Interracial Marriages and Transnational Families: Chicago’s Filipinos in the Aftermath of World War II

ON OCTOBER 22, 1946, 54-year-old, Philippine-born Cesario Agudo Buensuceso filed a petition for naturalization and signed an “Oath of Allegiance” pledging to “support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” ¹ Unlike most other Filipinos seeking U.S. citizenship in the aftermath of World War Two, Buensuceso had previously sought naturalization. Twenty-two years earlier, on May 2, 1924, Buensuceso’s first petition for naturalization had been denied because, as a Filipino, Buensuceso was found to be ineligible by reason of race. Buensuceso had made his 1924 petition almost five years after arriving in the United States and settling in Chicago in July 1919. ²