Thu, Nov 30, 1922 – 9 · The Chase Register (Chase, Kansas) · Newspapers.comYesterday we discussed women's derivative citizenship and how at one time marriage may have meant a woman losing her US citizenship. Now prior to the passage of the 19th amendment, that might not have been a big deal since women had few rights. But once women have the right to vote, that changes. Suffragists knew that securing the vote didn't mean their job was done. Especially since some of the women who fought for the right to vote couldn't because of their husband's citizenship.
"Federal lawmakers, sensing the existence of wide support for independent citizenship among the newly enfranchised female population, did not wish to alienate these new and numerous voters. The month the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, female citizens gained not only the Constitutional right to vote but also pledges from both major political parties to support independent citizenship for resident women." [1]
The Married Women's Independent Citizenship Act, or more commonly known as The Cable Act, didn't solve everything. Yes, it ended derivative citizenship which meant that American women were no longer penalized for whom they decided to marry.
Remember that we are focusing this week on who couldn't vote. The Cable Act is passed in 1922 but it was not until 1936 that these women could reapply for their citizenship. And the Cable Act only applied to American women who married men who had been eligible for citizenship. For American women married to men who were racially ineligible for American citizenship, such as Asian men, the law still did not allow them to regain their citizenship.
Starting in 1936, women who lost their citizenship were able to apply for repatriation but only after the death or divorce of their alien husband. Finally in 1940, women who were still married to a non-citizen could petition to have their citizenship reinstated. The Cable Act did not automatically reinstate these women's US citizenship. They still had to take the oath and provide documentation that they were US citizens prior to marriage.
 |
| 1939 Application to Take Oath...for Mae Tell. San Bernardino County, California Archives. Photo by Gena Philibert-Ortega |
"Those marital expatriates residing in the United States and married to resident men eligible for naturalization profited significantly from the Cable Act's provisions for repatriation. In contrast, women of color, citizen or alien, who had married a man ineligible for citizenship could not even stand in that benefit's line."[2]
In the research I've done in the records of these women who applied for their citizenship after the Cable Act, they are still applying into the 1960s and beyond. In some cases, women may not have been aware that they had lost their citizenship.
How did these women learn of their "alien" status? They might have learned about their non-citizen status when the 1920 census enumerator marked her as "Al" for Alien in the naturalization column on the census (census enumerator instructions include this). She might have read the newspaper articles about the Cable Act. She might have encountered issues when applying for government benefits or a passport.
One last note. These women lost their citizenship which means they would not have been able to vote. However, I have had a few descendants tell me that their grandmother (or other female ancestor), despite losing her citizenship, did vote. Obviously, that is possible. So voting does not automatically mean she reapplied for her citizenship after the Cable Act's passage.
 |
| US Naturalization Records, Ancestry. |
This is all part of a longer discussion that we don't have room for here but you can find evidence of women's naturalization in naturalization records online. They are also part of the National Archives collection, RG 21 and I have found them in county court archives.
[1] Bredbenner, Candice Lewis. A Nationality of Her Own. Women, Marriage and the Law of Citizenship. University of California Press, 1988. pg 81
[2] p. 148
No comments:
Post a Comment