In an attempt to appeal to a get-tough on immigrants sentiment in Republican voters, Rudy Giuliani is fond of pushing a “speak English” policy for immigrants in his stump speech:
But apparently that does not extend to Florida voters of Cuban descent, who Rudy is all too happy to court with a Spanish language campaign ad.
Way to go Rudy, do as I say, not as I do.
I wouldn’t get too worked up about it. He’s done.
How many times does Rudy say “nueve-once” in his Spanish ad?
What are currently the requirements for an immigrant to the US to become a citizen?
[crouching very low]He’s got my vote.[/runs away as fast as I can]
There’s his longterm goal for our nation (which I share), which is that those who wish to become U.S. citizens should be able to speak the most common language, and then there’s any politico’s short-term concession to reality, which is that there are still definite voter blocs which primarily speak a different language. I wouldn’t have any more problem with a Rudy ad in Spanish than I would with one in Korean, Greek, Chinese, Italian, Swahili or Quenya.
But I don’t think “the final end result” of the citizenship process should be about learning to speak English; it should be about sincerely swearing loyalty to the Constitution and then fully partaking of civil society.
I’m pretty sure that a passing knowledge of the English language is already a requirement.
By the way, I wonder how many U.S. citizens by birth could answer all of the naturalization test questions?
To hijack this slightly (with apologies to Fear Itself), isn’t the purpose of the naturalization test defeated by posting the entire test, with answers, online? I thought a test was designed so that you had a basic idea of material to study in an attempt to correctly answer specific questions not known beforehand. It seems to be more an exercise in recitation of memorized answers. Maybe I’m missing the point.
Carry on. 
You are. I’m a naturalized US citizen and, even though it was 20 years ago, I remember the process. The Daughters of the American Revolution provided a booklet with the questions and answers on the naturalization test, and I’m sure they were available from other sources. Even though we moved to the US when I was a toddler, and my education’s entirely American, I think I studied harder for that test than I have for any in my life! They don’t ask you every question on the list; in fact, I was only asked three. You are expected to know the answers to the test, but you are encouraged to look at the list and study it.
As for Giulani’s comment that, “you should be able to have to read English, write English, and speak English if you want to become a citizen,” my only quibble with it is “should be able to” is wrong. You are required to prove you can read, write, and speak English. Even though I was born in England and English is my native language, even though I’d graduated from high school with honors and had just graduated from an American college, I still had to write a sentence to prove I could write English as well as reading and speaking it. No, the sentence wasn’t all that difficult.
You can find more about what the US government has to say about becoming a citizen here. I’m amused to note the requirements include “good moral character” and this is reiterated in the last paragraph:
I’ll leave the jokes to others.
So someone who comes here at 30 or 40 years of age and lives here 20 or 15 years never needs to bother to learn any English because if they wait it out long enough they are exempt? I don’t see why a 30 or 40 year old couldn’t learn enough of a language to have a passing knowledge of it in that time, especially when they are fully immersed in that country and its language.
Not once that I can tell. It basically says, ‘‘Reagan trusted RG with New York’s crime problem and look how well he did (add typical vague examples like ‘‘created new jobs, lowered taxes again’’ etc.) If he could do it in New York, he can do it in Washington!’’
I have to admit, the cognitive dissonance here is strange. That guy’s always struck me as a skeevy corrupted loser anyways… I won’t be sad to see him out of the race.
Thank you EddyTeddyFreddy. Since knowledge of English is already necessary (in most cases) to become a naturalized citizen of the US, I guess Giuliani only said this in order to look tough.
I think he was pandering to the xenophobic nativists who want all official documents to be in English only – no Spanish (or other language) versions provided for people who no habla Ingles (sp?).
It’s not as crazy as the British equivalent.
What are the roles and powers of the main institutions of Europe? How is European law organised? - I’m confident that 99% of Brits couldn’t provide an answer to that. Nor the one asking the patron saint’s days of the four home nations.
What is tax? How is it paid? - Is that an essay question?
What is the National Trust? - What is that on the test for?!
See, that’s what I don’t get about the OP. Having an English test for citizenship does not necessarily imply that one should stop using their first language at home, so much as they must be able to communicate sufficiently in English when outside the home. But watching TV is an inside-the-home activity, I don’t see a Spanish campaign ad, where the candidate “enters” the viewer’s home, as being at odds with the Giuliani quote in the OP.
Lordy, he can barely beat a libertarian. That’s definitely bottom of the heap.
That’s right. This is different from say, before 1906, when there was no language requirement at all.
I got 97/100. I missed 45, 72 and 80. I feel 87 was very subjective though, even though I knew what answer they wanted.
Well, possibly because it might be healthy to encourage, among prospective naturalizees, an interest in the heritage and history of the state they wish to become citizens of?