Hispanic Fanatic

Just like President Obama, Dick Cheney, and many other Americans, I’ve been thinking a lot about torture lately. I’ve been thinking how bad it is… unless it’s, like, you know, really needed and stuff… to stop bad people… right?

In any case, we’ve all heard the wobbly rationales justifying the waterboarding of terrorists (thanks for making us fall in love with you all over again, Mr. Cheney!). We’ve also heard the yowls of people upset that President Obama won’t release the latest batch of torture pictures. Let’s not go over those issues here.

What interests me – the guy who deals with Latino issues – is how this latest debate over illegal activity relates to immigration.

You see, conservatives who want to arrest every undocumented worker in sight often make the following argument: “They broke the law, so they can’t be integrated into American society. That would be rewarding illegal behavior. It’s the principle of law and order.”

Of course, I’m sure these statements are uttered only by virtuous souls who never steal office supplies, cheat on their taxes, or speed on the freeway (that would be illegal!).

The implication is that many Americans would be only too happy to accept millions of Mexicans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and so on – if only the newcomers followed the rules.

“I’m most dreadfully sorry,” the right-winger says. “But you didn’t fill out the correct paperwork and stand in line. So I’m going to have to demonize you, force you into the shadows, and kick you out of the country if I can. It’s the law, you know.”

Now, as I’ve stated before, I’m not in favor of throwing open the border and letting anyone who’s interested just climb aboard. Having millions of undocumented workers in the country is not good for the nation or for them. Furthermore, immigration reform will require a combination of liberal and conservative ideas to pull off.

But let’s stop with the self-righteousness.

For many Americans, this isn’t about respecting the law. This isn’t some principled stance for fairness.

It’s about lots of dark-skinned people speaking a funny language while crowding them at the grocery store.

The irony bludgeons me. Many conservative commentators identify jumping a fence as a heinous crime that must be punished. We can’t talk about issuing amnesty or making the undocumented pay a penalty or taking a creative approach to the problem. It’s zero-tolerance time.

However, many of these same commentators – in a truly astounding display of having it both ways – then turn around and say, “But torturing someone until they talk, that’s ok. Sometimes, you have to break the law, you know.”

Yes, there is a difference. For starters, crossing into America illegally is a federal offense. Torturing someone, however, is against the laws of the nation, prohibited by the Constitution, banned under international treaties, forbidden under the rules of war, and both ethically and morally repugnant.

So it’s clear which one is worse. Hey, it’s right there in the term: illegal immigrant.

Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post (“Is Anyone Surprised?”). I appreciate the insights from Xey, Pprscribe, and Haysoos. Also, thanks to Jeremy for the support and Macon D for the tidbit that, despite his disclaimer, I did not actually know (he gives me too much credit).

But if the right wing’s reaction to the swine-flu outbreak was a depressing example of the disgust that many Americans hold for Latinos, what are we to make of the news out of Pennsylvania?

Last week, a jury in that state acquitted two teenagers of beating a man to death in a street brawl. The case apparently had too many contradictory versions of the truth, with multiple witnesses unable to clarify who did what to whom and why. The bottom line is that the teens were convicted of lesser charges and will more or less go on with their lives.

What has caught the eye of Hispanics and people interested in civil rights is that the town where the crime took place, Shenandoah, has a history of racial tension. The victim, Luis Ramirez, was a Mexican immigrant. The teens, as well as the other kids who earlier pled guilty to lesser charges, were white. They jury was all white.

It is impossible to escape the perception, therefore, that a mob of angry whites can beat a Latino to death right in the street without fear of being punished. Of course, those of us who weren’t at the trail (like me) can’t definitively say that this is a miscarriage of justice. But at the risk of getting all knee-jerky, I have to say that it appears highly suspicious.

Lawyers for the teens admitted that the kids were drunk and got into a fight with Ramirez, who was apparently walking down the street, minding his own business. Prosecutors said that the teens flung racial epithets at Ramirez, then followed up with kicks and punches.

The result was that Ramirez ended up with his brain leaking out of his head, and he died two days later. For no one to be seriously punished over such a crime can only mean one of two things:

• A Latino man living in an economically depressed small town, where racial issues have flared in the past, inexplicably provoked a group of drunk white males to fight him. They had no choice but to defend themselves by kicking him in the head repeatedly. Or
• It’s ok to bludgeon an immigrant to death.

The verdict would actually make more sense if the teens had been acquitted of all charges. In that case, the implication is that the boys had nothing to do with the fight or Ramirez’s death. Instead, by convicting them of a lesser charge (simple assault), the jury basically said, “Yeah, you walloped the guy, and he died, but we don’t think you should do time. It’s not like he was anybody important.”

The Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund is pressuring the Department of Justice to file federal charges against the teens. This, as you may recall, was the route that civil-rights groups took after the cops were acquitted in the Rodney King case.

Regardless of how it turns out this time, there is one big difference between the cases. Rodney King is still alive, and Luis Ramirez is not.

I’m going to take a break from obsessing about myself (see my earlier posts) to look at the outside world. Two recent developments have proven that the Obama administration is serious about Latino issues. I never doubted the president’s sincerity or commitment, but I had gone on record as saying that Hispanic concerns would take a backseat in the early days of his administration.

I may – and this is as disturbing for me to write as it is for you to read – have been wrong. Furthermore, the president’s recent decisions have implications far beyond the interests of the Hispanic community. They potentially reveal the man for who he is and give some insight into what kind of leader he will be.

First, there is the news that Obama will press for immigration reform this year, which would fulfill a promise he made while campaigning for (and overwhelmingly winning) Hispanic votes. The president’s plan is vague at this point, and it reportedly involves the usual goals of increasing border security and convincing Mexico to hold on to their own people. The big-ticket item, of course, is the proposal to give the 12 million immigrants who already live in America some pathway to citizenship.

Yes, it’s the return of the dreaded “amnesty” provision.

I have, along with every other Latino writer, discussed this topic before, so I won’t rehash the arguments in depth. Suffice to say that conservatives believe that legalizing these workers is a slap in the face of law and order, and a surefire path to economic collapse.

The fairness issue can be debated, although let’s be blunt in pointing out that many of the people screaming about justice are actually just pissed that they had to endure overhearing Spanish in the grocery store. There’s nothing principled about their fear or hatred.

As for economic issues, I have a hard time understanding how more American jobs are going to be lost to people who supposedly have already stolen them. In fact, as columnist Ruben Navarrette has stated, a case could be made that “to help U.S. workers, we need to get the illegal immigrants legal and force employers to pay all workers higher wages and stop playing one group of workers off another.”

In any case, GOP members are hardly the people to lecture anyone on what’s good for the economy… I will refrain from additional cheap shots.

The second announcement from the Obama administration that got my attention was about Cuba. The president intends to make it easier for Cuban Americans to travel to the island and to send remittances. This decision – announced during what was apparently the first bilingual White House press conference – is a welcome first step in ending the arbitrary and counterproductive policy we’ve long held toward that country.

As usual, right-wingers are screaming about going soft on communism, as if our approach had done anything to bring democracy to Cuba. After all, it’s been a half-century or so; when can we expect to see results?

In addition, it wasn’t like the travel restrictions made any sense. Under the guise of getting tough on Castro, immigrants who live in Florida could rarely, if ever, visit their families. But over the years, multiple delegations of governors, members of Congress, and businesspeople were routinely allowed to land on the island. They would talk about trade issues with Cuban officials, all while saying, “We don’t officially recognize you, now please pass some of that kick-ass rum you guys make.” Basically, as long as the potential to make money was involved, we put a hold on our principled stand against oppression.

Obama’s decision will, in all likelihood, make it easier for immigrants to see their families, and perhaps it will be a catalyst for much-needed change. After all, a massive 71 percent of Americans support normalizing relations with Cuba. It’s difficult to get that many Americans to agree about anything, except maybe that Scrubs is long past being funny.

Perhaps the change is due to a lot of younger Americans wondering why we have normal relations with Vietnam, where 50,000 of our soldiers died, while we continue some absurd policy toward a tiny island run by a faded revolutionary on the verge of death. Maybe we’re finally ready to drop all the Cold War posturing.

Regardless of how these two proposals turn out, it is reassuring that Obama hasn’t forgotten how millions of Latinos set high expectations for his administration. Furthermore, it’s now clear that he didn’t just toss around promises like confetti in the hopes of garnering votes. The president is tackling controversial issues when he has more than enough drama to occupy him.

Few would criticize Obama if he took a temporary pass on hot-button social problems to focus on minor inconveniences (such as a faltering economy or a couple of wars). Indeed, many commentators expected him to do just that, and Republicans are delighted to lambast him for “trying to do too much,” especially when his decisions supposedly affect a small percentage of Americans.

But this is the crucial point. Obama can apparently see how disparate problems – such as immigration reform – tie into larger issues, like how our economy functions. It’s promising that he understands that concepts interlock and feed off one another, and necessitate a big-picture approach. He is thus far removed from someone who skips the analysis and goes with his gut (a “decider,” if you will). A person like that usually obsesses on a few basic agenda items, then becomes flummoxed when myriad “unforeseen” disasters occur and snowball. With hope, that will not happen to Obama.

In addition, and perhaps more important, these recent developments indicate that Obama is willing to fight, even when it would be politically easier to skip the tough battles. If that’s true, these decisions are not about kissing up to a key constituency. They are about improving a tattered nation.

And that, of course, is good news for the entire country.

We’ve never been more obsessed with bottoming out.

Every day brings a fresh prayer that the economy has gotten has bad as its going to get – not only for this recession but for the rest of our lives – and a fervent, dry-mouthed wish that tomorrow will see prosperity’s inevitable return. But so far, all that praying has been as useful as a cowboy hat on a toad (as my father-in-law would say).

The gasping economy has hit Latinos particularly hard. Up until a few months ago, we Hispanics had been making great strides toward economic equality. The day when Latinos were no longer assumed to be members of the lower class was fast approaching. But then the chasm opened up on the capitalist freeway, and Latinos hit the brakes with both feet.

Currently, we’re more likely than any other group to lose our homes, and we’re more likely than most to be unemployed. Hispanic Business reports that “by the end of 2008 the general Hispanic jobless rate had spiked at 9.2 percent, almost 2 percent higher than the rate for the entire U.S. population.” The overall rate is now closing in on 9%, and one presumes that Latinos will continue to lead the dismal pack. Hispanic males, in particular, are stuck with an ungodly 11% unemployment rate.

Furthermore, the Pew Hispanic Center notes that “76% of Latinos, and 84% of foreign-born Latinos, say their current personal finances are in either fair or poor shape, while 63% of the general U.S. population says the same.”

So as bad as it is for America right now, it’s even worse for Latinos. And as I indicated in a previous post, there’s the extra indignity that Hispanics are subtly being blamed for this mess. 

Many discussions of the subprime mortgage fiasco – the catalyst for this chaos – include the insinuation that too many Hispanics bought too many houses that they couldn’t afford.

Of course, many Americans will be delighted that our anorexic economy has stemmed the flow of illegal immigrants. After all, given the choice between being poor in their native country or being poor in the United States, a lot of potential immigrants will skip the border crossing and opt for poverty at home. Hell, many immigrants are actually moving back, which might cause some conservatives to rejoice, even as a dark thought crosses the right-wing mind: The USA is simply not so attractive anymore. 

So is there any good news in this flood of pessimism? Well, some reports indicate that the group hitting bottom the quickest may be the very same one that jumpstarts the economy. Yes, Latinos are the potential salvation to this financial cataclysm.

A remarkably optimistic article from MSNBC claims that Hispanics “remain a thriving, even booming, market that’s expected to grow by 48 percent in the next four years.”

The report goes on the say that “marketers now see that the Hispanic market in the U.S. is a great business opportunity” and that “businesses and cultural institutions… are chasing Hispanics aggressively, because that’s where the money is.” Hispanic Business adds that “Hispanics will likely supply valuable labor and sustain the U.S. economy far into the 21st century.”

Well, that’s more like it.

There are several reasons for our newfound clout. For starters, we tend to be younger than other demographics and thus eager to spend money on fun non-essentials such as downloading ringtones or hitting the movies. Another reason is that the strong focus on the family (Latinos tend to have more children) means that we’re signing more credit-card receipts for baby carseats and the like. Finally, there are just a whole bunch of us, and as I’m sure you know, we’re now the largest minority in America.

We Latinos apparently sense our potential for helping out the nation. The Pew Hispanic Center reports that, despite the fact that the economic disaster has hit us harder, “Latinos are more optimistic than others about the future: 67% expect that their financial circumstances will improve over the next year; just 56% of the general population feels the same way.”

Perhaps our optimism comes from the same drive that fuels so many of us to take a chance on a new life in a new country. Maybe the traditionally strong spiritual base that many of us possess helps to guide us through troubled times. Or maybe we’re just used to having less and don’t get worried about losing things. In any case, we seem poised to stimulate the economy.

If that’s true, however, what is a social conservative to do? Latinos have been attacked as scourges on the economy for so long that it’s cultural whiplash to claim that now America really, really, really needs us. The irony is rich, even if the country is not.

As a result of this new status, perhaps young Latinos wandering around stores will no longer be tailed by suspicious proprietors who assume that any group of Hispanics are there to empty the cash register and pistol-whip the owner. Maybe these young  people will be recognized for who there are and what they represent: the very salvation of the global economy.

That would be so damn cool.

Spring is officially here. It arrived at 8:44 am (CST) on March 20.

But for those of us who live in this snowy Northern city that I call home, winter may not end for another month, when we’ll finally venture outside sans parkas for the first time in a half-year or so.

As I’ve mentioned before, when I was a kid growing up in the Midwest, I was among the few Latinos in a sea of husky blonde children with German and Scandinavian last names. Their ancestors had become impervious to the cold. Indeed, they developed a bizarre affection and even love for the arctic blasts and bone-chilling frost and icy pain that their homelands offered. And they brought this sick predilection with them when they emigrated to America, often passing it along to their children.

This was not the case with my ancestors. They came from tropical climates where people only felt chilled if they had developed some horrific disease brought on by rainforest insects chomping on them. Otherwise, it was constantly sweltering, and they built up little immunity for the chest-bursting cold that is so common in my home state.

My ancestors rarely experienced anything below freezing, while I consider such temperatures to be a comfortable day. And yet I live here by choice. Perhaps it’s all been an elaborate hoax.

I believe that I was scammed as a child into thinking that the climate isn’t so bad. I heard the constant refrain of older citizens (usually the aforementioned ninth-generation Germans and Scandinavians) that the harsh weather “builds character.”

Perhaps there is some truth to this. My time living in sunny California convinced me that people who grow up in gorgeous environments often become pampered, shallow adults. Then again, it’s LA I’m talking about, so perhaps it’s not the best control group.

But even if it is true that the bitter cold “builds character,” let’s be clear about one thing: At a certain point in the winter, and definitely at a certain point in one’s life, you’ve gained all the character you ever will through subzero wind chills. The rest is just punishment or the delusion that we like this or the futile hope that we will become better people because of it. There is little, if any Zen insight to be gained from shoveling snow. In fact, that shoveling is more likely to provoke a heart attack than conjure “character.”

So maybe I’ve never fully adapted to the cold. Maybe it takes more than a few dozen winters to be at peace with the ice and snow.

But then I think of the remarkable determination and resiliency that Latinos have shown over the generations. Certainly, we can adapt to any conditions, persevere over any situation, and succeed in any environment.

Yes, all that is true.

But it’s also true that winter really fucking sucks.

As some commentators have noted, the election of Barack Obama has forced Europe to address one of its uncomfortable contradictions. This most progressive of continents has a reputation for being more enlightened than America. Indeed, their health-care policies, attitude toward gays, and work-life balance far exceed our stumbling, nineteenth-century approaches. In comparison to them, we look – and often feel – like beer-swilling cretins who fire shotguns at random while cursing out fancy book learnin’.

But there is one area where Europe can only gaze upon us in wonder. Believe it or not, we do a better job at integrating immigrants, promoting assimilation, and addressing racism than they do. Yes, even with all the screaming about Mexicans taking our jobs and Laotians refusing to learn English and Somalis creating their own ethnic enclaves and what have you, we’re far ahead of our European counterparts.

For starters, we have just elected a new leader who happens to be a biracial man whose father was an immigrant. I don’t see anything similar happening soon in Great Britain or Denmark. In fact, xenophobia is on the rise in Europe.

Or look at France’s National Assembly, which is the rough equivalent of our U.S. House of Representatives. Of its 577 members, only one is a minority. In contrast, of our 535 members of Congress, 75 are minorities (and 27 of those are Hispanics, thank you very much).

That’s just looking at the political breakdown of our leadership. There are other ways in which it is better to be a dark hue in America than it is in Austria, even though it’s clear that we have acres of room for improvement. Still, we’re farther along the path than many other nations are, and one factor for this headstart may be because of our view of immigration.

The writer Naomi Wolf points out several reasons why immigrants strive for a U.S. address, and why they tend to like it better here than in Europe.

First, Wolf points out that our national story is different. With the exception of Native Americans, we all came from somewhere else. To quote “Stripes” and the esteemed philosopher Bill Murray, our ancestors were “kicked out of every decent country in the world” (Ms. Wolf does not employ this reference).

Also, the values of immigration are admired – or at least the initiative and ambition of old-time Ellis Island immigrants are – while in Europe, immigrants are viewed with almost universal disdain. In addition, everyone gets to be hyphenated once he or she gets here (e.g., African American, Italian American, Asian American). See if you can find someone who considers himself a “Turkish German.”

Wolf also points that we emphasize values that everyone (in theory) can share, instead of focusing on a lineage of great kings or the specifics of a tiny geographical area, like they do in Europe. Finally, she stresses how the separation of church and state is vital to preventing a xenophobic culture, which is a point I’ve made several times in these posts.

Obviously, there are also geographical reasons why so many people from Latin America come here. There will never be an influx of Hondurans to, say, Belgium. But I imagine that if most of those Guatemalans who risk it all to emigrate could chose any nation on Earth, they would still look north first.

Despite the enormous obstacles that newcomers face here – some legal and necessary, others cultural and ugly – it’s better to be an immigrant in America than anywhere else. And it’s not just because we’re, you know, America – where everyone has nine iPods and drives hot cars and watches 188 channels of pornography and indulges in freedoms that terrorists apparently hate.

Really, you can have a good quality of life in Spain or Greece. But it would suck to start at the bottom in any of those countries, because that’s where you, your children, and probably your grandchildren will remain. That is often the case here, of course. But we at least offer the hope of progress, and as I can vouch from first-hand experience, one successful immigrant can create a situation where an entire family can thrive.

Is essence, perhaps the main reason America has always been a nation of immigrants is simple.

American is not race or an ethnicity. It is a nationality. More than that, it’s an idea.

Many Americans take great satisfaction, sometimes bordering on maniacal pride, in claiming that their European ancestors came here and learned English quickly. According to some, these immigrants’ boots were still wet from the spray of the Atlantic when they ditched German, Swedish, or Dutch. The thinking is that European immigrants rapidly mastered English in a sink-or-swim environment that demanded that they leave their mother tongues behind. The follow-up to this assertion is inevitably, “Why can’t Latin American immigrants do the same and learn English quickly?”

It’s a fair question. There’s just one problem. The central thesis – that European immigrants swiftly adopted English – may be wrong.

Two researchers at the University of Wisconsin – Madison have published a study showing that America has a long history of (dare I say it?) multiculturalism. The researchers are Joseph Salmons, a German professor, and Miranda Wilkerson, a Ph.D. graduate in German.

Their study shows that until the late nineteenth century, and even into the early twentieth century, many German immigrants to that fine state still had not mastered English.

Germans made up that era’s largest immigration wave to Wisconsin, which is the chief reason that the researchers focused on them. The researchers add, however, that another factor for this emphasis was because the Germans “really fit this classic view of the ‘good old immigrants’ of the nineteenth century.”

The researchers plowed through census data, court information, school records, newspapers, and all the other minutia that academics salivate over. When they were done, they had a linguistic record of German immigration to Wisconsin from the 1830s to the 1930s.

Their conclusion was that many immigrants felt no need to learn English at all, much less quickly, and that some of them, in the words of the researchers, “appeared to live and thrive for decades while speaking exclusively German.”

In fact, as late as 1910 – decades after the initial wave of European immigration – German speakers still accounted for more than 20% of the population in several Wisconsin counties. Some second- and even third-generation residents (yes, even many born and raised in the United States) still spoke only German as adults.

The researchers point out that “after fifty or more years of living in the United States, many speakers in some communities remained monolingual.” The researchers added that “this finding provides striking counterevidence to the claim that early immigrants learned English quickly.”

So apparently, whole swaths of America’s heartland were overrun by people speaking devil languages (i.e., all languages except English) for decades. This is not exactly the instantaneous assimilation that we have been led to believe took place.

By the way, my lovely wife is descended from German immigrants, so I’m not exhibiting anti-Prussian bias or indulging in Bavarian bashing. My point is that Hispanic immigrants are constantly told that they’re not as bright or as determined as European immigrants who mastered English in a week, tops. The additional implication is that speaking Spanish is – if not illegal – certainly an affront to American values.

The irony is certainly powerful. Right wingers claim that their ancestors needed to learn English quickly to survive, and that modern immigrants have been coddled and refuse to adapt. However, the reverse may actually be true: European immigrants could keep speaking their original languages with few negative effects, but contemporary immigrants are economically screwed if they don’t pick up the local dialect as soon as possible.

According to the researchers, many of those hard-working Gunthers and Schultzes of the past were “committed Americans. They participated in politics, in the economy, and were leaders in their churches and their schools. They just happened not to conduct much of their life in English…. There was no huge pressure to change.” Speaking only German “did not act as a barrier to opportunity in the work force.”

It’s a different story today. People who come to America and don’t learn English are doomed to perpetual lower-class status. Certainly, every effort should be made to ensure that residents get a grasp of English as soon as possible. I would argue, however, that insulting contemporary immigrants, indulging in fear mongering by claiming they won’t learn, and mythologizing a past that may not have existed are not the most effective ways to do this.

By the way, if it worries you that a church in your neighborhood has occasional services in Spanish, take another look at Salmons and Wilkins’ study. There, you can find out about the Lutheran Church in Wisconsin that, after much debate, added services in English.

They did it in1929.

Latinos are still coming down off our post-election high. After all, the mainstream media anointed us a crucial voting block in President-elect Obama’s victory.

Well, the good news keeps flooding in. As evidence of our newfound clout, we can now say that we’re number one in a very important sociological category:

Hispanics are officially the top victims of hate crimes that are “motivated by ethnicity or national origin,” as the FBI puts it.

Thank you. We couldn’t have done it without you… well, not you, per se. But we couldn’t have done it without that small percentage of racial supremacists out there (which is most certainly not you, otherwise you would not be reading this).

Just how overwhelming is the Latino presence on the hate-crime index? According to the FBI, Hispanics made up almost two-thirds (61.6 percent) of victims in this category – so in your face, Asian Americans!

Now the first disclaimer to this enlightening statistic is that blacks are still number one in the racial category – remember, race and ethnicity are often two different things. Also, the statistics only cover through 2007, so it’s possible that some other ethnic group has surpassed us as objections of scorn in the last year.

But I doubt it.

Recently, we heard about a group of teenage boys in upstate New York who, according to police, wanted “to find Latinos and to assault them. They were actively seeking victims.” The guys succeeded, killing an Ecuadorian immigrant who made the mistake of walking down their side of the street. At a court hearing for the lynch mob, a prosecutor quoted the leader of the thugs as saying, “Let’s go find some Mexicans to fuck up.”

This apparently is a worthwhile goal in some parts of America.

One might ask why there is so much hatred of Hispanics. I don’t know… maybe it has something to do with the psychotic level of rage focused on Latino immigrants, most of which has a basis in xenophobic fears that have been jacked up by demagogues looking to score cheap political points.

Actually, I’m sure that’s all just a coincidence.

Regardless, I’m surprised that we’re still the favorites. In this post-9/11 world, I thought Middle Easterners were the primary objects of fear and loathing. But it wasn’t a very long ride at the top for the Abduls and Muhammads of America.

Irrational fears that every Muslim is a terrorist have been supplanted in these tough economic times. Now we’re back to the irrational fear that a Latino is going to steal your job.

It proves that in dark days, some Americans find comfort in returning to the classics.

First, thanks to Gigi for her passionate comment on my post “Dogma Vs. Cheese.”

Second, let me return to the subject of my previous post, in which I advocated for amending the U.S. Constitution. I argued that being born in America should not be sufficient for citizenship. My idea is that people who want to be citizens should have to pass a test, just like naturalized immigrants do. One’s birthplace or family history would have nothing to do with it.

The piece was also published on the Huffington Post. There, I received dozens of comments, ranging from the thoughtful to the shrill. Joining the fray were conservatives who thought I was joking and liberals who said I supported literacy tests for voting. Because I pissed off individuals across the political spectrum, I figure that I must be on to something.

As an addendum to that post, let me point out that the U.S. government has recently reformatted the citizenship test. Now it’s less of a hodgepodge of rote and trivial questions, such as “How many stars are on the flag?”

There’s more of an emphasis on content, with questions like “What is one responsibility that is only for United States citizens?” In essence, you have to think a little more now.

It’s impossible to know how effective the test is unless one actually takes it. And nobody is going to devote the time, money, and stress to do that unless they absolutely have to. But there are a number of online study guides that give us a taste of what immigrants have to master.

For example, here’s the government’s official guidance on becoming an American.

Sadly, it doesn’t include tips on maintaining a hostile relationship with your next-door neighbor, or which flatscreen television you should buy that you can’t possibly afford. Clearly, there are some all-American concepts that immigrants will just have to learn on their own.

But my main argument stands: Immigrants have to learn about our country and prove their worthiness to stay, so we native-born citizens should have to as well.

In any case, if you’re so smart and bursting with patriotic vigor, let’s see how you would do on the new citizenship exam. Here’s a sample of the test.

Give it a shot, and try to imagine that your entire future rests on how well you perform on this exam.

You don’t have to tell me your score. 

First, let me thank Evenshine for his/her thoughtful reply to my post “Dogma Vs. Cheese.” 

Second, let me give thanks in general that this election season is almost over.

One of the odder moments in this incessant campaign was when John McCain’s status as a real American became a question. I don’t mean that anyone doubted his patriotism or citizenship or anything like that. I’m referring to the skepticism expressed over whether his birthplace (a military base in the Panama Canal zone) fulfills the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that the president be a “natural-born citizen.”

It would indeed be a soul-crusher for Republicans if the guy pulls an upset in November, only to be ruled ineligible come Inauguration Day. Either scenario, by the way, is highly unlikely.

In any case, conservatives want to change the Constitution (that non-living document) by adding the “Schwarzenegger amendment,” so that any naturalized citizen can become president. But while they’re at it, they also want to amend the Constitution so that being born in America is not sufficient for citizenship.

The thinking here is that too many pregnant Hispanic women are dragging their huge bellies across the border, just so they can spit out a little nino or nina on U.S. soil. Doing so, of course, ensures American citizenship for their offspring.

I happen to agree with these proposed changes, especially amending the Constitution so that people born in America are not automatically made U.S. citizens. In fact, my compliant with this proposal is not that it is unfair or radical, but that it doesn’t go far enough.

So if we’re going to do this, let’s do it correctly:

Amend the Constitution so that no one can become a citizen until he/she passes a basic test. I mean nobody gets citizenship by virtue of where they’re born or their parents’ status. Everybody has to earn it.

This is where most conservatives pull back. They just want Diego and Maria denied rights because their parents don’t speak English. They certainly aren’t talking about limiting the status of their own ninth-generation offspring.

It’s not just selfishness. We have this mindset that people whose roots go back farther are better Americans. But individuals whose ancestors fought at Valley Forge are not inherently more patriotic than immigrants. In fact, I would argue that people who spend time, money, and effort to study our culture – then prove they know what they’re talking about – are more committed to, and knowledgeable about our nation than the millions of Americans who slept though high school history.

To be fair, I have a bias. Several members of my family have had to pass the test. I was born here, so I didn’t have to put myself on the line. But my mother, aunt, and several cousins have had to step up and say, “Hell yeah, I had to work for this.” And don’t we always appreciate things that we have earned more than gifts that are just handed to us?

And what’s so intimidating about a basic test, anyway? I’m not talking about forcing people to answer questions like “Explain U.S. monetary policy on a macroeconomic level.” The citizenship test, as I understand it, asks people things like “Why do some states have more representatives in Congress?” I find it difficult to believe that this is a harmful thing for citizens to know.

If we had informed citizens – people who really strived to be active members of this country – maybe America wouldn’t elect leaders based on how cute they are or, Lord help us, whether the majority wanted to have an imaginary beer with them.

An objection to this idea is the status of children. Are we to educate every child with the knowledge that come adulthood, many of them will be, at best, legal residents and never become citizens? Well, that’s hardly scary, because we do that now. Furthermore, I would argue for the intrinsic benefit of putting all kids on an even playing field – one where every child is a future potential president –rather than subdividing children into “natural-born citizens” and interlopers.

So what are the objections to this idea? Are they based on the principles of fairness and history, on the norms of our culture? Or perhaps we react negatively because of fear, the itchy suspicion that many of us have no idea what all those stars and stripes on the flag actually symbolize.