What does it mean to be an American?

Since the founding of the United States in 1776, the definition of who gets to participate in politics and in civic life has been contested. What does it mean to be an American? Are some Americans more “American” than others? In this episode, host Katie Dunn Tenpas explores what we mean when we talk about being an “American” with Rashawn Ray, a senior fellow in Governance Studies and a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, and Gabriel Sanchez, also a Brookings senior fellow and a professor of political science at the University of New Mexico. [music]  TENPAS: Hi, I’m Katie Dunn Tenpas, a visiting fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and director of the Katzman Initiative on Improving Interbranch Relations and Government. And this is Democracy in Question, a podcast about contemporary American politics and the future of democracy. In each episode, I’m asking my guests a different question about democracy so that we can better understand the broader contours of our democratic system. You probably noticed that there’s a lot happening in U.S. politics at the moment, including a highly contested presidential race. But in this podcast, I’m trying to get at the deeper questions...