Making Modern American Citizenship: Citizens, Aliens, and Rights, 1865-1965
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Making Modern American Citizenship: Citizens, Aliens, and Rights, 1865-1965 By Brendan A. Shanahan A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Robin Einhorn, Chair Professor Mark Brilliant Professor Irene Bloemraad Summer 2018 Abstract Making Modern American Citizenship: Citizens, Aliens, and Rights, 1865-1965 by Brendan A. Shanahan Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Berkeley Professor Robin Einhorn, Chair American citizenship and the rights of U.S. citizenship became modern from the time of the Civil War until the Civil Rights era. Voting became the quintessential right of American citizenship as marginalized citizens won suffrage rights and noncitizen men lost the franchise in nearly two dozen states and territories. Conversely, nativist-inspired policies that counted only citizens as part of the population for redistricting purposes were gradually rescinded in states where they had long operated. At the same time, many forms of publicly funded blue-collar work and access to professional licenses were increasingly restricted to U.S. citizens. And the liminal legal status of hundreds of thousands of marital expatriates (U.S.-born women who had lost citizenship upon marrying noncitizen men) forced judges and immigration officers to interpret and administer the boundaries and meaning of increasingly exclusive citizenship rights. This dissertation explores how U.S. citizenship and restrictive “rights of citizenship” were claimed, debated, learned, and experienced by citizens and noncitizens alike from 1865 to 1965. Part I, “Consolidating the Political Rights of Citizenship,” examines state constitutional and legislative debates over alien suffrage and the inclusion of noncitizens in apportionment policies. It demonstrates the growing power of “citizen only” arguments and documents how these debates transformed the rules governing membership and participation in the polity. Part II, “Claiming, Administering, and Experiencing Employment as a Right of Citizenship,” examines state legislative and licensing records to identify patterns in laws restricting noncitizens’ access to work. These policies, which disproportionately harmed and targeted women and nonwhite immigrants, led to heightened identification requirements and made exclusive economic “rights of citizenship” more powerful, recognizable, and tangible in American life. Part III, “The Ascendance of the Rights of Citizenship,” analyzes how marital expatriates experienced and contested their alienage from the 1920s to the 1950s. It also explores how they were declared to be “citizens without the rights of citizenship” by federal immigration authorities in 1940. The courts increasingly struck this interpretation down, reasoning that citizenship status could not be separated from citizenship rights. While these rulings did not ensure that citizens possessed equal de facto or even de jure rights, they did represent a crucial transformation integral to the modern era of American citizenship: a belief that “rights of citizenship” exist, matter, and are – or at the very least ought to be – definable. 1 For Sarah i Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 1 List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ iii List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. iii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iv Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Part I: Consolidating the Political Rights of Citizenship .............................................................. 16 Chapter 1: Making Voters Citizens: Repealing Alien Suffrage, 1877-1926............................. 17 Chapter 2: Who Counts? Aliens as Members of the Polity, 1865-1965 ................................... 53 Part II: Claiming, Administering, and Experiencing Employment as a Right of Citizenship ...... 81 Chapter 3: Making Citizenship Concrete: Blue-Collar Immigrants, Citizenship Requirements, and Identification Documents, 1882-1940 ................................................................................ 82 Chapter 4: Learning Citizenship Matters: Immigrants and Professional Licensing Barriers, 1900-1952................................................................................................................................ 111 Part III: The Ascendance of the Rights of Citizenship ............................................................... 146 Chapter 5: (Re)-Becoming Citizens: Marital Repatriation in the United States, 1922-1952 .. 147 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 178 Works Cited ................................................................................................................................ 181 ii List of Figures Figure 1: Federal District Court, San Francisco Marital Expatriate Naturalization Petitions Filed, FY 1923-1940 ............................................................................................................................. 154 Figure 2: Federal District Court, Rhode Island Marital Expatriate Naturalization Petitions Filed, FY 1923-1940 ............................................................................................................................. 155 Figure 3: Federal District Court, San Antonio Marital Expatriate Naturalization Petitions Filed, FY 1923-1940 ............................................................................................................................. 156 Figure 4: Marital Repatriation Oaths Administered Federal District Court, San Francisco: FY 1937-1969 ................................................................................................................................... 170 Figure 5: Marital Repatriation Oaths Administered Federal District Court, San Antonio: FY 1937-1971 ................................................................................................................................... 170 List of Tables Table 1: Demographic Comparison of Representative States and Territories Repealing Alien Suffrage via Constitutional Convention, 1890.............................................................................. 24 Table 2: Demographic Comparison of States Repealing Alien Suffrage via Referendum Prior to World War I, 1900 ........................................................................................................................ 35 Table 3: Demographic Comparison of States Repealing Alien Suffrage During and Shortly After World War I, 1920 ........................................................................................................................ 42 Table 4: Estimated Number of Repatriation Oaths Administered Nationally: FY 1937-1975... 171 iii Acknowledgements I owe my thanks to so many individuals who have made this dissertation possible. It is hard to describe just how much I appreciate and have relied on the advice, generosity, and kindness of my professors, colleagues, friends, and family in the past seven years at UC Berkeley as I grappled with what would become “Making Modern American Citizenship.” Here, I will try to acknowledge and express my deep gratitude to all those who have made this dissertation possible, knowing all too well that these lines could never fully measure up to the task. At UC Berkeley, I have had the great privilege of being mentored by scholars who have shared their wealth of knowledge, offered their constructive criticism, and, most importantly, extended their unwavering support. Foremost, my dissertation committee members have pushed me to both expand the framework of my dissertation and ground it in evermore concrete examples. I am deeply grateful to Robin Einhorn, Mark Brilliant, and Irene Bloemraad for their counsel, encouragement, and exhortation to always strive to improve the project. Robin has been a tremendous mentor who exudes a contagious joy for research, teaching, and the goals of public higher education. And her piercing, yet friendly questions have always led me to return to “what’s significant” about my research, to clarify the case studies explored here, and greatly helped me to (try to) give coherence to this dissertation. Mark has similarly enhanced my education in more ways than I can count. I especially appreciate his keen advice on and encouragement for my research, for constantly improving the prose of my writing, and for organizing an outstanding writing group for his graduate students. I also cannot adequately account for all the thanks I owe to Irene. I am deeply grateful to her for welcoming me into the Interdisciplinary Immigration Workshop and the Canadian Studies Program, sharpening my work with superb research suggestions and deeply practical advice, and selflessly sharing from her own work with me. My dissertation would not have been possible without the mentorship, advocacy, and generosity