America 101
Journal Articles
Published in Democracy Journal, Fall 2008
Starting this October, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service will administer a new test for immigrants seeking American citizenship. The test is intended to be harder and more relevant than its predecessors. Replacing many of the more easily learned (and senseless) fact questions—“What are the colors of the flag?” “What colors are the stars on our flag?”—is a more meaningful series of questions about Amer- ica’s constitutional democracy. Heralded as a real measure of “what makes an American citizen,” this new test asks, for example, “What is the supreme law of the land?” “What does the Constitution do?” “The idea of self- government is in the first three words of the Constitution. What are these words?” and “What is the rule of law?”