Short stories from new citizens

There are about 11 million naturalized citizens in the U.S. who are eligible but don’t vote. We wondered what the barriers and motivations were to taking part in civic life, generally. The academic literature is clear that the more affluent and educated an immigrant is, the more likely they are to take part in community activities and to vote. (This is also true of natural born citizens.)

These stories illustrate the challenges people face in learning English, learning rules and norms, and learning the larger systems of how public services and government work.

Center for Civic Design Research Report - Updates from the front line of civic design research

Short stories from new citizens

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Key findings

Read our newsletter article Experiences of new citizens in American civic life with key insights from the research.

About the research

This research was conducted by Christopher Patten and Dana Chisnell.

In 2019, we heard stories from 44 new U.S. citizens. They are from Canada and Cambodia, Cameroon and Nigeria, the United Kingdom and Ukraine. All together, we heard from immigrants from 26 countries.

They told us about their lives, how they came to America and why, and why they decided to stay. They also told us about what community means, what it means to take part in civic life, and what it is like to be American.

About half our participants came through organizations like the Chaldean Community Foundation, New American Voters’ Association, and the Gilchrist Center. We met those people and hear their stories in group events.

We also interviewed individuals who we met through various networks but who weren’t connected to a specific ethnic, cultural, or heritage group. We did some of those interviews in person, and some of them over video.

Related resources

Visit our page on language access to find more resources about providing information about voting and elections in languages other than English.

Read our report What works for outreach to communities with low English proficiency and low civics literacy to learn more about the larger research project that this report was part of.