Earned Citizenship Michael J.

Sullivan
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Earned Citizenship
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Earned Citizenship

MICHAEL J. SULLIVAN

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3
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Contents

Acknowledgments vii
Abbreviations ix

1. Introduction: Debating Immigration Reform 1

2. Civic Membership as Reciprocity 15

3. Earned Citizenship through Military Service 56

4. Keeping Faith with Immigrant Military Personnel and Veterans 79

5. Recognizing the Civic Value of Parenting a New Generation 118

6. Caring as a Civic Service 146

7. Moving Past “Americanization” toward Earned Citizenship 168

8. Conclusion: Prospects for Earned Citizenship in a New

Restrictionist Era 206

Notes 215
References 225
Index 275
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Acknowledgments

EARNED CITIZENSHIP IS the culmination of many contributions. I want

to take the opportunity to thank those who read drafts and shared their
thoughts with me regarding this project over time. Rogers Smith shaped
my ideas on immigration, citizenship, and American politics through
our conversations. The gift of his time, insight, and careful reading of my
initial arguments improved their development. At Princeton University,
Keith Whittington, Paul Frymer, and Stephen Macedo graciously read
and provided insightful comments on the first drafts of ­chapter 2, “Civic
Membership as Reciprocity” and c­ hapter 5, “Recognizing the Civic Value
of Parenting a New Generation.” I am thankful for their advice, even as
the project has evolved with new information and experiences that inform
the arguments presented in this book.
I presented earlier versions of parts of this book at annual meetings of
the American Political Science Association, the Western Political Science
Association, and the Canadian Political Science Association. I am thankful
to Elizabeth Cohen, Sarah Song, and Andrew Robinson for their feedback
as discussants on those drafts of chapters of this book that I presented.
Barbara Arneil and Daniel Engster provided me with added insight on
care ethics. My references list the many other people whose ideas have
shaped the development of this book.
Conversations with Frank Scarlota, Henry Flores, and Larry Hufford
shaped my understanding of what it means to support military personnel
and veterans while striving for a more peaceful world. Gerald Poyo and
Arturo Vega at St. Mary’s and Roger Enriquez at the University of Texas
at San Antonio broadened my understanding of the history and politics
of the U.S.-​Mexico borderlands. My students at Princeton University,
St. Mary’s University, and the U.S. Army base at Fort Hood, Texas, pro-
vided me with additional personal insight into civil-​military relations,
Americanization, and immigration that I considered while I wrote this
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viii Acknowledgments

book. I am particularly thankful to my research assistants at St. Mary’s

who read drafts of book chapters, including Néstor Allende-​Asparó, Greg
Harman, Julian Rios, Christian Ruiz, Miguel Sanchez, and Robin Tate. At
Oxford University Press, I am thankful to Angela Chnapko for believing
in this project and guiding it through the review process, and to Alexcee
Bechthold for her advice as I prepared the manuscript for submission.
The reviewers who anonymously read and commented on this book for
Oxford University Press sharpened its focus. They also generously shared
new ideas for its revision and further development, for which I am very
thankful.
Parts of an earlier version of c­ hapter 3 were published as “By Right
of Service: The Military as a Pathway to Citizenship,” Politics, Groups
and Identities 2, no. 2 (June 2014): 245–​259. Copyright © 2014 Western
Political Science Association, reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis
Ltd, www.tandfonline.com on behalf of the Western Political Science
Association. Portions of an earlier version of ­chapter 5 were published
as “Conditional Residence for Unauthorised Immigrants,” International
Journal of Children’s Rights 22, no. 4 (2014): 776–​806. I thank Koninklijke
Brill NV for permission to use this material here.
I dedicate this book to my family, who have been there for me through
my immigrant and academic journeys. My sister, Carolyn Sullivan, read
most of the manuscript. My father, John Sullivan, listened to my ideas
and toiled for long hours in factories and construction sites to help sup-
port our family when I was younger, allowing me to work toward my
educational goals.
To my wife, Laura Sullivan, I owe special thanks for your love and sup-
port. You listened to my ideas, read many drafts of my manuscript, and
encouraged me through it all. While I wrote this book our son, Michael
Dmytro, and our daughter, Catherine Sofiya, entered our lives, providing
us as new parents with the blessing of sharing in their learning and
discoveries.
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Abbreviations

ACLU American Civil Liberties Union

AFL American Federation of Labor
AFL-​CIO American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial
Organizations
AGIF American G.I. Forum
CBP U.S. Customs and Border Protection
CIS Center for Immigration Studies
DACA Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
DAPA Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent
Residents
DHS U.S. Department of Homeland Security
DOD U.S. Department of Defense
DREAM Act Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act
ESL English as a Second Language
ETS Expiration of Term of Service
FAIR Federation for American Immigration Reform
ICE U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
IIRIRA Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act
of 1996
IMFA Immigration Marriage Fraud Amendment of 1986
INS Immigration and Naturalization Service (U.S., pre-​2002)
IRCA Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986
LULAC League of United Latin American Citizens
MALDEF Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund
MAVNI Military Accessions Vital to National Interest
MEChA Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán
NCLR National Council of La Raza (now UnidosUS)
PTSD Post-​Traumatic Stress Disorder
PMSC Private Military Security Contractors
SAW Special Agricultural Worker
SEIU Service Employees International Union
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x Abbreviations

SLIAG State Legalization Impact Assistance Grants

UFW United Farm Workers
U.K. United Kingdom
UNCRC United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989)
U.S. United States of America
USCIS United States Citizenship and Immigration Service
USCCB U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
VA Veterans Affairs
WIC Women, Infants, and Children (Special Supplemental Nutrition
Program)
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Introduction
Debating Immigration Reform

THE U.S. CONTINUES to be engaged in a protracted controversy about

how to respond to the political challenge of unauthorized immigra-
tion. A key underlying issue in this debate that transcends the shifting
headlines involves the moral claims of unauthorized long-​term residents
to a pathway to citizenship based on their contributions to their adopted
communities.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimates that
12.1 million immigrants that it defined as “unauthorized”1 are living in the
U.S., representing 3.8 percent of the U.S. population (Baker 2017, 4). Most
of these immigrants entered the U.S. without inspection or overstayed
their visas without the permission of the U.S. government, but they
have also contributed to their adopted communities as workers, parents,
volunteers, and military personnel. The U.S. is not alone in dealing with
this challenge. Other highly developed, liberal democratic countries also
have unauthorized immigrants in an “irregular” legal status, but they rep-
resent a smaller percentage of those countries’ total populations (Bansak
2016, 2).
The majority of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. have been here
for over a decade (Passel and Cohn 2016a, 4, 7; Baker 2017, 4). They have
settled into U.S. communities, living and working there as contributing
members for many years, even though they face deportation. This book
advances a normative argument for allowing current long-​term unau-
thorized immigrants to earn legalization, and later citizenship, based on
their contributions to citizens in their adopted communities. Ongoing
changes in immigration policy and enforcement practice do not alter the
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2 E arned C itizenship

underlying moral claims of unauthorized immigrants to a pathway to

citizenship.

Immigrant Military Personnel and Veterans

Deserve Citizenship, Not Deportation
I begin by highlighting the unique moral claims of noncitizen military
personnel and veterans who face removal from the country that they
have served. Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the American
Community Survey, a Migration Policy Institute report estimates that
there were 511,000 foreign-​born veterans living in the U.S. as of 2016
(Zong and Batalova 2016). Some are ineligible to naturalize and can still
face deportation for a variety of reasons, including enlisting as an immi-
grant who is unauthorized to be in the United States. An additional 31,128
deportable noncitizens were serving in the U.S. military as of May 2013
(White House 2013).2 These noncitizen military personnel are extensively
screened for security risks (Garamone 2017). A great injustice is occurring;
immigrants who have served in the defense of their adopted country are
being deported, and others can have their citizenship revoked (Stock 2012,
87; Popescu 2017).
The U.S. continues to fight the longest war in its history (Kieran
and Martini 2018, 1). To wage war, the U.S. military is relying in part on
noncitizens to serve in combat while most U.S. citizens safely avoid the
war that has consumed American lives since October 7, 2001. Some of
these military personnel and veterans who were promised citizenship
are now facing deportation (Stock 2017b; Horton 2017). This injustice—​
alongside the broader unwillingness of the U.S. government to grant legal
status and a pathway to citizenship to unauthorized immigrants in ex-
change for their service to the country and its citizens—​is a central con-
cern of this book.
The fact that U.S. military personnel and veterans can be deported is
a violation of the collective moral responsibilities of the country and its
citizens to those who have served and sacrificed on their behalf. American
policymakers have repeatedly shown signs of concurring with this view
on pragmatic grounds, up to a point. On November 15, 2013, during the
Obama administration, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service
(USCIS) released a policy memorandum reiterating its “commitment to
our veterans, to support and care for them. It is a commitment that begins
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Introduction 3

at enlistment, and continues as they become veterans” (USCIS 2013, 2).

To this end, the USCIS repeated its pledge “to help military dependents to
secure permanent immigration status in the United States as soon as pos-
sible” (USCIS 2013, 2). The USCIS updated this policy on November 23,
2016, to ensure that noncitizen family members of deceased veterans or
armed forces personnel without lawful status in the U.S. could obtain the
same immigration benefits (USCIS 2016). While this program is still tech-
nically in place, immediate family members of U.S. military personnel are
facing deportation in 2018 (USCIS 2017c; Gamboa 2018).

Toward a Broad Pathway to Citizenship

Through Contributions in Relationships
Immigration assistance for the family members of U.S. citizen and lawful
permanent resident military personnel does not help noncitizen soldiers
and veterans without U.S. citizen dependents. It also indicates that some
mixed-​citizenship status families matter more than others. This measure
does not help the 4.7 million citizen children with unauthorized immi-
grant parents living in the U.S. who face detention, deportation, and sepa-
ration from their families (Passel and Cohn 2016b). Nor does it help their
older siblings who were born abroad, were subsequently brought to the
U.S. by their parents as children, and are now living here without legal
authorization.
These piecemeal administrative actions only touch on the broader,
cross-​contextual moral claim that I am making here: unauthorized
immigrants should be able to earn legal residence through contributions
to relationships in their adopted country. This qualifies the proposition ad-
vanced by Michael Walzer (1983), Christopher Wellman (2011), and others
that citizens have a legitimate claim to exclude some noncitizens to main-
tain the ability of state institutions to provide civil protections, a demo-
cratic government, and public goods, and to govern on the basis of values
forged from widely shared formative experiences. Citizens who want to
enact more exclusionary admissions or enforcement policies have to jus-
tify these measures to their compatriots whose family members stand to
be deported as a result of such policies. They must also account for the
contributions that unauthorized immigrants are making to their adopted
country.
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4 E arned C itizenship

To balance immigration offenses with subsequent contributions to the

community, unauthorized immigrants should be able to obtain legaliza-
tion by providing restitution, through national and/​or community service,
for entering and remaining in the country without authorization as adults.
I also consider what citizens should be able to expect from legalized per-
manent residents as service that merits naturalization and the rights of
citizenship status in their country. Finally, I explain why immigrants
who entered and remained in the country without authorization as chil-
dren should be exempt from the service requirement for legalization and
naturalization. I ask how the service requirement might be adapted for
parents and caregivers so they can remain in the country to care for their
citizen and long-​term resident children while still giving back to the com-
munity as restitution for their unlawful entry and residence. Responding
to these concerns, I argue that caregiving duties should be recognized
and rewarded as a service to the community that merits legalization and a
pathway to citizenship.

Competing Interests: A Synopsis of the

U.S. Immigration Reform Debate
During the 1960s and 1970s citizens with few other viewpoints in
common on the major debates in domestic U.S. politics mobilized and
formed public policy groups to demand restrictive immigration laws. The
most prominent of these groups, including the Federation for American
Immigration Reform (FAIR), the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS),
and NumbersUSA, want lower legal immigration quotas and increased
enforcement directed at undocumented residents not legally authorized
to be in the U.S. (Schuck 2017, 132).3
Despite continued opposition from the business wing of their party,
restrictionist views and legislative proposals are also prevalent among
Republican politicians at all levels of government. Until his appointment
as attorney general by President Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions (R-​AL) had
been the immigration restrictionist agenda’s most prominent legislative
supporter in the Senate since 1997. In the Senate, Sessions sponsored
bills that expanded workplace immigration enforcement and provided for
enhanced state and local enforcement of federal immigration laws over
his two decades in office (Sessions and Hayden 2005, 347–​348; Schuck
2017, 137; Tanfani 2017). As attorney general, Sessions pursued a “renewed
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Introduction 5

commitment to criminal immigration enforcement” in the interior and a

harsh “zero-​tolerance policy” toward migrants entering without inspec-
tion at the U.S.-​Mexico border (Sessions 2017, 2018).
While FAIR, CIS, and NumbersUSA still advocate for lower legal im-
migration levels, the focus in the U.S. Congress and state legislatures
is on tougher enforcement directed at unauthorized immigrants. These
legislative proposals have implications for deportable immigrants of all
legal statuses and their citizen dependents. Influential personnel from
FAIR and the CIS are shaping the Trump administration’s immigration
policies. In April 2017 President Trump appointed CIS legal policy analyst
Jon Feere as an adviser on enforcement within the Bureau of Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and FAIR’s former executive director,
Julie Kirchner, as adviser to Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
(Kulish 2017). FAIR and the CIS were shaping media and popular culture
depictions of legal and unauthorized immigrants alike long before Trump
rose to power. One frequent example of how unauthorized immigrants
and their citizen family members are cast by restrictionist public policy
groups and politicians involves treating U.S.-​born citizen children as “an-
chor babies” and their mothers as benefit seekers (Jacobson 2006; North
2011; Gerken 2013, 120–​125; Askola 2016, 65; Minian 2018, 66–​67).
Another example is reflected in the theoretical assumptions of polit-
ical philosopher Philip Cafaro (2015, 69–​72), along with labor economists
like George Borjas (2001, 93–​94, 180–​188; 2016, 126–​129) and Vernon
Briggs Jr. (2003, 274–​282), about the economic consequences of social-​
network-​based immigration for economically disadvantaged Americans.
They are not restrictionists, but FAIR and the CIS use their theories to
back restrictionist public policy arguments. Both FAIR and the CIS argue
that legalization programs or less-​restrictive enforcement measures are
not in the national interest, meaning that while they may benefit some
interests in society (U.S. businesses), these measures would not benefit
all Americans, or the most disadvantaged citizens in particular (Camarota
2013; Ruark 2013, 25). This view sometimes resonates with citizens who
became economically disadvantaged in the midst of structural changes in
the U.S. economy during the 1980s and 1990s (Jaynes 2008, 97–​100; Gest
2016, 196). During the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, the view
that inclusive immigration policies cost U.S. manufacturing workers their
jobs resonated with white swing-​state voters who supported the candidacy
of President Trump (Gest 2016, 193–​194; Morin 2016).
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6 E arned C itizenship

An equally vocal alliance of public policy groups is challenging

the claims of immigration restrictionists and advocating for more in-
clusive immigration legislation. The coalition for inclusive immigra-
tion reform is ideologically diverse, bringing together groups that are
often at odds on other social and economic policy issues. It includes
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (2018), American Federation of Labor
and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-​CIO 2015), Southern
Baptist Convention (2011, 2018), U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
(USCCB 2003, 2013), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU 2018),
and Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF
2018). As the Trump administration’s interior enforcement campaign
escalates, individual religious congregations are again providing sanc-
tuary to unauthorized immigrants, as they did during previous enforce-
ment campaigns, while collectively challenging the administration’s
enforcement policy priorities (Rojas 2017; Heimburger 2018, 215).
Together, these institutions in civil society are emphasizing how unau-
thorized immigrants are contributing to their communities as they de-
velop U.S.-​based ties when they provide for their citizen dependents,
work for businesses, volunteer in schools and local communities, and
live as otherwise law-​abiding citizens. These groups collectively argue
that unauthorized immigrants deserve to be rewarded with legal res-
idence for their lasting contributions to the citizens they support and
the communities they choose to serve. From this inclusive perspective,
one of the defining problems with current U.S. immigration policy is
that it does not adequately account for relationships of interdepend-
ence between citizens and noncitizens, including families, workplaces,
churches, and public institutions from schools to the military (Carens
2013, 22–​26, 186–​191; Stock 2012; Yukich 2013, 92–​119).

What Do Citizens Owe Unauthorized

Long-​Term Resident Immigrants?
In this book I advance a normative argument for “civic membership as
reciprocity,” which primarily applies to persons who as adults entered
the U.S. or overstayed their visas without authorization. Since then they
have settled in the country long term, making contributions to U.S. citi-
zens and communities in a variety of roles. Unlike the Deferred Action
for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) beneficiaries, they were adults when they
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Introduction 7

entered the U.S. or overstayed their visas without authorization, leaving

them legally and morally responsible for their violations of immigra-
tion law. Civic membership as reciprocity begins from the starting point
that citizens and their representatives have a right to enforce their im-
migration laws at the border and through interior immigration enforce-
ment. Civic membership as reciprocity also requires that unauthorized
immigrants earn legalization and a pathway to citizenship for entering
and remaining in the country without authorization. I use the ideal of
civic membership as reciprocity to call into question the view advanced by
Joseph Carens (2013, 168) that residence and duration of stay are sufficient
proxies for attachment to the political community, meriting legalization
and a pathway to citizenship. Throughout this book I defend the view that
legalization and citizenship ought to be earned, not merely given to unau-
thorized immigrants as an entitlement. From this perspective, it matters
what unauthorized immigrants who want legal status are doing while they
are living in their adopted country.
Citizens who are dependent on deportable noncitizen parents,
guardians, and spouses can make a normative argument that their
compatriots should refrain from deporting their caregivers for their sake.
Citizens and policymakers can make normative distinctions about what
they believe the political community owes persons based on their length
of residence, their intentions, and what they have done while living in
their adopted country. They should also consider whether unauthorized
immigrants want to become citizens or just lawful permanent residents.
Some unauthorized immigrants are willing to accept legalization without
a pathway to citizenship so they can legally work and travel between
their country of origin and the U.S. (Preston 2013). Yet unauthorized
immigrants who serve in the military, volunteer in their communities, or
provide other public services that benefit all residents are already acting
as though they are citizens. Their contributions deserve to be treated as
restitution for their unlawful presence and merit their inclusion as equal
citizens.
This book aims to look beyond the ebbs and flows of recent policy
debates and the vacillations of politicians to explore the types of service
that have been recognized as gateways to citizenship for noncitizens as
forms of exemplary citizenship, regardless of who is in office. At the same
time, I strive to draw lessons for the present from history and theory. This
book looks in part to historical precedent to explore the types of service
that have been recognized as forms of exemplary citizenship. It combines
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8 E arned C itizenship

political theories that have been in seeming tension with one another—​
including civic republicanism and feminist care ethics—​to consider a
broad range of contributions that ought to be recognized as ways to earn
naturalization. Care ethics opens up the possibility that military service,
teaching, and parenting are among the most essential forms of public
care work, meant to defend and sustain the body politic over genera-
tions (Tronto 2013, 74–​75). In law, the best interests of the child standard
supports this statement about the civic value of caregiving by parents and
guardians of children as citizens in training. Care ethics also provides
full recognition of the civic value of forms of service historically regarded
as “masculine” and “feminine.” That said, this gendered distinction is
becoming anachronistic as twenty-​first century social norms are encour-
aging men to be more involved parents and caregivers, while women are
assuming combat roles and regularly taking on a range of public protec-
tive roles, from policing to military service.4 Finally, care ethics recognizes
our common vulnerability; those serving in a powerful protective role as
exemplary citizens are just one accident away from needing care them-
selves from providers who perform a valuable but underrecognized civic
service.

The Importance of Legal Status

for Unauthorized Immigrants
Legal status-​based detention and removability affects U.S. citizen chil-
dren directly when their parents are not authorized to live in the U.S.,
either because they entered without authorization or because their status
expired or was revoked after prolonged residence in the United States.
Longstanding interpretation of the citizenship clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment provides all persons born within the territorial jurisdiction
of the U.S., except the children of high-​ranking diplomats, with U.S. cit-
izenship status at birth regardless of their parents’ status (U.S. State
Department 2017b).5 The rights, privileges, and entitlements that begin
to follow from a child’s citizenship status at birth and increase into adult-
hood are of limited practical effect if the child’s parents are forced to leave
the country and decide to take their children with them to avoid family
separation. In this case, the citizen children of deported parents have the
right to return to the U.S. as adults. Yet in practice, their reintegration
may be undermined because they did not receive the same educational
9

Introduction 9

opportunities they would have in the U.S. (Oforji v. Ashcroft 2003; Bhabha
2014, 92–​94; Boehm 2016, 101–​106). This may also impose significant so-
cial and economic costs on society to reintegrate children of deportees if
they move to a non-​English-​speaking country without mandatory public-​
funded schooling and return permanently to the U.S. as adults (Zayas
2015, 173–​174, 227–​229). Alternately, U.S. appeals courts have justified
removing deportable parents of citizen children because their children
can (or in some cases must) remain, under alternative guardianship,
while the rest of their family is forced to return to their country of origin
(Oforji v. Ashcroft 2003, 609, 620–​621; Hall 2011). The U.S.-​born child is
then raised, imperfectly, at the taxpayer’s expense in a foster care or an
institutional setting. Immigration enforcement through family separa-
tion is an ongoing threat to unauthorized immigrants long settled in the
United States.6
Immigration and nationality status differences are a source of struc-
tural disadvantage and inequality, sanctioned by law and policy in the
U.S. for unauthorized immigrants, temporary legal status holders, per-
manent residents, and citizens who are dependent upon deportable
noncitizens. With the elimination of most racial and gender-​based legal
justifications for exclusion from admission and membership, immigra-
tion and nationality status exists today as an independent basis on which
to deny a person legal protections and state-​sponsored social, economic,
and political rights and privileges, and as a source of discrimination in so-
ciety. Two generations ago political scientists like Robert Dahl (1961, 32–​51)
treated noncitizenship as a temporary condition that was much less of a
barrier to political incorporation for immigrants than socioeconomic ine-
quality and ethnic discrimination. Now, while noncitizens still engage in
civic practices and attempt to exercise political agency wherever possible,
their status-​based disabilities are far more likely to be permanent, with
the growth of a population of unauthorized and temporary legal status
holders in the U.S. since 1965 who have no permanent pathway to lawful
permanent resident status and citizenship. People are able to form local
and transnational spaces for identity formation, political participation, and
legal protection that are not dependent on their immigration and nation-
ality status in the states where they reside. But these spaces of freedom are
highly vulnerable to the power of states that are reasserting their authority
to deport members out of their protected local communities. Noncitizens
are no longer secure in their informal network of sites of “political” partic-
ipation and belonging, which scholars and activists once heralded as the
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10 E arned C itizenship

locus of a postnational basis for membership (Bosworth 2008, 206). In

the words of legal theorist Catherine Dauvergne in Making People Illegal
(2008), “citizenship is back with a vengeance,” and immigration and na-
tionality status matter now more than ever.

Organization of the Book

The following chapters serve to advance the proposition that unauthor-
ized immigrants should be able to earn lawful permanent resident status
and citizenship through service to citizens in their adopted communities.
Unauthorized immigrants should be able to make restitution for entering
or remaining in the country illegally. They should then be able to earn cit-
izenship by performing community and national service.7
In ­chapter 2, “Civic Membership as Reciprocity,” I argue that when
unauthorized long-​term residents provide essential services to their
adopted country, the state has a normative obligation to reconsider
its decision to exclude them from citizenship. Their service can miti-
gate the crime of unlawful entry and residence and merit naturaliza-
tion. The principle of civic membership as reciprocity that I develop
in this chapter stands for the proposition that a person should be able
to earn legal status and citizenship by working together with citizens
to sustain and defend public institutions. To account for each political
community’s interest in preserving its identity through admissions and
naturalization decisions, countries can modify the principle of civic
membership as reciprocity to privilege forms of service they single out
for public honors.
In ­chapter 3, “Earned Citizenship through Military Service,” I apply the
principle of civic membership as reciprocity to support my argument that
military service by unauthorized immigrants in particular merits regular-
ization and naturalization in the U.S., given its strong citizen-​soldier tra-
dition. Focusing on the experience of Mexican American veterans, I show
how they have leveraged their military service to earn social recognition
and legal rights as first-​class citizens. I consider how immigrants have
benefited from the transnational Mexican American community’s fight
for earned citizenship, situating their historical experience in a broader
civic republican narrative connecting loyalty and service to exemplary cit-
izenship. I argue that unauthorized immigrants should again be allowed
to serve in the military to become citizens, and veterans facing deporta-
tion should be legalized and granted expedited naturalization. In doing
11

Introduction 11

so, I fill a gap in the literature in the ethics of immigration that has yet to
consider state duties toward hundreds of thousands of immigrants who
have served in the U.S. military.
In ­chapter 4, “Keeping Faith with Immigrant Military Personnel and
Veterans,” I explore a complication in the normative argument in the
previous chapter for reviving the connection between the obligations
of military service and the rights of citizenship. I apply this argument
to address the political problem of deporting noncitizen veterans who
have served in the armed forces during a period of declared hostilities,
drawing on U.S. and comparative examples. I consider why immigrant
military personnel and veterans should be granted unconditional nat-
uralization immediately upon enlistment. In the U.S., military service
currently does not immediately result in naturalization. Nor does it
protect a noncitizen veteran from deportation. Here, I argue that the
normative content of the oath of enlistment should create a permanent
reciprocal relationship of rights and obligations between the govern-
ment and a soldier regardless of his or her prior immigration or citizen-
ship status. Building on this argument, I contend that noncitizens who
serve in the military during a period of declared hostilities should be im-
mediately rendered immune from deportation for the rest of their lives.
If they then commit an offense, they should be punished for their crimes
like any other citizen would be under civilian law, but not deported or
denaturalized.
After drawing from the military aspect of the civic republican tradition
in c­ hapters 2 through 4, I proceed to expand upon the civic republican
tradition that values civic service and sacrifice as gateways to, and forms
of, exemplary citizenship, in c­ hapters 5 and 6. The project of reconciling
civic republicanism—​with its emphasis on public forms of civic service
that were historically reserved to men—​with care ethics, and its emphasis
on dependency work often performed by women, is an important un-
dertaking in contemporary political theory (Lister 1997; Phillips 2000;
Honohan 2002, 260–​261; Leonard and Tronto 2007). Care ethics opens
up the possibility that military service, teaching, and parenting are among
the most essential forms of public care work, meant to defend and sus-
tain the body politic over generations (Tronto 2013, 74–​75). In the process,
I join Tronto and other care ethics theorists in the project of collapsing the
distinction between forms of care work that were once seen as “public,”
such as military service, and “private,” such as caregiving for a child or
relative on the home front.
21

12 E arned C itizenship

In ­ chapter 5, “Recognizing the Civic Value of Parenting a New

Generation,” I argue that states have a long-​term public policy interest in
applying the best interests of the child standard that they use for domestic
child welfare determinations to immigration cases that involve deportable
noncitizen parents. I also recognize that the interests of existing citizens in
effective immigration regulation and enforcement need to be considered
in any proposal. The burden lies with parents who have entered and con-
tinued to reside without authorization in a country to show that their right
to remain is of benefit to existing citizens. This means allowing unau-
thorized immigrant parents legal permission to stay in their children’s
country of long-​term residence.
In ­chapter 6, “Caring as a Civic Service,” I extend my broader claim
from ­chapter 5 that it is in the best interests of legal resident and citizen
children that their unauthorized immigrant parents be allowed to re-
main in their country of habitual residence for the purpose of caring for
these “citizens in training.” I apply this argument to a broader class of
caregivers, using a theoretical argument that caring is an essential civic
service that ought to be recognized by the state as meriting legalization
and a pathway to citizenship. The policy implication of this argument
is that family immigration sponsorship programs should be expanded
to encompass caregiving duties performed by family members and
fictive kin for disabled and elderly adults. This role is performed by a
much wider range of caregivers than parents, including grandparents
and relatives without biological children of their own, providing a po-
tential pathway to legalization for older adults without children. This
argument is part of a broader project aimed at reconciling the civic re-
publicanism of the first part of the book with a feminist ethic of care and
its emphasis on dependency work, often performed by socioeconomi-
cally disadvantaged women.
In ­ chapter 7, “Moving Past Americanization toward Earned
Citizenship,” I address what current advocates of immigration reform can
learn from past campaigns to integrate and protect the interests of new
immigrants. As immigration levels and controversy about America’s wel-
come to newcomers peaked in the early and late twentieth century, Frances
Kellor (1914) and Barbara Jordan (1995) denounced critiques of the “new
immigration” of their time and called upon immigrants and citizens to
assume mutual obligations to one another as part of an “Americanization
movement.” Kellor and Jordan offered a needed critique of the laissez-​
faire approach to immigrant integration that has prevailed to this day,
13

Introduction 13

urging citizens to take an active role in the immigration and naturaliza-

tion process by defining a standard of exemplary citizenship, modeling
this behavior, and mentoring new citizens. But Kellor did not address the
added challenges that come with unauthorized immigration. Jordan arbi-
trarily denied that unauthorized immigrants, apart from those who were
already legalized during the 1986 amnesty, should have a chance to earn
legalization and citizenship. Here, I suggest that citizens have an obli-
gation to consider the value of the service that unauthorized long-​term
residents are offering as restitution for residing in the U.S. without au-
thorization. Kellor and Jordan note that immigrant integration ought to be
a two-​way dialogue. Building on Kellor and Jordan’s views about the role
that citizens ought to play in any immigrant integration process, I argue
that citizens should consider immigrants’ past contributions as restitution
for unlawful residence and help them to meet naturalization standards
through civic education programs.
In ­chapter 8, “Conclusion: Prospects for Earned Citizenship in a New
Restrictionist Era,” I provide a summary and postscript to my historical
discussion of earned citizenship, focusing on the first year of President
Trump’s administration and critically evaluating his administration’s
evolving policy stances on border security and immigration enforcement
in light of the normative message of this book. While acknowledging the
legitimacy of the stated desire of citizens to police their borders and en-
force immigration legislation, I maintain that long-​term residents who
have breached immigration laws should have the opportunity for rehabil-
itation and reintegration into their communities, through recognition of
service to citizens, communities, and the nation as restitution for immi-
gration offenses and preparation for citizenship. My argument for earned
citizenship is opposed to the early Trump administration’s deterrent and
punitive immigration enforcement agendas, which emphasize immigra-
tion offenses over the restorative value of civic service as preparation for
membership in one’s adopted community.
As a whole, this book provides a nonhumanitarian justification for
legalizing unauthorized immigrants based on their contributions in
relationships to citizens, balanced against their obligation to make res-
titution for their initial immigration offenses. It then justifies granting
legalized, formerly unauthorized immigrants a pathway to citizenship
based on their contributions to all citizens and residents of their adopted
country. In so doing, this book offers a middle ground between competing
positions in the debate about the ethics of responding to unauthorized
41

14 E arned C itizenship

immigration that aims to address the concerns of political theorists and

practitioners alike. Instead of simply emphasizing hardship to unauthor-
ized immigrants resulting from enforcement, this argument balances cit-
izen interests in enforcing immigration laws against mitigating factors,
including immigrants’ service to citizens, communities, and the nation
as a whole.
15

Civic Membership as Reciprocity

Introduction
Every country claims the right to detain and deport immigrants who are
undocumented, or rather who lack legal authorization by that country to
be there because they entered without inspection or overstayed their visas
without receiving subsequent permission to remain. But how can polities
justify this course of action when unauthorized long-​term residents are
making greater civic contributions than the citizens who are denying
them access to membership? For instance, why is a nation-​state justi-
fied in its decision to deport unauthorized immigrant military personnel
and veterans while granting citizenship to others simply because they are
descended from citizens or were born within a nation’s territory? This is
a particular challenge for countries with large, long-​term unauthorized
immigrant populations that are ineligible for naturalization. Here I focus
on the U.S. as a paradigmatic example, with its nearly 11.5 million unau-
thorized residents who have been in the country for more than five years
(Baker 2017).
In this chapter I develop and defend the norm of civic membership as
reciprocity, which underlies my argument for recognizing and rewarding
certain unauthorized immigrant contributions with immigration benefits
and a pathway to citizenship. Civic membership as reciprocity stands for
the proposition that people should be able to earn lawful residence and
a pathway to citizenship through service to their adopted country. I refer
to the relationships that bind residents of a community together regard-
less of their citizenship or lawful immigration status as “bonds of civic
membership.” To the extent that residents are sharing the burdens of
sustaining collective enterprises, they are exercising the virtues of civic
61

16 E arned C itizenship

membership as reciprocity. Unauthorized residents merit immigration

benefits insofar as they have entered into relationships with citizens in
which they are working together to sustain public institutions. To account
for how the incorporation of newcomers shapes the identities of distinct
political communities, polities can modify the criteria for earning lawful
permanent resident status and a pathway to citizenship to privilege forms
of service that their members particularly value.
When we define civic membership as a relationship of reciprocity be-
tween residents who act to sustain institutions together, rather than just
hold the same passport, we are faced with new challenges. We need to
balance the interests of citizens who obtained their status by birth or
naturalization with claims to inclusion by noncitizens based on their
contributions to their adopted communities. The principle of civic mem-
bership as reciprocity, as I develop it in this chapter, serves as a basis for
evaluating whether a potential citizen’s present or potential contributions
to the community merit a lifelong claim to shape its destiny and to benefit
from its resources. As part of a nonideal theory, a state that accepts the
principle of civic membership as reciprocity may still deny a noncitizen
resident immigration benefits, and later citizenship, if it deems that his or
her contributions are inadequate.1 Boundaries on the polity’s membership
are still necessary to preserve its identity, including its ability to recognize
and reward contributions.
If a polity is morally entitled to evaluate claims to inclusion based on
a resident’s contributions to its well-​being, its citizens need to consider
how they might assign value to different forms of service. What forms of
service should they regard as sufficient to merit lawful residence and a
pathway to citizenship? One test is the extent to which the potential citizen
has provided a benefit to the community on behalf of all of its citizens that
it ought not to refuse. Another test is whether the community regularly
rewards the service in question with official honors as a form of exemplary
citizenship. Here I use military service as a compelling example of earned
citizenship, while leaving open the possibility of alternatives such as par-
enting, caregiving, and activism.
The chapter proceeds as follows. The second section introduces the
concept of civic membership as reciprocity in its ideal form. The third
section discusses the juridical offense of unauthorized immigration and
justifies making restitution for this infraction in the form of civic serv­
ice. The fourth section applies the concept of civic membership as rec-
iprocity to forms of immigrant civic service, including military service,
17

Civic Membership as Reciprocity 17

parenting/​ caregiving, and ordinary work, and considers the value of

these contributions as restitution and preparation for citizenship. The
fifth section modifies the contributions requirement of civic member-
ship as reciprocity to account for belonging, or claims to membership by
persons who are born and socialized into their community, apart from
their contributions. In the sixth section I distinguish civic membership
as reciprocity from more and less inclusionary arguments that address
the ethics of legalizing unauthorized immigrants, ranging from Joseph
Carens’s (2013) inclusive social membership view to Ryan Pevnick’s (2011)
more exclusionary “associative ownership” framework. The seventh sec-
tion concludes with a few remarks on what citizens should expect of one
another, given the demands they make on prospective members.

Civic Membership as Reciprocity

Civic membership as reciprocity starts from the premise that a person’s
civic contributions should be recognized as positive equities constituting
restitution for what the U.S. government defines as the offense or nega-
tive equity of unlawful presence in the country, and should be rewarded
with lawful permanent residence and a pathway to citizenship. The prin-
ciple of civic membership as reciprocity places the onus on a polity to
justify instances in which it fails to honor claims by individuals who have
met or exceeded the contributions expected of members of society who
are participants in a cooperative scheme. For a benefit to be obligation
generating, it must stem from a voluntary contribution that is demanding
in light of an individual’s capacities and circumstances, and it must confer
benefits upon the community that the latter cannot do without. The indis-
pensability of these benefits is expressed in terms of urgency, such as the
case of repelling an invasion or responding to a crisis. Indispensability can
also be defined in terms of the impact of individuals’ contributions over
time, which accounts for the civic value of raising citizen children.
The principle of civic membership as reciprocity also limits the
community’s discretion to decide which residents deserve the right to
remain and become lawful permanent residents with a pathway to citi-
zenship.2 The default position articulated by Michael Walzer (1983, 32),
Christopher Wellman (2011, 54, 86–​87), and David Miller (2016, 57–​66)
remains that when the community is faced with the claims of a person
with whom it has no prior relationship, it is free to decide whether to
admit or exclude that person on the basis of the entire nation’s self-​interest.
81

18 E arned C itizenship

Walzer’s account treats all immigrants who have entered without inspec-
tion, unlike guest workers with immigration papers, as though they are
still at the border seeking entry, irrespective of the ties that unauthor-
ized immigrants may have developed in their communities as long-​term
residents.3
By contrast, civic membership as reciprocity begins by evaluating
a noncitizen’s contributions as a resident rather than her immigration
status. An immigrant’s service, rather than the community’s decision
to consent to her presence, is what entitles her to make claims to rights
and resources provided by institutions that she has helped to sustain
through her work, taxes, and other services. The community must fulfill
these obligations by compensating the immigrant for the benefit that it
has received from her contributions. In some cases this obligation may
be discharged without providing the contributor with a pathway to in-
clusion as a full member of the community. Some noncitizens who are
contributing to their communities as workers do not intend to become cit-
izens and may gladly accept fair wages, benefits, or the right to come and
go as they please as compensation for their efforts (Ottonelli and Torresi
2013, 808). Others may have served valiantly but present an unacceptable
security risk if they were allowed to remain as lawful residents (Finnis
2007, 444). Absent these considerations, eventual inclusion may be the
only fitting way to reward a noncitizen who has entered into the polity’s
system of social cooperation, where she is providing necessary public serv-
ices with the intention of remaining as a contributing member (Miller
2016, 124, 126).
Civic membership as reciprocity limits a community’s ability to deny
that it has obligations to persons who have made substantial contributions
to its welfare, regardless of their immigration status. It is morally prob-
lematic for a state as a collective enterprise to benefit from the service
of an individual without compensating her for her time and effort in a
manner that is commensurate with the type of service and sacrifice she
has offered. This is especially true if the whole community benefits from
the service and if its members cannot live without the contribution in
question, even if it was not directly solicited by the community’s repre-
sentatives. George Klosko provides a helpful starting point for considering
why a society should reward persons for contributions it did not directly
solicit in the context of a closed society that does not account for immi-
gration and citizenship status differences. In The Principle of Fairness and
Political Obligation, Klosko (2004, 45–​48) argues that we are not free to
Another random document with
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 Of him we may say justly: Here was one
Who knew of most things more than any other,—
Who loved all Learning underneath the sun,
And looked on every Learner as a brother.

Nor was this all. For those who knew him, knew,
However far his love’s domain extended,
It held its quiet “poet’s corner,” too,
Where Mirth, and Song, and Irony, were blended.

Autograph Poem by Austin Dobson

Garnett was a rare spirit, and the British Museum has never seemed the
same since he retired in 1899. Entrance to his private office was cleverly
concealed by a door made up of shelf-backs of books, but once within the
sanctum the genial host placed at the disposal of his guest, in a matter-of-fact
way, such consummate knowledge as to stagger comprehension. But, far
beyond this, the charm of his personality will always linger in the minds of
those who knew him, and genuine affection for the man will rival the
admiration for his scholarship.
 One afternoon at Ealing, after tennis on the lawn behind the Dobson
house, we gathered for tea. Our little party included Hugh Thomson, the artist
who so charmingly illustrated much of Dobson’s work, Mr. and Mrs. Dobson,
and one of his sons. The poet was in his most genial mood, and the
conversation led us into mutually confidential channels.
“I envy you your novel writing,” he said. “Fiction gives one so much wider
scope, and prose is so much more satisfactory as a medium than poetry. I have
always wanted to write a novel. Mrs. Dobson would never have it. But she is
always right,” he added; “had I persisted I should undoubtedly have lost what
little reputation I have.”
He was particularly impressed by the fact that I wrote novels as an
avocation. It seemed to him such a far cry from the executive responsibility of
a large business, and he persisted in questioning me as to my methods. I
explained that I devoted a great deal of time to creating mentally the characters
who would later demand my pen; that with the general outline of the plot I
intended to develop, I approached it exactly as a theatrical manager approaches
a play he is about to produce, spending much time in selecting my cast, adding,
discarding, changing, just so far as seemed to me necessary to secure the actors
best suited to the parts I planned to have them play. He expressed surprise
when I told him that I had long since discarded the idea of working out a
definite scenario, depending rather upon creating interesting characters, and
having them sufficiently alive so that when placed together under interesting
circumstances they are bound to produce interesting dialogue and action.
“Of course my problem, writing essays and poetry, is quite different from
yours as a novelist,” he said; “but I do try to assume a relation toward my work
that is objective and impersonal. In a way, I go farther than you do.”
Then he went on to say that not only did he plan the outline of what he
had to write, whether triolet or poem, wholly in his head, but (in the case of
the poetry) even composed the lines and made the necessary changes before
having recourse to pen and paper.
“When I actually begin to write,” he said, “I can see the lines clearly before
me, even to the interlinear corrections, and it is a simple matter for me to copy
them out in letter-perfect form.”
Dobson’s handwriting and his signature were absolutely dissimilar. Unless
one had actually seen him transcribe the text of a letter or the lines of a poem
in that beautiful designed script, he would think it the work of some one other
than the writer of the flowing autograph beneath.

Posterity is now deciding whether Mark Twain’s fame will rest upon his
humor or his philosophy, yet his continuing popularity would seem to have
settled this much-mooted question. Humor is fleeting unless based upon real
substance. In life the passing quip that produces a smile serves its purpose, but
to bring to the surface such human notes as dominate Mark Twain’s stories, a
writer must possess extraordinary powers of observation and a complete
understanding of his fellow-man. Neither Tom Sawyer nor Huckleberry Finn
is a fictional character, but is rather the personification of that leaven which
makes life worth living.
When an author has achieved the dignity of having written “works” rather
than books, he has placed himself in the hands of his friends in all his varying
moods. A single volume is but the fragment of any writer’s personality. I have
laughed over Innocents Abroad, and other volumes which helped to make Mark
Twain’s reputation, but when I seek a volume to recall the author as I knew
him best it is Joan of Arc that I always take down from the shelf. This book
really shows the side of Mark Twain, the man, as his friends knew him, yet it
was necessary to publish the volume anonymously in order to secure for it
consideration from the reading public as a serious story.
 MARK TWAIN, 1835–1910
At the Villa di Quarto, Florence
From a Snap-shot

“No one will ever accept it seriously, over my signature,” Mark Twain said.
“People always want to laugh over what I write. This is a serious book. It
means more to me than anything I have ever undertaken.”
Mark Twain was far more the humorist when off guard than when on
parade. The originality of what he did, combined with what he said, produced
the maximum expression of himself. At one time he and his family occupied
the Villa di Quarto in Florence (page 172), and while in Italy Mrs. Orcutt and I
were invited to have tea with them. The villa is located, as its name suggests, in
the four-mile radius from the center of the town. It was a large, unattractive
building, perhaps fifty feet wide and four times as long. The location was
superb, looking out over Florence toward Vallombrosa and the Chianti hills.
 AUTOGRAPH LETTER FROM MARK TWAIN
With Snap-shot of Villa di Quarto

In greeting us, Mark Twain gave the impression of having planned out
exactly what he was going to say. I had noticed the same thing on other
occasions. He knew that people expected him to say something humorous or
unusual, and he tried not to disappoint them.
“Welcome to the barracks,” he exclaimed. “Looks like a hotel, doesn’t it?
You’d think with twenty bedrooms on the top floor and only four in my family
there would be a chance to put up a friend or two, wouldn’t you? But there
isn’t any one I think so little of as to be willing to stuff him into one of those
cells.”
We had tea out of doors. Miss Clara Clemens, who later became Mrs.
Gabrilowitch, served as hostess, as Mrs. Clemens was confined to her bed by
the heart trouble that had brought the family to Italy. As we sipped our tea and
nibbled at the delicious Italian cakes, Mark Twain continued his comments on
the villa, explaining that it was alleged to have been built by the first Cosimo
de’ Medici (“If it was, he had a bum architect,” Mark Twain interjected); later it
was occupied by the King of Württemberg (“He was the genius who put in the
Pullman staircase”); and still later by a Russian Princess (“She is responsible
for that green majolica stove in the hall. When I first saw it I thought it was a
church for children”); and then it fell into the hands of his landlady (“Less said
about her the better. You never heard such profanity as is expressed by the
furniture and the carpets she put in to complete the misery. I’m always
thankful when darkness comes on to stop the swearing”).
The garden was beautiful, but oppressive,—due probably to the tall
cypresses (always funereal in their aspect), which kept out the sun, and
produced a mouldy luxuriance. The marble seats and statues were covered
with green moss, and the ivy ran riot over everything. One felt the antiquity
unpleasantly, and, in a way, it seemed an unfortunate atmosphere for an
invalid. But so far as the garden was concerned, it made little difference to
Mrs. Clemens,—the patient, long-suffering “Livy” of Mark Twain’s life,—for
she never left her sick chamber, and died three days later.
After tea, Mr. Clemens offered me a cigar and watched me while I lighted
it.
“Hard to get good cigars over here,” he remarked. “I’m curious to know
what you think of that one.”
I should have been sorry to tell him what my opinion really was, but I
continued to smoke it with as cheerful an expression as possible.
“What kind of cigars do you smoke while in Europe?” he inquired.
I told him that I was still smoking a brand I had brought over from
America, and at the same time I offered him one, which he promptly accepted,
throwing away the one he had just lighted. He puffed with considerable
satisfaction, and then asked,
“How do you like that cigar I gave you?”
It seemed a matter of courtesy to express more enthusiasm than I really
felt.
“Clara,” he called across to where the ladies were talking, “Mr. Orcutt likes
these cigars of mine, and he’s a judge of good cigars.”
Then turning to me he continued, “Clara says they’re rotten!”
He relapsed into silence for a moment.
 “How many of those cigars of yours have you on your person at the
present time?”
I opened my cigar case, and disclosed four.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he said suddenly. “You like my cigars and I like
yours. I’ll swap you even!”
In the course of the afternoon Mark Twain told of a dinner that Andrew
Carnegie had given in his New York home, at which Mr. Clemens had been a
guest. He related with much detail how the various speakers had stammered
and halted, and seemed to find themselves almost tongue-tied. His explanation
of this was their feeling of embarrassment because of the presence of only one
woman, Mrs. Carnegie.
Sir Sidney Lee, who was lecturing on Shakesperian subjects in America at
the time, was the guest of honor. When dinner was announced, Carnegie sent
for Archie, the piper, an important feature in the Carnegie ménage, who
appeared in full kilts, and led the procession into the dining-room, playing on
the pipes. Carnegie, holding Sir Sidney’s hand, followed directly after, giving an
imitation of a Scotch dance, while the other guests fell in behind, matching the
steps of their leader as closely as possible. Mark Twain gave John Burroughs
credit for being the most successful in this attempt.
Some weeks later, at a dinner which Sir Sidney Lee gave in our honor in
London, we heard an echo of this incident. Sir Sidney included the story of
Mark Twain’s speech on that occasion, which had been omitted in the earlier
narrative. When called upon, Mr. Clemens had said,
“I’m not going to make a speech,—I’m just going to reminisce. I’m going
to tell you something about our host here when he didn’t have as much money
as he has now. At that time I was the editor of a paper in a small town in
Connecticut, and one day, when I was sitting in the editorial sanctum, the door
opened and who should come in but Andrew Carnegie. Do you remember
that day, Andy?” he inquired, turning to his host; “wasn’t it a scorcher?”
Carnegie nodded, and said he remembered it perfectly.
“Well,” Mark Twain continued, “Andrew took off his hat, mopped his
brow, and sat down in a chair, looking most disconsolate.
“‘What’s the matter?’ I inquired. ‘What makes you so melancholy?’—Do
you remember that, Andy?” he again appealed to his host.
 “Oh, yes,” Carnegie replied, smiling broadly; “I remember it as if it were
yesterday.”
“‘I am so sad,’ Andy answered, ‘because I want to found some libraries,
and I haven’t any money. I came in to see if you could lend me a million or
two.’ I looked in the drawer and found that I could let him have the cash just
as well as not, so I gave him a couple of million.—Do you remember that,
Andy?”
“No!” Carnegie answered vehemently; “I don’t remember that at all!”
“That’s just the point,” Mark Twain continued, shaking his finger
emphatically. “I have never received one cent on that loan, interest or
principal!”
I wonder if so extraordinary an assemblage of literary personages was ever
before gathered together as at the seventieth anniversary birthday dinner given
to Mark Twain by Colonel George Harvey at Delmonico’s in New York!
Seated at the various tables were such celebrities as William Dean Howells,
George W. Cable, Brander Matthews, Richard Watson Gilder, Kate Douglas
Wiggin, F. Hopkinson Smith, Agnes Repplier, Andrew Carnegie, and Hamilton
W. Mabie.
It was a long dinner. Every one present would have been glad to express
his affection and admiration for America’s greatest man-of-letters, and those
who must be heard were so numerous that it was nearly two o’clock in the
morning before Mark Twain’s turn arrived to respond. As he rose, the entire
company rose with him, each standing on his chair and waving his napkin
enthusiastically. Mark Twain was visibly affected by the outburst of
enthusiasm. When the excitement subsided, I could see the tears streaming
down his cheeks, and all thought of the set speech he had prepared and sent to
the press for publication was entirely forgotten. Realizing that the following
quotation differs from the official report of the event, I venture to rely upon
the notes I personally made during the dinner. Regaining control of himself,
Mark Twain began his remarks with words to this effect:
When I think of my first birthday and compare it with this celebration,—just a
bare room; no one present but my mother and one other woman; no flowers, no wine,
no cigars, no enthusiasm,—I am filled with indignation!
 Charles Eliot Norton is a case in point in my contention that to secure the
maximum from a college course a man should take two years at eighteen and
the remaining two after he has reached forty. I was not unique among the
Harvard undergraduates flocking to attend his courses in Art who failed
utterly to understand or appreciate him. The ideals expressed in his lectures
were far over our heads. The estimate of Carlyle, Ruskin, and Matthew Arnold,
that Mr. Norton was foremost among American thinkers, scholars, and men of
culture, put us on the defensive, for to have writers such as these include
Norton as one of themselves placed him entirely outside the pale of our
undergraduate understanding. He seemed to us a link connecting our
generation with the distant past. As I look back upon it, this was not so much
because he appeared old as it was that what he said seemed to our untrained
minds the vagaries of age. Perhaps we were somewhat in awe of him, as we
knew him to be the intimate of Oliver Wendell Holmes and James Russell
Lowell, as he had been of Longfellow and George William Curtis, and thus the
last of the Cambridge Immortals. I have always wished that others might have
corrected their false impressions by learning to know Norton, the man, as I
came to know him, and have enjoyed the inspiring friendship that I was so
fortunate in having him, in later years, extend to me.
In the classroom, sitting on a small, raised platform, with as many students
gathered before him as the largest room in Massachusetts Hall could
accommodate, he took Art as a text and discussed every subject beneath the
sun. His voice, though low, had a musical quality which carried to the most
distant corner. As he spoke he leaned forward on his elbows with slouching
shoulders, with his keen eyes passing constantly from one part of the room to
another, seeking, no doubt, some gleam of understanding from his hearers. He
told me afterwards that it was not art he sought to teach, nor ethics, nor
philosophy, but that he would count it success if he instilled in the hearts of
even a limited number of his pupils a desire to seek the truth.
As I think of the Norton I came to know in the years that followed, he
seems to be a distinctly different personality, yet of course the difference was
in me. Even at the time when Senator Hoar made his terrific attack upon him
for his public utterances against the Spanish War, I knew that he was acting
true to his high convictions, even though at variance with public opinion. I
differed from him, but by that time I understood him.
“Shady Hill,” his home in Norton’s Woods on the outskirts of Cambridge,
Massachusetts, exuded the personality of its owner more than any house I was
ever in. There was a restful dignity and stately culture, a courtly hospitality that
reflected the individuality of the host. The library was the inner shrine. Each
volume was selected for its own special purpose, each picture was illustrative
of some special epoch, each piece of furniture performed its exact function.
Here, unconsciously, while discussing subjects far afield, I acquired from
Mr. Norton a love of Italy which later was fanned into flame by my Tuscan
friend, Doctor Guido Biagi, the accomplished librarian of the Laurenziana
Library, in Florence, to whom I have already frequently referred.
Our real friendship began when I returned from Italy in 1902, and told
him of my plans to design a type based upon the wonderful humanistic
volumes. As we went over the photographs and sketches I brought home with
me, and he realized that a fragment of the fifteenth century, during which
period hand lettering had reached its highest point of perfection, had actually
been overlooked by other type designers (see page 16), he displayed an
excitement I had never associated with his personality. I was somewhat
excited, too, in being able to tell him something which had not previously
come to his attention,—of the struggle of the Royal patrons, who tried to
thwart the newborn art of printing by showing what a miserable thing a
printed book was when compared with the beauty of the hand letters; and that
these humanistic volumes, whose pages I had photographed, were the actual
books which these patrons had ordered the scribes to produce, regardless of
expense, to accomplish their purpose.
The romance that surrounded the whole undertaking brought out from
him comments and discussion in which he demonstrated his many-sided
personality. The library at “Shady Hill” became a veritable Florentine rostrum.
Mr. Norton’s sage comments were expressed with the vigor and originality of
Politian; when he spoke of the tyranny of the old Florentine despots and
compared them with certain political characters in our own America, he might
have been Machiavelli uttering his famous diatribes against the State. Lorenzo
de’ Medici himself could not have thrilled me more with his fascinating
expression of the beautiful or the exhibition of his exquisite taste.
Each step in the development of the Humanistic type was followed by Mr.
Norton with the deepest interest. When the first copy of Petrarch’s Triumphs
came through the bindery I took it to “Shady Hill,” and we went over it page
by page, from cover to cover. As we closed the volume he looked up with that
smile his friends so loved,—that smile Ruskin called “the sweetest I ever saw
on any face (unless perhaps a nun’s when she has some grave kindness to
do),”—and then I knew that my goal had been attained (page 32).
While the Humanistic type was being cut, Doctor Biagi came to America
as the official representative from Italy to the St. Louis Exposition. Later,
when he visited me in Boston, I took him to “Shady Hill” to see Mr. Norton.
It was an historic meeting. The Italian had brought to America original,
unpublished letters of Michelangelo, and at my suggestion he took them with
him to Cambridge. Mr. Norton read several of these letters with the keenest
interest and urged their publication, but Biagi was too heavily engaged with his
manifold duties as librarian of the Laurenziana and Riccardi libraries, as
custodian of the Buonarroti and the da Vinci archives, and with his extensive
literary work, to keep the promise he made us that day.
The conversation naturally turned upon Dante, Biagi’s rank in his own
country as interpreter of the great poet being even greater than was Norton’s
in America. Beyond this they spoke of books, of art, of music, of history, of
science. Norton’s knowledge of Italy was profound and exact; Biagi had lived
what Norton had acquired. No matter what the subject, their comments,
although simply made, were expressions of prodigious study and absolute
knowledge; of complete familiarity, such as one ordinarily has in every-day
affairs, with subjects upon which even the well-educated man looks as
reserved for profound discussion. Norton and Biagi were the two most
cultured men I ever met. In listening to their conversation I discovered that a
perfectly trained mind under absolute control is the most beautiful thing in the
world.

Climbing the circular stairway in the old, ramshackle Harper plant at

Franklin Square, New York, I used to find William Dean Howells in his
sanctum.
“Take this chair,” he said one day after a cordial greeting; “the only Easy
Chair we have is in the Magazine.”
Howells loved the smell of printer’s ink. “They are forever talking about
getting away from here,” he would say, referring to the long desire at
Harpers’—at last gratified—to divorce the printing from the publishing and to
move uptown. “Here things are so mixed up that you can’t tell whether you’re
a printer or a writer, and I like it.”
Our acquaintance began after the publication by the Harpers in 1906 of a
novel of mine entitled The Spell, the scene of which is laid in Florence. After
reading it, Howells wrote asking me to look him up the next time I was in the
Harper offices.
“We have three reasons to become friends,” he said smiling, after studying
me for a moment with eyes that seemed probably more piercing and intent
than they really were: “you live in Boston, you love Italy, and you are a printer.
Now we must make up for lost time.”
After this introduction I made it a habit to “drop up” to his sanctum
whenever I had occasion to go to Franklin Square to discuss printing or
publishing problems with Major Leigh or Mr. Duneka. Howells always seemed
to have time to discuss one of the three topics named in his original analysis,
yet curiously enough it was rarely that any mention of books came into our
conversation.
 Autograph Letter from William Dean Howells

Of Boston and Cambridge he was always happily reminiscent: of

entertaining Mr. and Mrs. John Hay while on their wedding journey, and later
Bret Harte, in the small reception room in the Berkeley Street house, where
the tiny “library” on the north side was without heat or sunlight when Howells
wrote his Venetian Days there in 1870; of early visits with Mark Twain before
the great fireplace in “the Cabin” at his Belmont home, over the door of
which was inscribed the quotation from The Merchant of Venice, “From Venice
as far as Belmont.”—“In these words,” Howells said, “lies the history of my
married life”;—of the move from Belmont to Boston as his material resources
increased.
“There was a time when people used to think I didn’t like Boston,” he
would chuckle, evidently enjoying the recollections that came to him; “but I
always loved it. The town did take itself seriously,” he added a moment later;
“but it had a right to. That was what made it Boston. Sometimes, when we
know a place or a person through and through, the fine characteristics may be
assumed, and we may chaff a little over the harmless foibles. That is what I did
to Boston.”
He chided me good-naturedly because I preferred Florence to Venice.
“Italy,” he quoted, “is the face of Europe, and Venice is the eye of Italy. But,
after all, what difference does it make?” he asked. “We are both talking of the
same wonderful country, and perhaps the intellectual atmosphere of antiquity
makes up for the glory of the Adriatic.”
Then he told me a story which I afterwards heard Hamilton Mabie repeat
at the seventy-fifth birthday anniversary banquet given Howells at Sherry’s by
Colonel George Harvey in 1912.
Two American women met in Florence on the Ponte Vecchio. One of
them said to the other, “Please tell me whether this is Florence or Venice.”
“What day of the week is it?” the other inquired.
“Wednesday.”
“Then,” said the second, looking at her itinerary, “this is Venice.”
“I was born a printer, you know,” Howells remarked during one of my
visits. “I can remember the time when I couldn’t write, but not the time when
I couldn’t set type.”
He referred to his boyhood experiences in the printing office at Hamilton,
Ohio. His father published there a Whig newspaper, which finally lost nearly
all its subscribers because its publisher had the unhappy genius of always
taking the unpopular side of every public question. Howells immortalized this
printing office in his essay The Country Printer,—where he recalls “the
compositors rhythmically swaying before their cases of type; the pressman
flinging himself back on the bar that made the impression, with a swirl of his
long hair; the apprentice rolling the forms; and the foreman bending over
them.”
The Lucullan banquet referred to outrivaled that given by Colonel Harvey
to Mark Twain. How Mark Twain would have loved to be there, and how
much the presence of this life-long friend would have meant to Howells! More
than four hundred men and women prominent in letters gathered to do honor
to the beloved author, and President Taft conveyed to him the gratitude of the
nation for the hours of pleasure afforded by his writings.
In the course of his remarks, Howells said:
 I knew Hawthorne and Emerson and Walt Whitman; I knew Longfellow and
Holmes and Whittier and Lowell; I knew Bryant and Bancroft and Motley; I knew
Harriet Beecher Stowe and Julia Ward Howe; I knew Artemus Ward and Stockton
and Mark Twain; I knew Parkman and Fiske.
As I listened to this recapitulation of contact with modern humanists, I
wondered what Howells had left to look forward to. No one could fail to envy
him his memories, nor could he fail to ask himself what twentieth-century
names would be written in place of those the nineteenth century had recorded
in the Hall of Fame

My library has taken on a different aspect during all these years. When I first
installed my books I looked upon it as a sanctuary, into which I could escape
from the world outside. Each book was a magic carpet which, at my bidding,
transported me from one country to another, from the present back to
centuries gone by, gratifying my slightest whim in response to the mere effort
of changing volumes. My library has lost none of that blissful peace as a
retreat, but in addition it has become a veritable meeting ground. The authors
I have known are always waiting for me there,—to disclose to me through
their works far more than they, in all modesty, would have admitted in our
personal conferences
CHAPTER VI

Triumphs of Typography
 VI
TRIUMPHS OF TYPOGRAPHY

In gathering together his book treasures, a collector naturally approaches

the adventure from a personal standpoint. First editions may particularly
appeal to him, or Americana, or his bibliomania may take the form of subject
collecting. I once had a friend who concentrated on whales and bees! My
hobby has been to acquire, so far as possible, volumes that represent the best
workmanship of each epoch, and from them I have learned much of
fascinating interest beyond the history of typography. A book in itself is always
something more than paper and type and binder’s boards. It possesses a subtle
friendliness that sets it apart from other inanimate objects about us, and
stamps it with an individuality which responds to our approach in proportion
to our interest. But aside from its contents, a typographical monument is a
barometer of civilization. If we discover what economic or political conditions
combined to make it stand out from other products of its period, we learn
contemporaneous history and become acquainted with the personalities of the
people and the manners and customs of the times.
No two countries, since Gutenberg first discovered the power of individual
types when joined together to form words down to the present day, have
stood pre-eminent in the same epoch in the art of printing. The curve of
supremacy, plotted from the brief triumph of Germany successively through
Italy, France, the Netherlands, England, France, and back again to England,
shows that the typographical monuments of the world are not accidental, but
rather the natural results of cause and effect. In some instances, the
production of fine books made the city of their origin the center of culture and
brought luster to the country; in others, the great master-printers were
attracted from one locality to another because of the literary atmosphere in a
certain city, and by their labors added to the reputation it had already attained.
The volumes themselves sometimes produced vitally significant effects;
sometimes their production was the result of conditions equally important.
 The first example I should like to own for my collection of typographical
triumphs is, of course, the Gutenberg Bible (opp. page); but with only forty-five
copies known to be in existence (of which twelve are on vellum), I must
content myself with photographic facsimile pages. The copy most recently
offered for sale brought $106,000 in New York in February, 1926, and was
later purchased by Mrs. Edward S. Harkness for $120,000, who presented it to
the Yale University Library. This makes the Gutenberg Bible the most valuable
printed book in the world,—six times as precious as a Shakespeare first folio.
Fortunately, the copies are well distributed, so that one need not deny himself
the pleasure of studying it. In America, there are two examples (one on
vellum) in the Pierpont Morgan Library, in New York; another in the New
York Public Library, and still another in the library of the General Theological
School; while the private collections of Henry E. Huntington and Joseph E.
Widener are also fortunate possessors. In England, one may find a copy at the
British Museum or the Bodleian Library; on the Continent, at the Bibliothèque
Nationale at Paris, at the Vatican Library in Rome, or in the libraries of Berlin,
Leipzig, Munich, or Vienna. Over twenty of the forty-five copies are
imperfect, and only four are still in private hands. Of these four, one is
imperfect, and two are already promised to libraries; so the copy sold in New
York may be the last ever offered.

Part of a Page from the Vellum Copy of the Gutenberg Bible, Mayence, 1455
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (Exact size)
 GUTENBERG BIBLE
And here is the end of the first part of
the Bible, that is to say, the Old
Testament, rubricated and bound for
Henry Cremer, in the year of our
Loard, one thousand four hundred and
fifty-six, on the feast of the Apostle
Bartholomew
Thanks be to God. Alleluia
Rubricator’s Mark at End of First Volume of a Defective Copy in the Bibliothèque
Nationale, Paris