Eric Liu

“There was an omnivorous intellect that won him the family sobriquet of Walking Encyclopedia.”

— Eric Liu

Have you ever watched someone become American? Last week, at a national citizenship conference I organize, thirty immigrants from 17 countries swore…

— Eric Liu

It turns out umpires and judges are not robots or traffic cameras, inertly monitoring deviations from a fixed zone of the permissible.…

— Eric Liu

What we should celebrate more than diversity is what we do with it. How do we bring everyone in the tent and…

— Eric Liu

“Far too many Americans are illiterate in power — what it is, how it operates and why some people have it. As…

— Eric Liu

At the heart of our public morality is the idea that he who gives generously is most virtuous and morally praiseworthy; that…

— Eric Liu

A basic assumption shapes most Americans’ mindset about labor: the belief that the death of unions isn’t my problem because I’m not…

— Eric Liu

Americans need to call on Boomers, in their next act onstage, to behave like grown-ups. And there is no better way for…

— Eric Liu

Here's a proposal, offered only partly in jest: no resident of the United States, whether born here or abroad, should get to…

— Eric Liu

Like the 'little emperors' of one-child China, too many Boomers were taught early that the world was made (or saved) for their…

— Eric Liu

We're all better off...when we're all better off.

— Eric Liu

In the end no segregationist scheme has withstood the force of a simple idea: equality under law.

— Eric Liu

From the right, you get demagogues shouting about brown-skinned anchor babies and clamoring to deport the undocumented. From the left, you get…

— Eric Liu

You want to defend citizenship? Don't persecute or isolate those without papers. Just live like a citizen. That'd be a first-class way…

— Eric Liu

In the end, a new Americanization movement can't just be about listing our privileges and immunities, which we catalog in our laws.…

— Eric Liu

Much of our national debate proceeds as if China and America were locked in a zero-sum game in which one's loss is…

— Eric Liu

True patriots believe that freedom from responsibility is selfishness, freedom from sacrifice is cowardice, freedom from tolerance is prejudice, freedom from stewardship…

— Eric Liu

“And that brings me to my definition of power, which is simply this: the capacity to make others do what you would…

— Eric Liu

If the undocumented have to work hard to attain citizenship, those of us who already are citizens should have to work hard…

— Eric Liu

“With food still scarce,there was no longer a right to exist. You needed to earn your spot. ”

— Eric Liu

The Boomers have modeled a set of bad habits, and one grand gesture is not going to unwind all those bad habits.

— Eric Liu

To be sure, the United States has profound problems, not least our faltering educational and physical infrastructure.

— Eric Liu

I had heard so much negative talk about our generation, that we're slackers and young fogies, that I knew wasn't true of…

— Eric Liu

If half-black Barack Obama had decided years ago to call himself white - which his genes certainly entitled him to do -…

— Eric Liu

Society becomes how you behave.

— Eric Liu