Los Angeles: A 102-year-old Filipino man, who came to the US as a youth to pick lettuce, has become a citizen.

Only 27 people older than 100 have become US citizens over the past 50 years.

Joaquin Arciago Guzman was helped out of a wheelchair by his niece so he could stand during the Pledge of Allegiance at Wednesday`s naturalisation ceremony in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles Daily News reports that about 7,300 others joined Guzman in the ceremony.

Guzman said afterward that he was happy.

He left the Philippines in 1918.

PTI