About S. I. Hayakawa
S. I. Hayakawa was born in Canada and went on to serve in the US Senate representing CA. S. I. Hayakawa's career in Congress began in 1977, during the postwar decades, and ran through 1983, a tenure of 6 years. As a Republican, S. sat in a chamber where most colleagues were born in the United States; naturalized citizens remain a small minority of Congress in every era.
Canada reserves the ballot for its own citizens: non-native-born residents cannot vote in any election there, no matter how long they have lived in the country. In practical terms: Canada strictly limits voting to citizens only — federal, provincial, and municipal. Even permanent residents cannot vote anywhere in Canada. That produces a striking asymmetry with the United States, which not only naturalized this member but then elected them to help write federal law. A naturalized American who returned to Canada would have no such political voice there.
Canada has sent 14 naturalized citizens to Congress in total, of whom 10 also served as Republicans like S.. CA has elected 13 foreign-born Congress members across its history, so S.'s path from naturalization to Capitol Hill is not unique to that state — but it remains exceptional nationally. Across the full history of the US Congress, Canada ranks 2nd of 38 tracked birth countries, accounting for 14 naturalized-citizen lawmakers.
Why does Canada's own voting regime matter on an American member's profile? Because it frames a question the US Congress itself wrestles with whenever immigration and citizenship come up: which countries extend the same democratic trust to people who arrived later that the United States extended to S.? In Canada's case, the answer today is no — a naturalized American returning there would hold no ballot at all.