Changing Flags: Naturalization and its Determinants among Mexican Immigrants 1

Abstract

This article presents a secondary analysis of citizenship acquisition among legal Mexican immigrants who arrived in the United States during the early 1970s. A large array of individual characteristics found to be significant in previous studies, such as age, occupation, income and length of residence in the United States, are found not to correlate with an interest in naturalization. Instead, positive correlations are found with three general themes combining several characteristics. These are: roots in the United States, such as home ownership and number of children; residential patterns, both in Mexico and the ethnicity of the neighborhood in the United States; and the barriers and attitudes faced during periods of legal residence, such as type of immigrant visa and discrimination faced in the United States.