Conditional Citizens by Laila Lalami (Book #22)

Title: Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America

Author: Laila Lalami

Dates Read: Feb. 24 - Feb. 26

Format: Audiobook

Rating: ★★★★1/2

Description: What does it mean to be American? In this starkly illuminating and impassioned book, Pulitzer Prize-finalist Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to U.S. citizen, using it as a starting point for her exploration of the rights, liberties, and protections that are traditionally associated with American citizenship. Tapping into history, politics, and literature, she elucidates how accidents of birth--such as national origin, race, and gender--that once determined the boundaries of Americanness still their shadows today.

Review: This is such an important book that touches on so many important topics - immigration, race, religion, class, sex, identity - in such a short book. Lalami's work and conclusions holds the same power and importance of Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents which I read last year and loved, but in a more digestible way. I think this should be required reading for everyone. And I mean everyone. Lalami doesn't pull her punches and no one is above her scrutiny. This isn't a partisan book.