Social Distance and Citizenship Acquisition in the Age of Mass Migration

Peter Catron, University of Washington, Seattle

Until 1952, naturalization was reserved for “free white persons.” While Asian immigrants were deemed non-white and therefore racially ineligible for citizenship, European immigrants and Mexican immigrants were considered white by law and eligible for naturalization. Yet, while the majority of European immigrants became citizens, Mexicans rarely acquired citizenship in the early 20th Century. In this article, I explore how social distance from the native-born influenced who did and did not become a citizen. I measure social distance for European and Mexican immigrants to determine whether this helps explain the gulf in citizenship using US censuses. Then, using a unique data source of Mexican border crossing records, I focus on racialization processes that led to some Mexican immigrants to become citizens while others not.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 157. Citizenship, Naturalization, and Democracy: Learning from the Late-19th and Early-20th Century United States