melds them into an America built on diversity, or are those cultures poured into the pot to become homogenized and assimilated? Eight chapters follow, each devoted to a different moment of exclusionism in American history. He celebrates authors who used their voices for political ends, including novelist Ruiz de Burton (who in the 1880s drew on her own experience to raise awareness about the theft of land from Mexican-Americans), as well as activists, such as Toyosaburo Korematsu and Yuri Kochiyama, who were sent to Japanese internment camps during WWII and devoted their lives to fighting discrimination. This brief book gives only a surface analysis of some 500 years of history, but Railton effectively makes the material relevant to today, particularly in the final chapter on Muslims in America and the conclusion, which connects these historical episodes to current immigration policy and treatment of native people. In a period of renewed debates over who defines "We the People," B. Railton's concise and compelling survey is not only timely but illuminates often overlooked stories in the American experience. Spanning five centuries of clashes between exclusive and inclusive visions on our continent, Railton shows how the battle itself over who is considered an "American" has been a defining process in shaping our nation's history. During this historical moment, the Trump years, I can imagine little more important than mobilizing the powerful, long forgotten or perhaps never-told narratives of American women and men who have fought for an inclusive nation. The stories--for me especially those of former slaves living in New England and those of long-ago Muslim Americans in unexpected locales like Montana and South Carolina--remind us of a part of American culture that challenges notions of exclusion and hate. Dr. Railton's book is an ever-so-welcome story of finding hope in lost historical context. From Columbus’s colonial aggression to Trump’s white nationalism, Ben Railton’s We the People traverses America’s persistent tendency to exclude and subjugate the foreign other (often violently and always arbitrarily). At the same time, and in a style that is significantly accessible (or inviting), Railton reminds us that this exclusionary spirit has never gone unchecked. By pairing stories of tragic exclusion with often forgotten stories of inclusion, Railton cogently demonstrates that American identity is fundamentally tied to a potential for inclusion and diversity—and thus, that paranoid acts of exclusion function merely to erode the very ideal they are said to uphold.