Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. Any immigrant or immigrant family

knows that citizenship can often feel like the last piece of a puzzle. You spend years and

years jumping through hoops, filling out this form, and that making sure your t's are crossed

and your eyes are dotted just for that one piece of paper that puts you on the other side of that

line. The official document that says you were once this and now you're that. Of course, things in

life are rarely so binary. The book Citizenship Notes on an American Myth by Daisy Hernandez

is an exploration into how complex the very concept of citizenship actually is.

She tells MPR's Emily Kwong that in America, we're constantly changing what it means to be

an American citizen.

That's ahead.

Citizenship is a game of tick-tac-toe.

Your father had a Cuban passport.

Your father won.

That's how Daisy Hernandez sets up her new book, Citizenship, Notes on an American Myth, a collection of essays that combines

history with memoir. The daughter of a refugee of Castro's Cuba and a mother from Colombia,

Hernandez presents the U.S. immigration system as a game whose rules are always changing.

Daisy Hernandez is with us now. Welcome to All Things Considered.

Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

Your mom is from Columbia and she told you stories about how she came to this country at bedtime.

You write about being a kid with your sister, like, in darkness, under the covers,

listening to her stories. And you write, quote, I learned as a child that citizenship was a private

story, one women told in the dark, where faces could not be seen. So I'm wondering, what made you

...