‘Murica. Land of the free, home of the brave. For me, being American was something that I was born with. It wasn’t something I had to earn or struggle for in any way, shape, or form. In “‘American by Paper’: Assimilation and Documentation in a Biliterate, Bi-Ethnic Immigrant Community,” this concept of American is flipped on its head. For the people in this essay, being American isn’t something you are born with (for the most part). Being American is something that is earned, either through marriage, family connections, or testing. To become American for these people, there are a few things that have to be done first. The main roadblock to Americanization for most of the people in this essay is a naturalization test, an examination that involves things such as “paying a hefty fee ($675 as of this writing), reading sentences in English, writing dictated sentences in English, and orally answering civics and history questions in English,” (57). The problem, though, is that the vast majority of the people taking this test can barely read English, much less write sentences and answer history questions.
So, let’s say the person passes this seemingly arbitrary test, achieving their papers and becoming “American.” What happens next? Cristina, one of the people in this essay, sums up this feeling of being “American” very eloquently: “I’m American by paper, not because I was born here. So I’m still an immigrant. I’m like [new Brazilian immigrants]. I just have a piece of paper that I’m American [. . . .] I’m not American. I just have the papers by law,” (58). So, Cristina paid a large sum of money, took a test, and gained official documentation, but she still feels less American than me, someone who didn’t actively do anything to become American. Why is it that earning Americanization feels less legitimate than having it given to you at birth? What does the fact that the naturalization test can only be taken in English say about America’s position on other cultures and different languages? What does the fact that “marriage to a U.S. citizen, not education, seems like a surer path to the rights and privileges of the legally document U.S. mainstream” say about our priorities in regards to the development of education and literacy for immigrants? And finally, does any of this change the definition of what truly “being American” is?
Mind the gap!
Yes yes yes yes.
This is what I’m talking about. When we’re talking about sociopolitical literacy (e.g. citizenship), we’re not just talking about the paper and the politics. We’re also talking about the person and the personal. But we forget that. I say that we’re losing a kind of literacy, because we value a legal document (i.e. a piece of paper) more highly than maybe, “education” or certain literacies that that document is meant to signify. The gap between signifier (political document) and the signified (feeling of integration) is forceful evidence of a gap between the political and the personal.
The article brings up a lot of interesting points about what being an American actually means. Vieira’s interviews with Azorean and Brazilian immigrants does reveal that the immigrants consider themselves as not truly American. It could be that the society they live in seem to view immigrants as always immigrants regardless of how long they have lived here. While there is no official language of America, it certainly seems that one language is highly valued above all others. I think English is the preferred language of the exam because it is a way of determining the functionality and usefulness of the people taking the exam. While English is used almost always, I don’t think fluency is necessary to be able to contribute to society in any way. Being required to take the test in English shouldn’t be a stipulation for being considered an American. The type of “literacy” the test requires is simply memorization, so a high level of literacy doesn’t seem to be required for the exam. This ties into the next point about the priority of education and the level of literacy that is expected of immigrants, which is low, or only enough to be “functional” in society. I don’t know if this necessarily changes what it means to be American, but it does seem like the paperwork takes importance over the person, like marbledmurrelet said.
This post is awesome, and raises some great questions. Why do many immigrants feel that getting married is a better way to feel American than to go through the test-taking process? Though it would seem to be the easier way out, maybe citizenship through marriage gives more of a sense of belonging than obtaining a piece of paper after a test. “I am an American because my husband/wife/partner/mother/father is an American.” There is a sense of community that a piece of paper cannot give. We should not educating potential citizens only so they can pass a naturalization test and get a certificate saying “Yay, you’re American!” and then passing them along like cattle. We should be helping them to be as educated and literate as they want to be. Whether that means the equivalent of an American high school diploma or a PhD in Russian literature, we all have the choice to be literate to our full potential and then some. Rather than study English to complete a test and then never using it again, we should offer the chance to do more with English (if they so choose). Maybe I missed the point of the thread that has been happening here, but I think we all seem to agree that giving a piece of paper does not give a sense of belonging that citizenship should. Maybe that’s why it “feels” more American to use family ties and marriage to become a part of this nation.
This is an interesting piece because it brings up the point of American control. I have the feeling that the actual test is ambiguous, while the administrators are the true test. The article made it seem that pleasing the administrator was more important than giving a generally true response. Maybe what holds the true power is not the test, but how the administrator feels about the way the test-taker would uphold the literacy we have formed in America.
What’s seems odd to me is that literacy is not a uniform being in America. It changes from state to state on how certain things are styled. How do we test overall literacy, when we ourselves do not have a complete, uniform way of literacy? It is what is so beautiful and challenging about America: we are a diverse nation. Does anyone actually fit to the “American literacy”?