Conference addresses concerns of ‘Unsettled Citizens’
The power of citizenship was on Carmen Yulín Cruz’s mind last week at Radcliffe, but with a caveat: that power has limits. “Citizenship does not give you equality,” the mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, said in the keynote address of “Unsettled Citizens,” at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study on March 29. During the daylong conference, which examined shifting and sometimes competing ideas about citizenship in a time of global migration, Cruz made an impassioned plea for a bond beyond legal statehood. “Equality has to be fought for,” she said. “It has to be nurtured. It has to be taken care of every day.” Cruz, who in September 2017 gained national prominence with her criticism of the U.S. government’s response to Hurricane Maria, questioned the nature of citizenship as a political institution, focusing on themes of humanity and belonging. Emphasizing moral over legal imperatives, Cruz called for a “global citizenship” and said,...