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- I'm no longer an American. (Issue #23)
I'm no longer an American. (Issue #23)
And I'm NOT talking about citizenship.
Chris Musei-Sequeira
August 15, 2025
I am no longer an American, even though I was born and raised in the United States of America and have USA citizenship. That's how I see myself now, and I bet some of you USA folks also see yourselves the same way.
Wait a minute—how does my proclamation make any sense? I was born and raised in the USA and I’m a USA citizen, therefore I'm an American (or “USer” if you like)… right?
Well, let's get to the root of this conversation: What does it mean to self-identify with a nation-state? After all, citizenship is simply a form of administrative paperwork. Don’t misunderstand me: administrative paperwork has incredible power, as demonstrated by ICE snatching up non-USA citizens across the country (including at their own immigration hearings). But does such paperwork have the power to compel self-identification with a nation-state?
I typed the phrase, "Am I an American?" into a search engine earlier today. One of the first results was the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services web page titled, “I’m an American.” As of 15 August 2025, its first sentence is the following:
Among the most important of USCIS’s missions is promoting citizenship instruction and fostering civic assimilation.
“Civic assimilation,” you say?
Further down in the page is the following text, describing a radio show hosted by the U.S. Government:
The show’s foremost theme was America’s role as a beacon of freedom, equality, and tolerance. Though the show debuted before the U.S.’s entry into WWII, by May 1940 it had become apparent to many that the U.S. would eventually join the fighting. I’M AN AMERICAN became part of a government-wide effort to mobilize national morale behind the cause of national defense. The show presented the American way of life as superior to the alternatives offered by European regimes and used immigrants who fled those countries to make the point.
So perhaps proper administrative paperwork is not enough to be an American. One must also believe in the values of “freedom, equality, and tolerance.” These are values that I believe in. But does America believe in those values?
I don’t think so. In fact, the values of freedom, equality, and tolerance seem fairly un-American to me.
We’re talking about a nation that genocided Indigenous peoples from the East coast to the West coast under the banner of “manifest destiny.” This is the same nation that placed into its Constitution the following text (Article I, Section 9):
The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight.
Now, which persons would “the States now existing . . . think proper to admit?” Oh, that's right: Enslaved people. The US Constitution banned Congress from prohibiting the “importation” of enslaved people until the year 1808.
This is the same nation that passed the Naturalization Act of 1790, which restricted naturalization to “free white person[s]”… and then left it up to the courts to define what a “white person” is.
Freedom, equality, and tolerance. For whom, exactly?
For my mother? She took part in Boston’s 1970s school desegregation program when she was a child… a program pockmarked by “demonstrations, protests, and violence” for years. People would throw stones at the busses she rode—i.e. busses filled with children. Years later, she endured a White woman screaming the N-word at her in a Florida parking lot while I was in the back seat of the car, when I was a child. My mother shot back with a “gesture”… but it’s the rage on her face that I will never forget.
Oh, but the ‘90s and the ‘70s are a long time ago, aren’t they? 1808… c’mon my guy. Aren’t we past all that?
Well I’ll tell you that the United States of America has been good to me and family in many ways. But: we are very privileged people, with multiple privileges I don't need to list here. Our positive experiences do not invalidate the negative experiences of so many people in this country—because of skin color, financial status, disabilities, administrative paperwork…
Donald Trump's second presidency has made the USA’s actual nature even more apparent. Trump and his sycophants want freedom for only the “right” kinds of people… just like the “Founding Fathers.” They want equality and tolerance for only the “right” kinds of people… just like the “Founding Fathers.” Reading the US Constitution will show you that Donald Trump and his ilk are more American than you might like to admit.
It’s clear that America’s values of “freedom, equality, and tolerance” don’t apply to me or the peoples I descend from. So why would I then self-identify as an American?
That rhetorical question gives me an idea: what if I choose not to self-identify with any nation-state?
Let’s pretend that nation-state self-identification were to just… vanish. How might we see ourselves in a new light? Here’s what appears for me: I come from West African peoples on my mother's side, and Southeast Asian peoples on my father's side. My mother's ancestors were enslaved by European colonizers and forcibly trafficked to the Caribbean islands. My father's ancestors were colonized by the British and the Portuguese, which is why I have a Portuguese last name. I believe (though I’m not fully sure) that much of my family’s precolonial history was destroyed… because colonization destroys.
I am not calling myself “stateless.” That would be an insult to people who truly are administratively stateless and therefore suffer incredible challenges. But in choosing to stop self-identifying as an American or a member of any nation-state, I am inviting myself to deeply explore who I am.
The people who colonized my ancestors are the same people who now control massive corporations, governments, NGOs, and military institutions that continue to extract and destroy across the globe. These institutions built their power off the backs of the peoples they colonized. It's not easy to connect my identity to such a terrible history… to such a terrible present. But in choosing to make that connection, my authentic future will become more clear.
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My position
My name is Chris Musei-Sequeira, and I use he/him pronouns. My mother was born in Trinidad and Tobago as a descendant of African slaves brought to the islands during the time of European colonization. She came to the United States of America (USA) at the age of 10. My father is Goan and was born in India, in Mumbai, and raised Catholic and English-speaking. He came to the USA for his graduate studies, where he met my mother.
My sister and I were born in the USA and lived a middle-class life in the suburbs of multiple American cities. I studied aeronautical engineering and technology policy in university, then worked at the Federal Aviation Administration and as an aviation consultant. I've lived in cities up and down the USA East Coast since the age of 18; I now reside in Queens, New York with my wife.
I thank Heather Luna and Lavinia Muth for showing me the importance of publicly expressing our positions. Because of our positions, all of us are very familiar with some aspects of the world while having no idea of other aspects. Positionality expresses how our individual positions affect our relationships with other people and with the world as a whole.
IMAGE SOURCE: File:American flag waving on a flag pole.jpg - Wikimedia Commons. (2019, March 15). https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Flag_Waving_on_a_Flag_Pole.jpg—This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.