How does the US encourage what Berlant calls “a visceral identification of personal identity with nationality?”

Lauren Berlant, in her own keyword essay on citizenship, writes that: “Many institutional and social practices are aimed at inducing a visceral identification of personal identity with nationality. In the United States, this has often involved the orchestration of fantasies about the promise of the state and the nation to cultivate and protect a consensually recognized ideal of the “good life”; in return for cultural, legal, and military security, people are asked to love their country, and to recognize certain stories, events, experiences, practices, and ways of life as related to the core of who they are, their public status, and their resemblance to other people.” For your second keyword essay, I would like you to think of ways in which identity is tied to citizenship. Some things you may (but don’t have to!) think about: How might one’s social identity limit access to the rights and protections associated with citizenship? How does the US encourage what Berlant calls “a visceral identification of personal identity with nationality?” Who is entitled to citizenship? And on what moral grounds?

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