The Foreign-Born Woman, Her Home and Her Children, in American Politics X
The foreign-born woman plays directly in American politics a part somewhat, but not much, more important than that played by snakes in the zoölogy of Ireland. There are several reasons for this besides the fact that hitherto she has shared the legal disabilities common to her sex in the American political scheme—which fact, by itself, has now been largely mitigated by the final ratification of the Nineteenth (Woman Suffrage) Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; though even that applies only to the ballot, and has not removed either the legal or the general traditional limitations and inequities under which women, in most parts of the country, still abide. So far as the ballot is concerned, the American woman, native or naturalized, is now acknowledged to be an individual person.
But the foreign-born woman, if married, is subject to a substantial limitation. She has citizenship only if her husband has it; she derives it, not by virtue of any act or wish or character of her own, but by strict inference from that of her husband. However much she may desire to become an American citizen, she cannot do so unless her husband chooses to become one; however desirable in her own right or fitness, the unfitness of her husband, or his rejection for any other reason, ipso facto excludes her. And, per contra, however much she might desire to remain a subject or citizen of the country of her birth or former residence, the naturalization of her husband, with or without her consent, even with or without her knowledge, ipso facto inflicts American citizenship upon her. True, this is technically subject to the provision of the law requiring that she must herself be eligible for citizenship; but, as has been stated elsewhere in this volume,149 there is disagreement among the authorities as to whether this proviso was intended by Congress to apply only to women of those Oriental races, which are ineligible per se, or is applicable generally to the individual woman; also, there has been some attempt to hold that the wife is not naturalized by the naturalization of her husband if she continues to reside in the old country. Some judges will not naturalize a man if his wife remains abroad. Generally speaking, however, the construction is that the wife, whoever and wherever she may be, comes into American citizenship willy-nilly with the acceptance of her husband.
More than that, a woman born and residing in another country becomes an American citizen by her marriage with one; the clergyman, or other official, who pronounces them man and wife attests also an automatic and instantaneous change of jurisdiction and allegiance. It works equally the other way about—an American woman, marrying an alien in this country, in the house in which she was born and has lived for twenty years, forthwith, and regardless of any wish of hers in the matter, becomes instanter in the eyes of American law—and generally of international law as well—a citizen or subject of the sovereignty to which her alien husband owes allegiance. It is conceivable, as is elsewhere remarked, that her act in marrying an alien might deprive her of any citizenship at all, since no country can actually confer upon any person citizenship in another. This, however, is academic, since practically everywhere it is fundamental in the law that a married woman’s citizenship goes with that of her husband.
Regardless of Qualifications
By this means she may become a citizen, regardless of her age or minority or moral character, without having resided in this country five years, or any other length of time; without any inquiry as to physical or mental qualification; without taking any oath of allegiance; without necessarily being, or even claiming to be, “well disposed to the peace and good order of the United States” or “attached to the principles of the Constitution.” Coming to this country as an American citizen, she cannot be rejected or deported because of any views she may entertain on any subject, or any conduct on her part, however immoral or otherwise prejudicial it may be deemed. She is a citizen of the United States, entitled to all the rights, privileges, and immunities attached to that exalted state. There has been more than one case in which a woman, about to be deported as immoral, has been able to avoid deportation by marrying a citizen.
Unmarried Women Have Male Rights
The unmarried foreign-born woman or widow stands, as far as citizenship is concerned, upon her own feet, and becomes a citizen under the same conditions, and upon the same terms, as if she were a man. She must be of one of the races admissible under the law, must have resided in the United States or within its jurisdiction continuously for the five years next preceding her application, and at least two and not more than seven years before that application must have filed her declaration of intention; she must (unless a dumb person) be able to speak (and, if the court sees fit to require it, also to read and even to write) the English language; she must present her two citizen witnesses, and must satisfy the court that she is not an anarchist or a believer in polygamy, and that she is in all respects fit to become a citizen of the United States, attached to the principles of the Constitution thereof, “and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same.” She must abjure any former allegiance and renounce any title of nobility which she may have borne.
If she be a widow with children, she must list them in her application, and such of them as are minors will gain their new citizenship with hers. But in order to gain citizenship with her they must be under twenty-one years of age when she is naturalized, and must become residents of this country before they are twenty-one. The child is not a citizen until he becomes a resident.
Dangers of “Derivative Citizenship”
The subject of “derivative citizenship” is one that has been much and deservedly on the mind of the Naturalization Bureau, especially since the aspects of citizenship brought to the front by the war came into wider attention. In his report to the Commissioner of Naturalization for the year ending June 30, 1919, Raymond F. Crist, as Director of Citizenship, points out that on the whole the male applicants for citizenship
... are men who have had such opportunities to acquire knowledge of our language and of our institutions of government, and to adopt American customs, as their environments permitted. They have not been passing their lives within the four walls of their homes; they have had a much greater opportunity for contact with the American public than the foreign-born women. The husband may have gone to the public schools of his community and acquired a practical equipment not only of our language, but of such character as is attained through what is usually called a “common-school education.” Because he has acquired these qualifications for American citizenship he may be admitted. His admission to citizenship confers a like right upon his wife to exercise the franchise to-day in those states where suffrage is universal. To-morrow, when that right is acquired by all, the conferring of citizenship upon the wife will also enfranchise her.
The man has to pass an increasingly rigid examination; he is personally put through a severe inspection of his antecedents, his character, his personal opinions. His wife becomes a citizen without any examination whatever. The most meticulously particular court, the most painstaking naturalization examiner, cannot prevent her becoming a citizen and a voter without excluding the husband, who may, on his own account, be exceptionally desirable.
The Director of Citizenship goes on to say:
Generally the foreign-born women reside in an atmosphere and an environment wholly foreign. They have no opportunity, as a rule, to come into any sort of contact with American thought. They are as though they had never left their European homelands and were still in their native cities and towns. However much their condition of ignorance of our language, customs, or governmental institutions may be in evidence, they are, nevertheless, clothed with full American citizenship upon the naturalization of their husbands. There are approximately 2,000,000 women who will receive citizenship through the naturalization of their husbands within the next few years, and the addition of such a large number of citizens who know nothing whatsoever of their responsibilities presents a grave problem, and one which should be given the most attentive consideration by the legislative body. It would seem to be advisable to have some restrictive measure provided in the admission to citizenship that would condition the admission of a married man to the responsibilities of citizenship upon the qualifying of his wife.
The vital importance of this question of “derivative citizenship” is clear in the statistics gathered by the Americanization Study for the fiscal year 1913–14. Of the 26,284 naturalization petitions covered by that analysis, only 154, or.6 of 1 per cent, were those of women. But more than two-thirds (68.5 per cent) were married, from which it is evident that, in the large majority of these cases, foreign-born women were swept into citizenship by the naturalization of the husband. For less than one in ten of them were married to women born in the United States. And even these American-born women had lost their citizenship through marriage to aliens, regaining it only when their foreign-born husbands became citizens.
Children of Aliens Here American Born
These statistics bring out also another extremely interesting, and to most people surprising, fact; that is, that the children of our foreign-born citizens largely were born in this country and are therefore, in their own right, American citizens. Probably most persons think of the foreign-born population as coming to this country with a horde of foreign-born children. This appears to be contrary to the facts. As can be seen in Table 56, in the Appendix, four out of five of the petitioners studied had children, and nearly three-quarters of them had native-born children only. One-fifth had foreign-born children only, and the rest had both foreign and native-born. The total number of foreign-born children under twenty-one years of age was 4,843.
“Derivative Citizenship” Almost Equals the Direct
The thing that appears plain and highly significant in these figures is the fact that every 100 certificates of naturalization granted carried into citizenship on the average of 93 other persons, of whom 62 were women, virtually regardless of their own qualifications, and 31 boys and girls under twenty-one years of age. The number of unmarried women and widows was altogether negligible. And these 62 women were virtually all foreign born, the proportion of those men having native-born wives, who were thus restored to their birthright citizenship, being only 9.1 per cent. (It should be remarked, however, that the proportion of petitioners having native-born wives varies greatly—from less than 4 per cent in one court to more than 30 per cent in three of the smaller courts.)
Hitherto, no information whatever has been available as to the number of persons carried into citizenship by the naturalization of the father. Assuming, as probably it is safe to do so, that the ratio has generally been maintained in the past, the totals of “derivative citizenship” become portentous. In 1910, the census reported 6,646,817 foreign-born white males over twenty-one years of age. Of these, not quite one-half (3,034,117, or 45.6 per cent) were naturalized. It is not safe to assume that all of the remainder were unnaturalized, because it is not clear that the enumerators were careful to report as naturalized those who, though foreign born, had been automatically carried into citizenship by their father’s naturalization before they were twenty-one. Possibly a part of the relatively large number of cases (11.7 per cent) in which citizenship was not reported may be accounted for by ignorance or doubt as to the status of the father.
Woman Suffrage Was Widespread
However that may be, it is sufficiently evident that a vast number of mothers, actual or potential, have been accorded full and irrevocable citizenship, and the voting power involved, through the naturalization of their husbands. Of these, the proportion of those to whom it really meant anything, or means anything yet, is small. The danger, as far as the ballot was concerned, was and is inconsiderable. Yet it was potentially large, in a good-sized part of the country. Prior to the ratification of the Woman Suffrage Amendment women already had full or partial suffrage in most of the states, as will be seen in the following table: