Leti Vollp defined citizenship with implication to several discourses, as follows: a.) Citizenship as Legal Status; b.) Citizenship as Rights; c.) Citizenship as political activity; and d.) Citizenship as Identity. She then observed these discourses by focusing on the experience of Asian Americans, who for so many years, were not allowed to be naturalize, and their loyalty to Americans were questioned. In Citizenship as Legal status, in American context, the United States Citizenship can be granted by birth or naturalization. Historically speaking, Asian Americans had a hard time to formally acquire citizenship because of racial exclusion. Several laws were passed in relation to the acquiring of citizenship. In Citizenship as Rights, “it defines the class of full right-holders; to be designated a citizen means that one has to become of one’s conscious identity as a free subject destined to be given state …show more content…
In the context of United States, as a Republican State, suggests engagement in the community in the form of politics as basis for citizenship. However, in the case of Asian Americans, their political participation subject to essential full citizenship is still put into question. Since, the perception of the Asian American politics is, assumingly, different with the political interests of the Americans. Lastly, Citizenship as Identity, or known to be the one who acknowledges as compensation for the race, “Citizen and Asian could be said to function as antonyms in the United States context” (Volpp, 2001). It is people’s collective experience in terms of being in a particular society. Until today, the citizenship for Asian Americans in the form of status and rights, is still put into question, as to whether they will be guaranteed as full citizen or second class citizens. The political participation and the race also play a large role in conceptualizing citizenship, at least in