In Sugar Land, Texas, a giant statue depicting the monkey-faced Hindu deity Hanuman was erected in August 2024. Officially titled “ Statue of Union ,” many Texans and Americans elsewhere have found this monument to be an aberration. For some, it is the aesthetic unsightliness. For others, it is a religious aversion to having a pagan idol being raised to such heights. And for others, it is a demonstration of just how many foreigners now live in Texas.

I see each of these points as pins on a board that, when connected, reveal a fault line in American civic life: We are divided culturally — and the divide is widening.

If citizenship is only a piece of paper that protects you from deportation and allows you access to our material goods and services, then we have devalued it to the point

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