Individual and Community Effects on Immigrant Naturalization

John R. Logan, Brown University
Sookhee Oh, Brown University
Jennifer Darrah, Brown University

Becoming a citizen is a component of a larger process of immigrant incorporation into U.S. society. It is most often conceived as an individual-level choice, associated with such personal characteristics as the duration of residence in the U.S., age, education, and language acquisition. This study is designed to examine collective aspects of naturalization, probing for characteristics of the community context that influence individual outcomes. We find strong evidence of contextual effects, especially for Hispanics. But there are also unexplained variations in the pattern of both individual and contextual effects across groups.