This is a book about belonging and nationalism in the United States of America, referred to simply as “America”¹ by most of its citizens, and many others around the world. It is also a story about the meaning of “America,” what is unique about its character and possibilities, and its claim to being special in the history of nations on this planet. These intertwined issues are widely conceptualized in both lay and scholarly discourse as the spirit of American exceptionalism.

A little more than one century after its creation, the U.S. nation-state expanded to become a global power, including a...

Cedric Robinson, Elizabeth Martinez, Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, and others have argued that the formation of nation-states and political regimes always leads to the development and elaboration of “origin myths,” which dominant strata use to promote social cohesion, legitimate the social order, and exercise class hegemony. In the United States, a central motif running through these narratives is the destruction and domination of savages (those who are illiterate, ignorant, undeserving poor, illegals, and so forth) in the interests of a higher civilization. In the original formulation, these savages were the indigenous peoples of the Americas and the Africans, though this discourse...

In this book, we focus on a time period when citizenship, belonging, and questions of community are in flux. In doing so, Melanie’s previous workEveryday Forms of Whiteness: Understanding Race in a “Post-Racial” Worldinsists that we frame our understanding of contemporary white racism and racial animosity as evidence of a transition from a period from the 1930s to the 1970s (centered in the 1960s), when public opinion was weighted toward a collective responsibility for the common good, toward a time emphasizing a belief in the social survival of the fittest (M. Bush 2011, 1). During the 1960s and...

This chapter explores the ways that structural location within the system is understood and internalized in the consciousness of the people we spoke with. Nation, race, ethnicity, class, and gender organize society but also frame the ways that individuals think about the social world and groups within it, including how nationalism and patriotism are viewed by people within the United States. Are the espoused principles of the U.S. nation considered self-evident truths? How do we benefit from questioning them? To what extent do social characteristics play a role in an individual’s or group’s attainment of the material success of the...

This chapter focuses on participants’ reflections on the current moment in political-economic-social history. How do people understand the decline of U.S. power? To what extent has the election of President Barack Obama reshaped thinking about the U.S. nation, race, politics, and inequality? How have changing demographics reshaped the public’s views about groups, positionality, inequality, and the racial and national order? Respondents’ comments provide insight into current thinking about these important questions.

By all indicators, the United States is in a weaker position economically and politically than it was in earlier decades. As we have argued throughout, from 1945 to 1975...

When in the Declaration of Independence the assertion was made that “all men are created equal” and “endowed with certain inalienable rights,” the articulation of an American Dream also began to emerge. This idea, of course, referred to only some men (and no women), yet it became a symbol of the possibility represented by this new nation, tied to a construction of “freedom.” Franklin Roosevelt said, “Liberty requires opportunity to make a living—a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.”¹

Throughout...

In this chapter, we explore participants’ critiques of the system as it stands now, as well as their visions for the future. Anticapitalist sentiments, critiques of the idea of the American Dream as a means of social control, and a deep-rooted desire for a dramatic reorganization of society routinely emerge in discussions. Some participants speak to a belief that education fosters social change; many express a desire for a “dream for all humanity” rather than just people in the United States. Themes for a reimagined future are expressed by participants as they challenge rhetoric, confront realities, and embrace their reveries....

Though the U.S. trajectory from settler colony to global hegemony fits well into the narrative of U.S. exceptionalism, we have attempted to engage readers in a fulsome intellectual and political examination of how these presumptions and the realities are embedded in the concept of the American Dream. This dream of human possibility is not intended for all humanity and therefore does not consider how our practices in the global arena restrict the possibilities of others. In line with Melanie Bush’sUn-pledging Allegiance: Waking Up from the “American” Dream,we argue that the nationalism of U.S. empire has been articulated through...

In 2008, the people of the United States and the world were transfixed as the unexpected trajectory of Barack Hussein Obama led to the attainment of the U.S. presidency by a Black man. Though his mixed-race background somewhat complicated the issue, few born before 1980 thought they would see the election of a person commonly viewed as Black as president of the United States in their lifetimes. What made this event most remarkable is that it seemingly reversed the rising arc of backlash against racial, gender, and social equality that the U.S. public associates with reaction to the civil rights...

The rise of the alter-globalization (antiglobalization) movement, or the movement for global democracy, was in part inspired by the rebellion in Chiapas, Mexico, against global neoliberalism. In our view, neoliberalism is not simply a description of the evolution of the natural economy but a counterrevolutionary movement against the increased social power of the working classes of the world and against the increased social power of the peoples of the extra-European world. More specifically within the conjuncture in which it was initiated, it was an attack on the rising social power of the lower social strata worldwide during the post–World...