From Naturalized Citizen to Voter: Context of Naturalization and Electoral Participation in Latino Communities

From Naturalized Citizen to Voter: Context of Naturalization and Electoral Participation in Latino Communities Louis DeSipio University of California, Irvine Naturalization surged in the 1990s to levels unprecedented in the history of its federal regulation since 1907 (see Table One). The more than five million immigrants who naturalized as U.S. citizens in the 1990s exceeded the number of naturalizees in the previous three decades combined. Naturalization has since declined somewhat from the peak years of the late 1990s, but remains at levels twice as high as the early 1990s and before. The large number of newly naturalized citizens – most of whom are adults – will likely have some impact on U.S. electoral politics for many years to come simply based on their numbers and concentration in a few states, but they also raise a dilemma for democratic institutions in the United States. Specifically, they test whether existing incorporative mechanisms are successful at making these new, voluntary citizens into regular participants in electoral politics. [Table One Approximately Here] Numbers alone, of course, do not guarantee regular electoral participation. For these newly naturalized citizens to have a distinct voice in politics, they need to participate regularly and, ideally, at higher levels than their U.S.-born co-ethnics who tend to participate at lower levels that non-Hispanic white and Black Americans (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2005, DeSipio 1996a; Lien, Conway, and Wong 2004). Naturalized citizens may be at a particular