Are you a good Amurican?
Take the U.S. citizenship test to find out!
Yesterday when I ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant here in Sacramento, I took a free (gratis) copy of a Spanish-language Yellow Pages. (This was a real Mexican restaurant owned by real Mexicans, not a chain "Mexican" restaurant owned by non-Mexicans, where you would not be able to get a copy of a Spanish-language Yellow Pages.)
Brushing up on my Spanish is one of many things that I’d be doing if I weren’t a slave for The System, and I think that everyday things like Spanish-language Yellow Pages are a good way to brush up on my Spanish.
So I perused the phone book (directorio telefonico) as I ate my chimichanga.
Immediately I noticed that there are several pages for abogados – lawyers. Some things, I guess, are true cross-culturally.
But what I find most interesting about the Spanish-language phone book is, in a section titled ciudadania (citizenship), a list of 100 questions, a certain number of which, apparently, would-be U.S. citizens must be able to answer correctly in order to become citizens.
Many things came to mind as I read the questions, some of which were simple and some of which were difficult.
Primarily I wondered how well all of the good Americans who display the U.S. flag on their SUVs would do if they had to answer all 100 questions.
I wondered how making people from other nations parrot answers to grade-school U.S. citizenship questions in any real, meaningful way measures their preparedness for U.S. citizenship.
(Don’t even get me started on the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s citizenship requirement, according to the phone book, “No haber sido miembro del Partido Comunista u organizaciones similares durante los ultimos 10 anos aqui o en otro pais” – my Spanish is good enough to understand that to become a U.S. citizen, one must not have been a member of the Communist Party or any similar organization during the last 10 years here or in another country. So the United States government discriminates against individuals who seek citizenship based upon their political ideology, whether they have ever harmed anyone or not. Would-be U.S. citizens must pledge their allegiance to the exploitative ideology of capitalism. So much for "the land of the free.")
And, of course, looking over the 100 questions on U.S. citizenship, I wondered how many questions our own “president” could answer correctly.
But without further ado, here are 20 of the 100 U.S. citizenship questions from the Spanish-language phone book. I will start off with simpler questions and will progress to more difficult ones.
This is not multiple choice. Like would-be U.S. citizens, you must produce the answers without any prompting. So get a pen or pencil and paper and let’s begin:
1. Why did the Pilgrims come to America? (I swear on my citizenship that I am not making up any of these questions.)
2. What do the stripes on the U.S. flag mean?
3. Which U.S. president is called the “Father of the Country”?
4. Who was president during the Civil War?
5. What are the first 10 amendments of the U.S. Constitution called?
6. What are the three branches of the U.S. government?
7. What is the most important right granted to U.S. citizens?
8. On what date was the Declaration of Independence adopted?
9. How long is the term of a U.S. senator?
10. How long is the term of a U.S. representative?
11. Which three nations were the United States’ enemies during World War II?
12. Who becomes president of the United States if the president and the vice president should die? (Nice fantasy, isn’t it?)
13. Who has the power to declare war?
14. Who is the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court?
15. How many amendments are there to the U.S. Constitution?
16. Who elects the president of the United States?
17. What is the address of the White House?
18. In what year was the Constitution written?
19. Who wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner”?
20. What were the original 13 colonies?
Bonus question (add 5 points to your score if you can answer this one correctly): What Immigration and Naturalization Service form is used to apply to become a naturalized citizen?
To check your answers, click on Feedback below.
Scoring:
Score one point for each correct answer. Add 5 points to your score if you answered the bonus question correctly. Here is what your score means:
21 to 25 points: You’re still a virgin, aren’t you, Mr./Miss Smarty Pants?
11 to 20 points: Congratulations! You now qualify to do the difficult, unpleasant and sometimes dangerous work that white Americans refuse to do – for poverty-level wages.
6 to 10 points: Thank you for fulfilling your patriotic duty by flying the U.S. flag (made in China) on the antenna of your SUV.
0 to 5 points: Congratulations! The U.S. Supreme Court might name you “president” one day!
7:40:12 PM 
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