Reviewed by Janelle Wong | Reviews | Journal of American Ethnic History, 27.1

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Reviewed by Janelle Wong | Reviews | Journal of American Ethnic History, 27.1 | The History Cooperative

Reviews

*Becoming a Citizen: Incorporating Immigrants and Refugees in the United States and Canada*. By Irene Bloemraad. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. xv + 369 pp. Tables, graphs, notes, appendix, bibliography, and index. $55.00 (cloth); $21.95 (paper).
In Becoming a Citizen: Incorporating Immigrants and Refugees in the United States and Canada, sociologist Irene Bloemraad seeks to solve a puzzle. What accounts for diverging trajectories of citizenship acquisition and political involvement among immigrants in the United States compared to Canada? Both nations are North American democracies characterized by relatively liberal immigration policies compared to most other countries in the world. Similar systems of naturalization evolved in both places. Both experienced rising immigration over the past four decades. Why, then, have levels of naturalization declined dramatically in the United States since the 1970s and increased in Canada over the same period?	1
Citizenship is an important indicator of political inclusion, and much of Bloemraad's book focuses on the formal process of becoming a legal citizen. But formal citizenship status in the eyes of the state is just one aspect of citizenship. To understand political incorporation more broadly, Bloemraad also examines immigrants' sense of belonging, the degree to which community organizations and leaders advocate for their communities, and immigrants' representation in the electoral arena. In each of these areas, Bloemraad finds that immigrants achieve greater levels of incorporation in Canada than in the United States.	. . .

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