Susan Gordon: U.S. Naturalization Policies

RESEARCH SEMINAR SERIES
Fall Quarter 2007

Integrating Immigrants or Testing for Citizenship? Reconciling Goals and Practices in U.S. Naturalization Policies

SUSAN GORDON
Political Scientist and Lectuer, Ben Gurion University (Israel); Guest Scholar, Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, UCSD

Tuesday, October 30, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
Eleanor Roosevelt College Administration Building
Conference Room 115, First Floor
Reception to follow

The issues of how to integrate immigrants and ensure the integrity of citizenship have become passionate topics of public discourse and policy debate in recent years in a number of immigrant receiving countries. Behind these debates are often unarticulated questions about how to ensure loyalty to the state and to particular conceptions of national identity among prospective citizens. These issues have been explicitly debated in the United States since the enactment of the first naturalization law in 1790, which requires that immigrants who wish to become citizens demonstrate their good moral character and attachment to the country.  Dr. Gordon’s talk will address the ways that these morality and loyalty requirements have historically been applied and institutionalized in US naturalization practice, as well as the role they have played in current debates and policy developments.

Susan M. Gordon is a political scientist at Ben Gurion University in Beersheva, Israel and a visiting scholar at University of California, San Diego’s Center for Comparative Immigration Studies. She is the author of  “Integrating Immigrants: Morality and Loyalty in U.S. Naturalization Practice” (Citizenship Studies, September 2007). Her dissertation, Immigrant to Citizen: U.S. Naturalization Education, 1914-1973 (University of Chicago, 2004) explores the history of United States government efforts to define and educate immigrants for citizenship.
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These seminars are open to the general public. For directions to CCIS, visit our website. Parking permits can be purchased at the information booth on North Point Drive (north end of campus). Visitors may also use metered parking spaces (max. 2 hours) in the North side parking lot. Papers previously presented at CCIS seminars can also be downloaded from our website under “Working Papers.” For further information, please contact Ana Minvielle (E-mail: aminvielle@ucsd.edu, Tel#: 858-822-4447).

Center for Comparative Immigration Studies
9500 Gilman Drive
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CA 92093-0548

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