Identity, Identification, and Membership: Review of The

requesting that the bearer be allowed to Book Review enter and traverse a country in furtherance of his lawful pursuits. In 1835, the Identity, Identification, and Membership: Supreme Court in Urtetiqui v. D’Arcy held Review of ‘‘The Passport in America: The that the passport, although identifying its History of a Document’’ by Craig holder as a U.S. citizen, did not constitute Robertson. New York, NY: Oxford legal evidence of citizenship. The court University Press, 2010. characterized the passport as a political document ‘‘addressed to foreign powers; DONALD KERWIN, purporting only to be a request that the Migration Policy Institute bearer of it may pass safely and freely …’’ Until the Civil War, the Secretary of State personally signed passports and, until Craig Robertson’s The Passport in America: the 1840s, most passport applications con- The History of a Document does more than sisted of a personal letter to the Secretary of tell the story of the passport’s emergence as State. The State Department did not issue a reliable identity document. It displays the its first circular on the passport application great immigration themes in U.S. history – process until 1845. In 1846, it set forth the identity, sovereignty, membership, national documents needed to prove identity and security, privacy, federalism, bi-national citizenship. However, only in the last dec- communities, and the attempts of over- ade of the 19th century, did officials begin whelmed government officials to enforce to consistently enforce these requirements. the law – through the lens of the humble In the mid-19th century, the State passport. Robertson details advances in the Department increasingly treated the pass- form and security of the passport, devoting port as a certificate of citizenship, and pass- early chapters to specific features of the doc- port requirements and procedures reflected ument and its ‘‘assembly’’ over time. In the the ideal of a citizen as a White, male, U.S. second part of the book, he recounts the born, property holder.1 In 1856, Congress significant controversies over the federal declared that passports could only be issued government’s attempt to document identity to citizens, and vested the Secretary of State and citizenship through the passport. with sole authority to do so. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the passport began to assume its role IDENTITY AND as a ‘‘bureaucratic expression’’ of identity. IDENTIFICATION Robertson’s central theme is the way in which the federal government transformed identity from a sense of ‘‘self-awareness’’ In Robertson’s engaging narrative, the established by an individual’s word and modern passport has its roots in the medi- affirmed (if necessary) by his or her local eval ‘‘safe conduct’’ documents that pro- community, to a matter determined by vided safe passage to visiting diplomats the state, proven by standard forms and and the ‘‘king’s license’’ that granted per- processes, and verified by authorized gov- mission to leave a territory. Although the ernment officials. Robertson refers to this Continental Congress authorized the Department of Foreign Affairs to issue passports in 1782, the United States still 1 awarded fewer than 100 passports per year Until World War I, the State Depart- by 1818. Through the first half of the ment issued joint passports to husbands 19th century, passports – like ‘‘safe con- and wives in the full name of the hus- duct’’ documents – took the form of let- band. Until 1922, women lost their U.S. ters from one foreign official to another citizenship by marrying non-citizens. Ó 2011 by the Center for Migration Studies of New York. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/j.1747-7379.2011.00855.x IMR Volume 45 Number 2 (Summer 2011):489–492 489 490 International Migration Review trend as the ‘‘collapsing of identity into response to immigration restrictions and identification,’’ or matching a person to controversies over citizenship.3 ‘‘his or her official representation.’’ In this The issuance of passports to ‘‘dubi- way, the state produced a new identity ous citizens’’ – among them, free African through the passport system. Americans and citizens who had aban- To the federal government, standard- doned U.S. residency – compromised the ized forms, documentation, filing systems, ability of the passport to serve as a certifi- procedures and a growing bureaucracy were cate of citizenship and raised the need for necessary to remove individual bias in iden- greater clarity in citizenship law. Prior to tifying its members. For many officials and the Civil War, some states awarded citi- inconvenienced travelers, the transforma- zenship (including to African Americans) tion of identity from ‘‘a personal mode of without federal approval and free African trust to an impersonal mode of trust in offi- Americans attempted to obtain federal cial identification’’ raised concerns that passports to bolster their citizenship verged on the existential. To critics, the new claims. On August 18, 1856, Congress passport system implied that their govern- passed legislation that provided that pass- ment did not trust them and sought to ports could be granted only to citizens, usurp their authority over their own iden- and that gave the Secretary of State sole tity.2 Even expressions of attempted integra- authority to do so. Previously, governors, tion ran afoul of this scheme, as officials mayors and notary publics also issued rejected passport applications from natural- passports. The infamous Dred Scott deci- ized citizens which included Anglicized sion in 1857 held that African Americans spellings of names that conflicted with other could not be citizens, in part, because the spellings. Despite the controversies, by the federal government did not treat them as late 1930s, the passport’s new role had been citizens by granting them passports.4 largely accepted. The nation’s first immigration restrictions also created an impetus for a national passport that established identity INDIVIDUAL AND and citizenship. In order to implement the NATIONAL IDENTITY Chinese Exclusion Acts, which were passed between 1882 and 1902, the Immigration Bureau created an elaborate system of reg- Robertson argues that that the passport’s istration, identification, and certification. evolution was spurred by the federal gov- Two decades after Congress required pho- ernment’s newfound desire ‘‘to know and tographs on Chinese identification docu- remember’’ citizens and non-citizens in ments, the State Department introduced a similar requirement for passports. The national origins quota legislation – introduced in 1921 and made per- 2For those who viewed nationality in cul- manent in 1924 – created the need to tural terms and saw themselves as proto- identity individuals, capture their national- typical Americans, state requirements to ity, and determine whether they had been prove identity and membership may have been an even greater affront. 3The evolution of the passport also 4The State Department also exercised its reflected a broader faith in the 19th cen- discretion in not renewing passports to tury – found in law enforcement and another category of ‘‘dubious citizens,’’ criminal identification practices – in the those whose long-term residence abroad (it importance of ‘‘objectivity’’ in creating was believed) diminished allegiance to the knowledge. United States. Book Review 491 counted within their nation’s annual During World War I, passports quota. It required immigrants to secure an became an instrument to identity German ‘‘immigration visa’’ from a U.S. consulate spies and Bolsheviks, and to control the office prior to departing for the United movement of U.S. citizens abroad. In States. It also increased the need to iden- November 1914, the State Department tity U.S. citizens through passports. announced that all citizens going abroad One practical factor that made it ‘‘should’’ carry a passport. In December difficult for passports to serve as a reliable 1914, Secretary of State William Jennings indicator of citizenship was the lack of Bryan required that passports include a modern ‘‘breeder’’ documents, particularly photograph. In June 1917, the Secretary birth certificates. To establish citizenship, of Commerce formally requested that applicants had to submit an affidavit wit- steamship lines not accept passengers with- nessed by a notary public and signed by out passports that had been examined by another citizen that verified the applicant’s customs officials. In July 1917, the State identity and claim to citizenship. Not and Labor Departments issued a joint until the first decades of the 20th century order requiring that non-citizens obtain did most states pass laws requiring regis- visas from U.S. consular officials in order tration of births, and the federal govern- to enter the United States. After the war, ment did not achieve universal birth President Wilson argued for the continua- registration until 1933. As of 1942, tion of the visa system on the grounds according to Census Bureau, 40 percent of that it excluded people whose admission population still did not have a birth certif- ‘‘would be dangerous or contrary to the icate. public interest.’’ In 1918, customs officers began to NATIONAL SECURITY, compile a record of people leaving the country, a step that has proven difficult to PRIVACY, BORDER implement even in the post-9 ⁄ 11 era. This COMMUNITIES, AND earlier requirement came in the context of the surveillance and monitoring of persons IMMIGRATION CONTROL of German descent (1917), and the registra- AND PROCESSING tion of all German males (1917) and females (1918). The Passport Control Act of 1918 gave the President power in times Four additional themes emerge from Rob- of war to control the travel of citizens (and ertson’s superb book. First, Robertson others) to and from the United States. reminds us how passport and immigration Second, Roberts recounts the skep- restrictions can become instruments of ticism of border officials during this era national security in times of war or overall towards the passport control system.

Load more