CRITERION FOR CITIZENSHIP AND NATURALIZATION

by
Jonah Alexander Preising
Validity in language testing is defined as to what extent something is justified (Youns
SLS 490, January 13th lecture, 2012). Validity is also determined by the measure construct, how
its content is meaningful within the context of the learners schema e.g., the learner's world as
they know it what they have to do to get things done. Within this paper, I'll be examining these
validity thresholds within the context of the high-stakes endeavor for attaining United States
citizenship and naturalization at different stages of the process.
It should be noted that the term "citizenship test" is defined by the USCIS (United States
Citizenship and Immigration Services) as being composed of two part when used for identifying
pass fail rates: English (reading, writing, and speaking) and US history and government, which is
referred to as "civics." There exists no one written test for attaining citizenship and is delivered
orally within the confines of the naturalization interview interaction. Within this paper, I would
like to justify that each stage requires a certain set of executive skills and would rather describe it
more as a series of constrained events that must properly unfold for each applicant by going first
through the process of attaining legal resident status (green card) and cannot be fully defined due
to page count limitations and will focus on the naturalization process. After any applicant has
been living legally in the United States for at least five years (three years, if married to a US
citizen), they may apply for naturalization. The applicant must be at least 18 years old, be a
person of good moral character (not a criminal), have a basic knowledge of the United States
history and government, and be able to read, write and speak Basic English. In some cases,

applicants may receive an exemption from the English language requirements which is available
to those who are over 55 years old and lived in the United States as a legal permanent resident
for 15 years or are over 50 years old, and have lived in the states as a legal permanent resident
for 20 years. Exemptions also exist if the applicant has a permanent physical or mental
impairment that makes the individual unable to fill these requirements (USCIS, 2012).
The next stage occurs when filling out the N400 form for naturalization. The individual
must answer a myriad of personal questions about themselves and their family or even that of
their spouses marital history e.g., how many annulled marriages has your spouse had in the
past? How many children have you had? Applicants must know all the ins and outs of their
finances, their detailed work history, past affiliations, e.g. Have you ever been a member of the
Communist Party, a totalitarian party, or a terrorist organization? Have you ever persecuted
anyone? Have you ever been a member of any clubs, organizations? There are even more deeply
personal, possibly embarrassing questions that could have serious legal consequences if affirmed
correctly or even incorrectly e.g., have you ever been a habitual drunkard? Have you ever been
involved in prostitution or helped others procure the services of a prostitute? Have you ever
represented yourself as a US citizen or voted in a US election? The applicants must pay a noncash fee, and supply two passport style photographs. Finally they must ascribe their signature to
this document and affirm under perjury and penalty of law that what they have provided is to the
best of their ability, the complete truth.

After the N400 application has been received and reviewed by USSIC, the applicant is
notified to report for biometrics (fingerprinting).They are directed to a fingerprinting facility

where they will have their prints taken and if needed, they are directed to include additional
documents by mail if the USCIS so requests. The applicant must then wait until they receive
official notice letter as to the date, time, and location in which they are to appear for their
naturalization interview.
Once applicants are permitted into the "getting interviewed" naturalization portion of the
process. They are notified in advance to bring state their issued identification, Permanent
Resident Card, and any additional documents that might be specific to their case with them when
reporting to the USCIS offices location. First, an assessor/interviewer attempts to clarify any
issues or inconsistencies that were raised in the background check process or from the initial
information provided within the N400 form. The assessor/interviewer verbally reviews every
single aspect of the N400 form for accuracy with the applicant. The interviewer will then ask an
unspecified number of test questions (usually around 10) from the USCIS websites 100
Question Test Study Guide on US history and civics and concurrently gauges the applicants
corresponding depth and breadth of knowledge. After these tasks have been completed, the
interviewer/assessor moves on to the "case update" stage and either recommends the applicant
proceeding successfully on to the oath portion of the citizenship process once administrative
review approves the assessor/interviewer orders recommendation, or the assessor/interviewer
informs the applicant that they will schedule them another naturalization interview in the future
and provide with detailed recommendations as to which areas the applicant should focus
improving upon, i.e., English proficiency in speaking, reading , writing, or possibly their depth
and breadth of knowledge about United States history or civics (USCIS, 2012).

If the applicant is successful, they will receive an official letter notifying them of their
oath ceremony date, time, and place. After checking in at the USCIS offices on the date
specified, the applicants must surrender their Permanent Resident Card. After being sworn in, the
applicant must answer all questions about their activities, and what they have done since their
naturalization interview. After that, the applicant says their oath of allegiance where they
disavow any political affiliations with foreign state agencies or princely pontiffs; they can finally
receive their certificate of naturalization, and become a United States citizen.
According to the Records Study of the Naturalization Test Records for Comparison
Report (ICF International , 2011) seen in Table one below, during the fiscal year 2003- 2004, the
pass rate for males came in at 88.7% and for females at 86.0%. During the fiscal year 2008, those
rates were at 94.4% and 93.4% respectively.

As of 2011, the USCIS offices reported that a total average of 93% of applicants have
passed the naturalization test, with an average of 5.1 months naturalization processing time. The
USCIS website states that they make efforts to improve upon the test regularly and speak of their
latest improvements in no uncertain terms, "The new tests content emphasizes the founding
principles of American democracy and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, while also

serving as an important instrument to encourage Civic learning and attachment to the country."
When looking at the demographic of those aged 65 or older in Table 2 below, overall
improvement has shown substantial gains considering a low of 53.1% pass success rate in fiscal
year 2003-2004 and was nearly a full 20 points lower than their closest age demographic of 6450
who came in at 74.5% pass. By the fiscal year 2010, the 65 or older demographic had a markedly
improved rate of 83.2% pass and trailed only six percentage points behind their 15 to 64 age
group who came in at 89.4%.

The key question I ask myself as a researcher is: what can be done to improve these
numbers? Is the pass success rate for the SHINE project's elder clientele representative of that
statistical data indicating the lowest scores in the available pass/fail data provided by the ICF and
the USCIS? From my personal experience, every single one of the elders had pending

naturalization interviews new more about US history and civics than most of the tutors that
showed up on my first day of orientation. Could this difference in statistics be represented by
factors other than those presumed from ageism?
Shohamy and Mcnamaras 2009 article entitled "Language Tests for Citizenship,
Immigration, and Asylum points out the governments position of power in establishing criteria
by implementing policies that require the immigrants not only having to pass a language test in
speaking, writing, and reading, but also the applicants must demonstrate a poorly defined
threshold of knowledge of American culture, history, and civics (Mcnamara, 2009).
Nick Saville's 2009 article entitled "Language Assessment and Management of
International Migration: A Framework for Considering the Issues offers the need for applied
linguists and language testers to contribute the relevant linguistic and assessment considerations
that need to be made when developing frameworks to identify the "migrants journey" and how to
identify all of the various participants so that they can be brought together to make an accurate
assessment of how the needs of citizens of seekers can be met, and thus make the process more
equitable and fair (Saville, 2009).
Kees De Bots (2005) book entitled "Language and Aging in Multilingual Contexts,"
looked specifically at the effects of aging and education on narrative complexity in older Chinese
in the USA. The longitudinal design of this aging study rested on each surviving subject in 18
and 36 month intervals and factors like health and cognitive status were taken into consideration.
He also explored issues that assessed subject matter, formal language tasks, naming, narratives,
and interactional data. He notes in chapter 3, on language and communication with elderly that
how elders are spoken to in a meaningful interaction in a positive or negative way and has

psycholinguistic effects on language skills. From this sociolinguistic point of view, Bot cites
Couplands research that states that it's entirely because they've been able to study this type of
language that they have been able to capture how language mediates perception of the lifespan
and how intergenerational talk can be "organized interactively and how life development rituals
are marked and achieved linguistically, how peoples personal identities are discursively
negotiated and how criteria of age appropriateness are invoked in a host of communicative
settings. In short, the learning outcomes may be more closely linked when considering
interaction and respect given by all participants in negotiated membership classifications, which
is most notably explicated through use CA (conversation analysis), IS (interactional
sociolinguistics), and pragmatics.
Eugena Wang's 2011 needs analysis for Students Helping the Naturalization of Elders
(SHINE) recommended further focus on volunteer tutor preparation and development. The
author suggested that future investigation should include different perceptions and needs
between the program's coordinators, tutors, and learners, to have a better and more complete
picture of the naturalization education in Hawaii. She goes further when she says that the tutors
should experience filling out the N400 form with father tutors and the able to answer all 100
citizenship questions with 90% accuracy (Wang, 2011).
I believe that the existing data on the elderly and cognition may hold insights that can be
applied to this papers specific demographic. I also believe that too many presumptions exist
when considering the elderly and an explicit testing assessment measures to be employed by
tutors. I also believe that certain sociolinguistic frameworks like CA and IS can play a critical
role in improving the success and minimizing failure for these citizenship candidates. Because
the SHINE program is primarily student-volunteer driven, the citizenship candidates must

depend on these crucial language acquisition interactions in order to make marked progress in
their ESL proficiency. It is because these interactional opportunities for ESL use are often
limited, that I suggest further microanalysis of tutor/student interactions in developing criteria
that possibility exists for a custom fit" ESL materials development software that specifically
uses a sociolinguistic and sociocultural approach when determining lesson content and context. I
feel that this may be a key missing ingredient in developing age/culture-appropriate ESL selfstudy materials. The materials that exist currently are usually hand-me-downs from other
language programs that were designed for younger learners and with embedded contexts that
bear little resemblance to the reality of these elderly learners in Chinatown-Honolulu, Hawaii.
Finally, as a language instructor/researcher, I must conclude by asking myself as to what
specific assessment constructs exist for these learners in their preparatory phases? What type of
preparation materials, do they readily have access to from other programs? What current
frameworks exist that have been designed specifically for assessing the elderly and learning
language? What is being done in terms of testing that can provide meaningful data that can be
used to measure the progress and needs of the learners? Are the specific needs of the elderly
citizenship candidates taken into consideration when developing criteria based testing materials?
Is ageism and aging pathology playing a role in establishing criteria? What is the role of the
language tester and how are they to determine appropriacy?

Prologue

Please view:
"Craig Ferguson Takes U.S. Citizenship Test"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROuyKYF8Yjo

Bibliography
Bot, K. D. (2005). Language and Aging in Multilingual Contexts. Clevedon: Multilingual
Matters.
ICF International . (2011). US Citizenship and Immigration Services Records Study on Pass/Fail
Rates for Naturalization Applicants. Washington DC: DHS, professional, and program
management support services.
Mcnamara, S. a. (2009). "Language Tests for Citizenship, Immigration, and Asylum . Language
Assesment Quarterly Vol 6, 1-5.
Saville, N. (2009). "Language Assessment and Management of International Migration: A
Framework for Considering the Issues. Language Assessment Quarterly, v6 n1 , p17-29.
USCIS. (2012, March). M 476. "A Guide to Naturalization". Washington DC, District of
Columbia, United States.
Wang, E. (2011). A Needs Analysis on Student Helping in Naturalization of Elders (SHINE)
volunteers. Honolulu: UH Manoa.
Feurguson, C. (2009) "Craig Ferguson Takes U.S. Citizenship Test"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROuyKYF8Yjo