The oath sworn by all those who become naturalized American
citizens seems to say it all: They promise to give up any and all
allegiance to
”
foreign princes and potentates.
”
The oath sworn by all those who become naturalized American citizens seems to say it all: They promise to give up any and all allegiance to “foreign princes and potentates.”
That’s part of what made a lot of Californians a bit uneasy last year as they watched thousands of Latinos line up to acquire Mexican nationality at consulates around California to go along with their U.S. citizenship.
The Mexican nationality tag is a growing phenomenon in California, as more than 30,000 persons applied to get it before a mid-year deadline ended trips to the consulates. Anyone who believes he or she is eligible for dual nationality can still go to government offices in Tijuana or Mexicali and apply – and about 30 people do every day.
These are immigrants who took the American citizenship oath. Or they are American-born offspring of Mexican immigrants who want to retain ties to their ancestral homeland.
It’s easy to see why this makes other citizens uncomfortable. For two questions arise: Once they become Mexican nationals, whose interests will be paramount when onetime immigrants and their children consider how to vote on issues or candidates in elections whose outcome can have an influence on resolving problems between these two countries? And in the case of immigrants, will resuming their old status as Mexicans cause them to lose interest in the politics of their new country and state?
Said one woman as she waited to apply at a consulate in Fresno at a time when terrorism alerts here were at a peak orange levels, “I often feel more secure in Mexico. If bombs started going off and terrorists made trouble here, we might consider going back.”
Opined a man who got his papers in San Jose, “I want to be able to own property in Mexico.”
In fact, unlike America and most other countries, Mexico forbids foreign nationals from owning real estate. So Mexican nationality might be crucial for someone born in America whose immigrant, non-U.S. citizen parents still own land in the family hometown. If immigrants die and their heirs are not Mexican nationals, the government takes any property they owned.
But Mexican nationality is not Mexican citizenship, and therein lies a key distinction. Mexican nationals can enter that country easier than others. They can own property. But they can’t vote.
This is significant. For Mexican legislators eager to see their former citizens and any offspring maintain feelings for their old country are working to get millions of immigrants in America to vote in their national elections.
If that happens, some of the largest and noisiest political rallies in California will not be for people seeking the White House, but for completely different politicians who want to take up residence in the Mexican presidential palace.
The National Action Party (PAN) headed by current Mexican President Vicente Fox knows it will have trouble retaining power next year. To beat back a rebound by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled Mexico without challenge from the early 20th Century until 2000, PAN might need votes from many disgruntled Mexicans who left their homes for America because of failed PRI policies.
The only way to get those votes is for Mexican citizens living abroad to vote, and to set up polling booths in cities like Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Ana, San Jose, Fresno and Sacramento, all of which have larger Mexican populations than significant Mexican cities.
The problem is that letting Mexican immigrants vote in Mexican elections would dilute their newly-awakened focus on the politics of America and California. If they lose interest and become inactive again, as they were for generations before the anti-illegal immigrant 1994 Proposition 187 shocked them into awareness, they will lose hard-won political and economic gains. California would also lose if its fastest-growing ethnic group were distracted into inactivity.
But assumption of Mexican nationality lessens that threat. Since nationals can’t vote, they probably won’t get swept up in Mexican politics to the exclusion of what’s happening here. They will likely remain as active as they’ve been most of the last 10 years and their loyalties won’t even be tested.
Which makes the nationality tag as harmless to America as membership in a Swedish-American club or a Jewish synagogue. It doesn’t satisfy every doubt, but it still looks like a decent solution for Latinos who want to retain links to their homeland while staying active in the affairs of their new country.
