Who is More American? Civic Virtue,Birthright,and Hierarchies of National Standing

Abstract

How do Americans evaluate competing claims to national standing when civic behavior and birthright citizenship conflict? Most research on national identity asks which traits define Americanness, but this approach obscures how individuals adjudicate hierarchical claims about relative status in the national community. This study examines whether Americans agree that civically virtuous immigrants are “more American” than U.S.-born citizens who violate civic norms, and whether they recognize undocumented immigrants as American at all. Drawing on original survey data from a probability-based national sample (N = 711), I find that racial groups differ systematically in their willingness to endorse behavior-based hierarchies. Asian respondents are most likely to agree that hardworking and law-abiding immigrants outrank U.S.-born norm violators; Black and White respondents are least likely to endorse such claims. Across groups, respondents are more willing to grant undocumented immigrants categorical recognition than to elevate them above U.S.-born citizens—highlighting the analytical importance of distinguishing between relative standing and categorical membership. I interpret these patterns through a framework of motivated national identity construction, arguing that racial groups selectively endorse evaluative criteria that affirm their position within a racialized national order. Among White respondents, partisan polarization shapes evaluations of law-abiding (but not hardworking) immigrants and is especially pronounced in the conferring of categorical recognition to undocumented immigrants. The findings demonstrate that disagreement over Americanness concerns not only who belongs but also which principles may legitimately structure hierarchies of national standing.