Foreign-born . . . and all-American
Thousands of our sons and daughters might one day want to become president. But an antiquated clause in the Constitution stands in their way.
My mother does not believe my daughter has what it takes to be president.
It’s not because Mintiwab is only 3. Or that she is more dictator than democrat, ordering her older brothers to play with such withering authority that they begin pouring the pretend tea the moment she barks “Do it.” It’s because Minti was born in Ethiopia. And my mother sides with the provision in the US Constitution that prohibits anyone who is not “natural born” from becoming president. Mom says Minti could one day make a fine governor. Like Arnold.
But growing up in Brooklyn amid immigrants of every nationality -- including her own Polish father -- she became convinced that allegiances to home countries were as imbedded in people as their DNA. Wouldn’t President Minti favor Ethiopia -- or worse -- be hostile to it? Mom just doesn’t see how the emotional pull of someone’s birthplace can be neutralized.
The Founding Fathers clearly had similar concerns. Scholars trace the stipulation’s origins to a 1787 letter from John Jay to George Washington urging him to provide a “strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government.” For a new country struggling to avoid influences from foreign states, the clause was smart. Today, it’s outdated. And lately it’s become a caricature of its intent, seized upon by the “birther” movement that questions President Obama’s birthplace and legitimacy to be president.
We are no longer a nascent democracy. And the provision our Founding Fathers thought so vital now threatens to exclude increasingly large numbers of its citizenry. Earlier this decade, a proposed amendment to the Constitution died that would have allowed Americans who have been citizens for 20 years to be eligible for the presidency. But the case for such a change only grows stronger.
In 2005, 1 in 8 Americans was foreign-born. By 2050, according to projections by the Pew Research Center, that proportion will rise to nearly 1 in 5. Locally, at least 25 percent of Cantabrigians were born outside the country.
Each year, hundreds of thousands of these foreign-born residents voluntarily become naturalized. Some join the military and agree to die for their country. Others choose public-service careers. Thousands of others arrive here, like Minti, as adopted sons and daughters of Americans. Not to give them the chance to pursue the presidency -- however remote that chase may be -- deprives them of the essence of America: ultimate opportunity.
Forrest McDonald, a constitutional scholar, says there is a “general prejudice” in many Americans that foreign-born people may be too “enculturated” by their nation of birth. Adopted children younger than 3 may be the exception, he says, but the Constitution should remain as is. He sees the clause providing protection from even the suspicion of other allegiances.
At least three national polls this decade show the majority of Americans agree. Maybe they are like my mother. She complains that many of her foreign-born friends, driven by homesickness or nostalgia, bash the United States for everything from crime to the economy. (Last time I checked, though, many natural-born citizens were doing the same.) She does not want them to be president.
Perhaps the US population doesn’t want them to be, either. But voters are capable of deciding for themselves if a citizen is loyal enough to sit in the nation’s highest office, whether that person is foreign-born or not. Besides, loyalty is not dependent on the accident of birth. Devotion to a country evolves from bittersweet time, immersed in a nation’s rewards and difficulties.
I don’t know if Minti would want to sign up for the sacrifice. But I see, much like every American parent, the raw material needed for the job: intellect, empathy, tolerance, a sparkling smile. (We’re working on that dictator thing.) I’m not looking forward to explaining why her two brothers can become president and she cannot.
A year ago, my husband and I brought Minti home. On the plane, as Africa’s coast faded, I bent down to the little girl with the big brown eyes splayed across our laps. I whispered in a language she couldn’t yet understand: “Here we are, Minti, heading to America, a place where you can be anything you want.”
Well, almost.
Beth Daley is a Globe staff writer. E-mail her at bdaley@globe.com. 
