RaveNPR... a no-holds-barred non-fiction debut ... Lalami structures Conditional Citizens: On Belonging In America as a series of personal vignettes and historical dives that are more broad than deep. Her contribution is not original research. She relies largely on the scholarship of others and news archives to explore her own understanding of what it means to belong in this country. What she brings is self-awareness ... Her book is not designed to win over those \'in the middle.\' She can and will be dismissed by some as a newcomer who has lived the American Dream and then trashed it. But mainstream acceptance is not her central concern. Her goal, it seems, is to thread together the experiences of a breathtakingly diverse underclass. This constituency is increasingly finding its voice, and she is amplifying what had long been intimate, complicated inner thoughts.
