The US citizenship test is due for an upgrade and apparently "some advocates" fear it will get harder. There's a bit of angst over the history section, but mainly it's about changes to the English skills section:
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services proposes that the new test updates the speaking section to assess English skills. An officer would show photos of ordinary scenarios — such as daily activities, weather or food — and ask the applicant to describe the photos.
In the current test, an officer evaluates speaking ability during the naturalization interview by asking personal questions the applicant has already answered in the naturalization paperwork.
I'm not sure why asking for a description of a picture is inherently any harder than asking personal questions. I suppose it has to do with these personal questions only requiring the applicant to parrot things they've already written elsewhere?
In any case, this sounds to me like a good change. Surprisingly, perhaps, I've never taken the increasingly popular liberal view that it's borderline racist to insist on English fluency from immigrants who want to become citizens. English proficiency is culturally critical in the United States—not to mention just plain practical—and doing our best to insist on a common language is a good thing, not a bad one.
Of course, this isn't something to get too worked up about since all the evidence in the world shows that English fluency develops strongly in second-generation immigrants and is complete by the third generation. Still, insisting on at least a decent basic level of English language competence should not be too much to ask of people who want to live in the United States forever.
IDK about any of that. But for the sake of argument, what level of English proficiency is culturally critical? And, what's wrong with multiple common languages -- would it be culturally indefensible for America to become a bilingual nation?
Liked. Currently I'm trying to learn Spanish. Apropos this discussion, My reading/writing skills far outstrip my listening/speaking skills.
I don't know about cultural indefensible but it does place a substantial burden on government (including schools) and business to have to meet the needs of multiple languages for print and staff.
We already have to do that, or feel obligated to do that, to the extent that businesses and agencies have to serve people who use different languages.
We don't need to require that official things be done in languages other than English, so there's no statutory burden. And whether someone is a citizen or not doesn't really have much bearing on whether they're living here. There's no language component to becoming a legal resident, as far as I know...
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Exactly.
What's wrong with someone becoming a citizen if they don't pass somebody's subjective judgement on whether they meet some threshold of competency in speaking English?
Policing language skills isn't the state's business. Especially in today's era where we can translate things to a good enough standard instantaneously if we absolutely need to.
Naturalizing citizens is the state's business. And bear in mind, this isn't an issue of immigration; we are generally talking about people who already have a vested legal right to remain in the country, but who wish to become citizens. There's no doubt the state has the power to do this, and Kevin makes points as to why it is legitimate to expect it.
I certainly consider myself a lefty, but how we've evolved on culture is definitely a head scratcher. Once upon a time America was considered a "melting pot", which implies "melting", a.k.a. openly offering immigrants the chance to assimilate into the American culture of the vast majority (who did actually speak English).
Fast forward to 2023 and we now have a bait and switch where wanting to preserve some semblance of an American identity is being a "white supremacist", to the extent anyone on the left will even acknowledge American culture even exists... instead every other culture but American culture must be protected.
And we wonder why working class Americans have flocked to the Republican Neanderthals in droves.
You totally misunderstand the so called "good old days". The melting pot was all about assimilating into WASPdom and if you couldn't you were part of the out groups and not offered the full benefits of US citizenship. My family's cultural heritage was throw away out of fear due to what the folks back in the old country were doing and on the other side due to nativist pressure to blend in. Other Americans weren't even allowed to get US Citizenship at all.
If there's been a bait and switch it's that we finally rebelled against being controlled by the Neanderthal nativists. I can enjoy my beer and potato pancakes, my college buddy Franko and celebrate his Japanese heritage without fear of internment like happened to his parents.
All the stupid whining about American Identity is a morning of the lost of White Male Christian patriarchal control. The real American Identity is an ever changing and evolving mosaic.
I hear you, I just think you have a profound misunderstanding of tribal human nature. Ask your buddy sipping his Japanese beer how it is for some white dude living in Japan right now. Do you think they care about his cultural heritage? Or is the assumption that you can assimilate with Japanese culture or GTFO? Same in Sweden, France, and basically everywhere else.
Obviously internment camps and other government-sanctioned abuses are awful and should be fought against, but the idea that you should be able to move into someone else's country and not have to let go of some of your previous cultural heritage in exchange for the new one is pretty bizarre, honestly.
The fact that "WASPdom nativists" over decades were convinced to open their doors so widely is almost unheard of in human history, and now for their trouble they are the target of your contempt.
Whataboutism. Sorry but you are messed up. We're not Japan, we never were Japan - we were always multicultural from the colonial periods when we stole the land and eviscerated the cultures of the peoples we stole the land from. You don't get to choose what is American and what is not. Some of us love Taco Tuesday, Oktoberfest and Peruvian Chicken and Santa Claus and Chicken Parm. What should unite us all is a commitment to a democratic form of government, treating everyone decently no matter where we're from and no matter what we had for dinner last night.
Lol, I hate to deprive you an opportunity for self-loathing, but literally every culture you referenced eviscerated some other culture before them. America isn't special in that regard, that's humanity.
But yes, Chicken Parm is awesome... Italians came to America, assimilated with the existing larger American culture (which very much DOES get to choose what is American and what is not), and along the way they contributed their part to the culture to make it better. Hence Chicken Parm on the menu.
That's how it's supposed to work. Not refusing to learn English and existing as a parallel, competing culture. That's the recipe for social instability.
Kevin's statistic about the second and third generations is accurate, and with very few mostly self-conscious exceptions has always been so. What's new in living people's experience since about 1970 is persisting enclaves that are predominantly not English-speaking. But that's how things used to be before the restrictions of 1924-65.
Those enclaves were and are non-English-language because new people who don't natively speak English keep moving into them and replenish the pool as others assimilate into the wider community. But the replenishment can give the impression that there's some stubborn blankety-blank bunch of people who just won't speak English and never will and we have to force them into it.
In the 60s and into the 1970s, people who didn't speak English or who had strong accents were mostly old-- Buddy Hackett has a hilarious story about this for Johnny Carson somewhere on youtube-- so it didn't look like there was some kind of persistent group. The non-English-speakers didn't get replenished in those days. But they do now, so the old feelings and fears of native American-English speakers are back. The same things were said before 1924.
But it's based on the misconception about supposed groups of stubborn people refusing to speak English. The reality is that the second generation-- the kids of immigrants-- speaks natively-fluent English, and probably the other language with varying degrees of proficiency, and the third generation might know a smattering of the other language, a few words here or there, but they're English-speakers.
It's the continual replenishment of visibly non-English-speaking enclaves by new people, and the misinterpretation of what that means-- mostly by people (like me) whose experience is that other languages visibly faded away during that anomalous period of restricted immigration-- that underlies a lot of our current agita over this.
Correct. Parallel competing culture for the win.
It's not addressed by English but for example, there are now so many Hindus in tech in so many positions that the caste system informally exists and is used to discriminate. Tgat kind of cultural stuff absolutelt needs to be destroyed.
Insisting on proficiency in English is hardly indecent. Have a good time with your outrage-a-palooza, though.
Society is overwhelmingly English language so requiring proficiency allows citizens to navigate society better and make it less likely to be taken advantage of.
That said my position has always been to provide free English instruction if we up the requirements.
I don't know about the current ELPAC test used to assess fluency in California public schools, but the former test, the CELDT, had a section where students looked at pictures - drawings not photographs - and were asked to describe what was going on in the picture.
I'll agree that English proficiency can be "culturally critical" in most parts of the country, but this sounds, at least potentially, like it could also require cultural fluency that people may not have.
Proficiency first. Now-- as in most of our history except for the later period of immigration restriction-- it's entirely possible for recent immigrants to live in neighborhoods or areas where they don't need any English, or can get by with very limited proficiency. It can be desirable, yes, but in daily life not that necessary. As you hint, their second-generation kids typically do necessary translation for them, or friends and neighbors, if they don't have time or energy to learn more than enough to get by on the job or wherever they need to encounter English. Most people are good at picking up what they need, but that can mean they get only a limited range of another language.
Now the pictures. Describing what's in a picture can be very hard. You have to know what words to use about a group of people sitting around eating, for example, or to know about clouds or snow, stuff that you're not likely to need in order to answer questions about government and history on the citizenship test. You might need to know what to call food you've never seen before. There can be a very wide range of cultural knowledge embedded in something like this, which makes me wary of trying to bring it in. Not dissimilar from old issues around the SAT.
In the Jim Crow days there was often a literacy requirement for voting registration in the South, that (obviously) was most often enforced only on black people. An anecdote I remember about those days is the college prof who went in to register and was handed a paper printed in Chinese and told to read it.
I'm not saying something like that *will* happen, but that a requirement like this *could* very easily be used by people with malign intent to make it happen. Any test of English proficiency needs to be very carefully tailored to whatever degree of proficiency is legally required, and very carefully administered.
As I heard the story, first he was handed a paper printed in Spanish, which he read and recited back. Then he was handed a paper printed in German and asked to read and recite back, which he did. Then he was handed the paper printed in Chinese and asked the same yet again. He said, "This paper says you don't want me to vote."
This is the best version I've seen, thanks!
The version of this story I first heard involved an African-American gentleman and the punchline was, "It says ain't no n-ggers gonna vote here today."
Thanks to my middle-school, social studies teacher for that. The 70's were a different time for sure.
Jim Crow is different because it betrayed the 14th Amendment's promise of birthright citizenship, and the literacy tests were being used to deny those people the right to vote in the society they grew up in.
Naturalization is a voluntary decision to become a member of another polity. And thus, the requirements can be different.
What's common between these two situations is the chance-- or opportunity, depending on motives-- of putting people in a situation where the examiner can require people to know things they have no opportunity, no expectation, and/or no need to know. Whatever it is that people want to attain isn't the key issue in such a situation.
See also the Bill Mauldin cartoon "By th' way, what's that big word?" (https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2016687152/) and Herblock's "Nah, you ain't got enough edjiccashun to vote" (https://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/hlb/item/2009632471/). Of the latter is is noted that "In Macon County, Alabama, home to the Tuskegee Institute, where eighty-four percent of the population was African American in 1958, the Tuskegee Civic Association pushed for voter registration. While ninety-seven percent of the white population registered, only eight percent of the African Americans qualified."
English is obviously desirable but if someone has been in certain areas in this country for 40 years speaking a language that’s not English (e.g., Spanish, Navaho, German) and now wants to be a citizen, well, I just don’t think the language test accomplishes anything.
Astonishingly there were still German speaking enclaves in the Dakotas well into the 20th Century, the most famous native son of one was Lawrence Welk.
Also, Pennsylvania Dutch would like to add a word . . . Most of even the most committed speak unaccented Pennsylvania English too, but they reserve it for outsiders.
I can remember seeing him on tv when I was a kid and can recall what he sounded like. Probably there are youtube clips too. It was definitely accented and a little unusual for broadcast media at the time, but could easily be taken for a regional accent, I'd guess, as opposed to ethnic. Kind of like the way Minnesota English is influenced by Swedish rhythms and expressions.
I resemble that remark.
My father's grandparents never spoke English at all, having immigrated ca. 1900-1910; my father spoke only (a dialect of) German at home until the 1940s, but his parents spoke English well nevertheless.
Richardton, ND.
Kevin wrote "a decent basic level of English language competence should not be too much to ask of people who want to live in the United States forever."
I'd change that slightly: a decent basic level of English language competence should not be too much to ask of people who want to vote for my President, my congressional representatives, my Governor, my state representatives, my Mayor, my City Council, and my school board.
Prospective citizens ready for the test probably have knowledge of our US history and our governmental system at least as good, and frequently better, than my neighbors in my well-established middle-American neighborhood. But without some competence in our language, those hopefuls for citizenship will be hard-pressed to understand the daily pronouncements they hear and see regarding the people and issues they will be voting on.
Well put. If you want to perform the duties of and reap the benefits of citizenship then ability to speak english does not seem to much to ask.
Neither of my grandparents (GF -- 90+; GM -- 75) could do more than barely made themselves understood in English after more than 50 years in the country. Both became citizens.
I have a doctorate in English from the University of Chicago (as a part of that, I once wrote a paper on Polish-English).
Wanted to say the same, but my paternal grandparents were from Slovakia. I guess it's ok to have such a thing, but as noted, 2nd and (finally) 3rd gen pick up English soon enough so not sure why this is a priority. Maybe traffic signs for a driver's license.
Also, pretty sure there are parts of Chicago where Polish is primarily heard/spoken and nary a word of English. Ditto Spanish and huge swaths of Los Angeles.
"I'm not sure why asking for a description of a picture is inherently any harder than asking personal questions."
It would depend on the picture. The personal questions are the ones that the applicant already knows about; it is like a test given orally that was already passed in writing (albeit with help in many cases). A picture could for example feature a group of exotic animals. In this case a large proportion of citizens whose ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War would flunk.
Anyway I would prefer the test about the US government to be a bit harder rather than the language test. It was insultingly easy in my case. On the other hand: How many of the above mentioned citizens know more about their government than that test required?
The proficiency being tested presumably is English rather than Zoology. I would expect “This is a picture of animals. Some are flying. Some are eating …” etc etc would suffice. Not a Steve Schaferesque (sp) ability to say “That’s an Eastern Double-breasted Sapsucker.”
I taught German for many years and students were consistently better at answering personal questions than any other oral assignment. I told them I didn't really want to pry into their personal lives and they were welcome to lie if they wished, so long as the lie was coherent enough to indicate they had understood the question. But personal questions clearly got the best answers.
Here's another job for artificial intelligence!
For most immigrants looking to become citizens, this probably isn't an issue. It takes years to get to that point and by then they've probably picked up enough to do fine. Where this will get tricky is let's say you've been in this country a number of years and have your citizenship and everything, spouse and a couple of kids and you want to bring your older parents here from the old country to live with you so they can help with childcare, etc. They don't speak a lick of English, but will probably need Medicare/Medicaid or other services at some point and need to be naturalized. There's virtually no chance -- unless you're particularly gifted and motivated -- that you can learn enough English after 60 or so to carry on a colloquial conversation about a restaurant menu or politics. Point at the "policeman", the "garden", the "boy" on a piece of paper? Sure -- but they're not going to learn English. Hopefully they'll make allowances for certain situations like that.
There are various exemptions that deal with some of those scenarios. As there should be.
https://www.tanner-law.com/articles/exemptions-to-the-english-and-civics-test-for-naturalization/#:~:text=There%20are%20certain%20exemptions%20to,learning%20or%20demonstrating%20English%20proficiency.
Kind of depends on the pictures, doesn't it. If you show a picture of someone using a supermarket scanner to someone from a small, poor village in Guatemala is it entirely fair? H. W. Bush had never seen one until a trade show where he was entirely surprised by it.
I’m sorry, I was unaware that English was the official language of USA.
Why is the test mandating a good comprehension of an language that isn’t the official language?
I guess I should have pointed explicitly to why I think official languages is not a particularly defensible barrier to citizenship.
First, I firmly believe that, in the near-future, we will have real-time universal translator wearables, eg language processing built into the very types of headsets many of us already use on a regular basis. Some headsets already have 4+ microphones and process sound to cancel noise, after all.
When the communication barrier is broken, what is the purpose of having to be proficient at English? Is it really a culturally important feature, if so, please explain how it is.
Second, what minimal level of English proficiency do you need to do a menial job that barely requires any interaction with an English-only speaker?
I can see why you'd want to require a very high level of English proficiency for someone who'd work in a field that requires a college degree, but I also imagine that these types of barriers are not meant for these folks, n'est pas?
Third, have you considered the toxicity of "speak English"?
During WWII and for a good long time thereafter, Japanese-American parents discouraged their kids from learning to speak, read, and write Japanese. You know the reason why. Why does America look upon Japanese-Americans as model immigrants? A part of it is because "speak English".
White America loves to pronounce futon as fooh-tahn'. Is that the critical shared culture we're supposed to embrace? You tell me: Which pronunciation should we use -- the "American English" or the Japanese?
I look forward to a robust discussion on why I'm wrong.
Well 1. Is totally wrong. Look at anything by Loic Suberville for why. And he is doing Spanish, Fench and English! All fairly close together!
Have you tried Chat-GPT in different languages?
I agree the language component is not important
What about our system(s) of measurement? Versus metric?
Of course we all know what happened to our "move" to the metric system. It has slowed to a crawl.
Of course we all know that a move to embrace different languages and measuring systems is just another example of promotion of a 1 world government !!!
And we will have NONE of that here.................
One thing missing from our discussion so far is that speaking a language is very different from understanding other people when they speak it.
I'd be willing to bet that almost all the people mentioned upthread who lived in the US and didn't *speak* much or any English were able to understand quite a bit of what was spoken around and to them. Same for reading vs writing.
So what can be reasonably and legally required for would-be citizens-- comprehension, expression, or both?