Review of Conditional Citizens by Laila Lalami

*Conditional Citizens* by Laila Lalami (2020). Published by Pantheon Books.

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I recently fell into a spell of unemployment probably during the worst time to be unemployed, as it was very hard to find a job. I was applying to hundreds of jobs, getting interviews, but no offer was manifesting for me in the near future. So during this time, I had a lot of free time, and spent a good chunk of it chipping away at the blog.

Something I have been incredibly grateful for while I’m unemployed is my local library system. I happen to live in an area with a solid library and multiple branches in every neighborhood, so if I want books, DVDs, CDs, or even video games, they’ll provide it for free. They even got rid of fees to get more people to come in, and I don’t think theft has become a bigger problem.

Anyways, when I was writing my master’s thesis and still employed, I was often going on their Libby app and checking out audiobooks to listen to while I was working. I got through a lot of books during that time, many of which I ended up reviewing on this blog, but when I’ve been applying to jobs, I’ve been thinking about how I listened to all of these audiobooks.

So lately I have started channeling that energy to make it less monotonous. I picked out Conditional Citizens from the Libby app when I saw that it was available now, and it seemed apt to listen to this considering the current state of the United States.

Let’s get into the review!

A critical look at how certain people in the United States aren’t seen as real citizens, especially when global events and media filter out their perspectives.

I find that the title of this book perfectly encompasses what Lalami is driving home throughout the course of the book. Lalami is someone who I knew more because of her fiction, as I was first exposed to her when I was an undergraduate and my honors program had us read her book over the summer for us to discuss later. Like her fiction, this is really good writing, and her research is thorough.

This is a book that blends history, personal memoir and Lalami’s own experiences, along with political commentary about the United States before and after 9/11. Lalami herself is an immigrant from a Muslim country, and although she’s married to someone who isn’t a Muslim, and has family who are Christian, she has to deal with the ramifications of being associated with the Islamic World upon first glance.

Thus begins the concept of conditional citizens. While many Muslim Americans are able to come to the United States and successfully gain citizenship, they are still seen as others, especially when strife and conflict happens in the Middle East. They are subject to more surveillance in their communities and holy spaces, and some, like Sikhs, have been attacked for being seen as Muslim.

So while these people are legally seen as citizens, the actual aspect of them being this is iffy and shaky in the eyes of other people and the government. Lalami drives this point home throughout the book, weaving in her experiences about how she has witnessed and experienced discrimination herself, as well as more personal experiences.

There are other tidbits throughout the course of the book that give more insight into Lalami’s upbringing in Morocco. I found it fascinating when she starts discussing how in her school, there were French teachers who were brought in, refused to learn Berber or Arabic, and when Lalami had to bring her parents in for conferences she had to translate for the teacher.

This was a more common occurrence then, and as Lalami points out, it’s easy for the colonizers or Europeans to come into countries like Morocco and own property. Even in Morocco itself, there’s a section that’s considered Spanish territory, so to even come in and use the beach they had to show their passports because there was a clearly defined border.

Empire takes on many different forms, such as this. When Moroccans can’t enter Spain or France without a visa but those citizens can easily enter Morocco and extract resources and real estate, that’s a major problem and a power dynamic that isn’t equal. And we see this easily in the United States as well, so this isn’t just a Europe problem.

Overall Thoughts

Reading this in the summer of 2025, considering what’s happening in immigration within the United States and how Muslim countries are yet again targeted, I feel like a lot of people need to read books like these. They probably won’t, but this was a fairly simple read, and the audiobook was clear, crisp, and accessible. The language Lalami uses is effective but simple, making it easy to listen to as an audiobook while understanding everything.

As a person of Middle Eastern descent myself (my father came from Iran), I find books like these to be powerful. Lately I’ve been trying to consume more books from SWANA authors and creators, and this was the first nonfiction book in a while. It’s a sobering reminder about how we have so far to go before we actually achieve equity in the United States, but I have hope for the future.

Go pick this one up if you’re interested. Find it at your local library or indie bookstore if you get the chance—I think it’s important to read if you can handle it in the moment, no matter how personal it might be to you.

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