quote: People applying for British citizenship will be refused passports if they fail tests in English, politics, history and culture.
In a controversial Home Office plan, 10 free, two-hour language and civic classes will be offered to immigrants. And those failing the tests will not get a British passport or be allowed to vote.
... In the future, would-be citizens will need to be able to hold a conversation and write at least simple sentences in English.
You have to speak and English and know Harry Potter to be a citizen? Is this another example of the snooty Englishmen?
What it means to be English is changing, and the descendant of Saxons and Normans don't seem to be happy about it. This test seems to require that even if you weren't to the manor and the pub born, you must at least act like it. This move also makes Bend It Like Bekham make more sense - the scene where the beautiful, beautiful football coach tells the young Indian lady that he understands racism and prejudice - he's Irish - invoked general laughter in the theatre I attended. However, requiring the knowledge of Harry Potter and the name of the author in order to become English definitely puts a narrow definition of what it means to be English at all.
quote:The tests received widespread criticism.
...
But the Home Office plan was welcomed by former Conservative Party chairman Lord Normal Tebbit, who once said West Indians, Bangladeshis and Indians living permanently in Britain should support the England cricket team whenever it played teams from their own countries.
'The tougher the tests, the better it will be. You shouldn't live in our country if you don't speak our language and read our newspapers,' he said.
Now we know why Draco is blond.
Isn't it funny that the people rejecting the different require knowledge of Harry Potter?
quote:Home Secretary David Blunkett said the exams in 'Britishness' would help fight growing racism in Britain.
'Many white Britons have ill feelings towards people from other countries, because the immigrants are seen to be different,' Mr Blunkett said.
So making the immigrants seem less "different" is going to help the short-sighted bigots be friendlier?
"Oh, I was about to call you a Paki, but you know what a full English breakfast consists of! Sit down for a spot of tea!"
Posts: 99 | Registered: Sep 2003
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BananaOJ, don't feel bad. I thought it was about "The Place" in Key West, and Harry the Parrot. Posts: 1843 | Registered: Aug 2003
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It is nice to discover that ignorant narrow- minded white men in power who want to defend not thier country or its laws but its cultural ethnicity, aren't restricted to the US.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Silly immigration laws like this is basically just shooting yourself in the foot. Generally poor immigrants who don't speak your language well are the ones who do the jobs for a pittance that you don't want to do. Cut off the immigration and you will force price increases on a number of items fairly quickly.
Posts: 4548 | Registered: May 2001
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Oh good heavens - that's the funniest thing I've heard. I should have known there'd be a way to make this America's fault.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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I would have to agree with a law in any country that if you dont know the main language of that country you can't become a citizen. Knowing history and culture comes with time and would not hinder your tasks while in the country, so I think those requirements are somewhat much, but I think that it's a good idea otherwise. It would certainly help a lot with the communication in Dallas area where I am...
Posts: 27 | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote: I would have to agree with a law in any country that if you dont know the main language of that country you can't become a citizen.
How refreshingly narrow-minded. How exactly will everyone speaking the same language make life better?
Posts: 4548 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
BTW, Fluency in both written and spoken english are required to become a naturalized citizen of the US as well. Here are some actual questions from the US citzenship test.
Who said, "Give me liberty or give me death"?
What is the 49th state of the Union (United States)?
Who is the head of your local government?
Who wrote the Star-Spangled Banner?
Who was president during the Civil War?
What is the name of the ship that brought the Pilgrims to America?
In what year was the Constitution written?
How many times may a congressman be reelected?
What do the stars on the flag mean?
Who becomes president of the United States if the president and the vice president should die?
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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I think the language and history/culture test is perfectly reasonable for citizenship (minus the English breakfast question ). It shows that immigrants who pass the test are willing to actually put effort into learning about their new mother country, and you can never go wrong in learning the language of the place where you will live, work, and shop. I think doing it for passports is a little extreme, though.
It's just a bit sad that a lot of Americans probably wouldn't pass the US citizenship test if they took it.
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If an immigrant doesn't know any english whatsoever, how on earth can they get a job ? They can't, therefore they're forced to live on benefits (if they can even puzzle out how to sign on, without understanding the language the forms are written in). Thus they end up costing the state money. Obviously, in an ideal world, we'd be able to take in everyone, but until our government becomes a lot wealthier than it is currently, it cannot afford to be a charity.
I'm not advocating necessarily that every immigrant comes in knowing the language, perhaps we could say people coming in alone, or the main breadwinner in a family.
ALso, I agree with elektron that the cultural tests are a bit ott, and in addition I would say they're a bit tough (I've lived in Britain all my life and I didn't know that our most popular participant sport was fishing)
Posts: 26 | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote: If an immigrant doesn't know any english whatsoever, how on earth can they get a job ? They can't, therefore they're forced to live on benefits (if they can even puzzle out how to sign on, without understanding the language the forms are written in). Thus they end up costing the state money
This is simply not true. Not only are there many places in the US where you don't need to speak English at all, but there are also many, many jobs that you can do without speaking English at all.
Posts: 4548 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
To be a Canadian citizen you have to be able to communicate in English or French, and Canada isn't a full country which doesn't really need extra people, like England. In Canada there is also a test similar to the American one. It's not an unusual occurance.
People who can't communicate cannot get along easily in a strange country. Also it slows the influx of hundreds of thousands of immigrants a year, who may not be able to communicate in order to get a job to support a family, or even themselves.
There are some considerations that are legitimate behind laws like this.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:many, many jobs that you can do without speaking English at all.
About 25% of the employees at my family's company do not speak English. It isn't a great job - manual, uncomplicated labor, starting at $7.50 an hour - but it does come with benefits and people live off of it.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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kat- exactly my point. I don't know enough about welfare laws to say whether they allow non-citizens to go on the dole, but I do know that when you sponsor someone to come into the country as a student you agree to pay for any government aid they might acquire (such as welfare).
Posts: 4548 | Registered: May 2001
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I would mainly object to the culture questions...I'd hate to be denied citizenship because I didn't know how Harry Potter was, or the individual components of an 'English' breakfast (wouldn't any breakfast eaten there be, by definition, English?). I probably would've put down 'English Muffin' for the traditional breakfast.
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote: How refreshingly narrow-minded. How exactly will everyone speaking the same language make life better?
I don't think that was well said, Jacare. I can easilly give you many examples of how speaking and reading English will make your life better (edit: in this country ):
* You can vote because you can read the ballots.
* You can make informed opinions about the foods you buy because you can read the ingredients.
* You can do jobs that require you to read English or to interact with English speaking people. I would hazard a guess that this would be a much larger pool of jobs in most areas of the US than those available to you if you speak only, say, Mandarin.
* You can call 911 in an emergency
* You can get to know other Americans and share your opinions with them as they share their opinions with you. This means that you are part of the American community, rather than both literally and figuratively be stuck in some ghetto.
It's pretty sad that everyone is jumping on this as some kind of racist garbage, when it seems to me to just be common sense. If you can't speak the dominant language of the country, then you are not engaging your ideas with that country(edit: most of the country. Futher, you yourself are very restricted as to what you can do in that country).
I want to comment, as well, on the argument that immigrants somehow do work that 'Americans won't' or some such twaddle. This is an absolutely dumb, stupid statement. You know the reasons why Americans don't do the work immigrants do? It's because they can get easier work for more pay. Don't you think if the immigrants had any other options(by speaking English, perhaps?), they would do the exact same thing, or do you think they would do back breaking labor for minimum wage (if that)?
Immigrants doing jobs Americans won't has nothing to do with the fact that they are harder workers and has everything to do with the fact that they have no other options.
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Jacare, there are millions of immigrants here doing the type of labor you are talking about. However, to become a citizen is something altogether different. And don't you think it would be handy for if everyone spoke a common language? At least within the same country?
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I should have known there'd be a way to make this America's fault.
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). It shows that immigrants who pass the test are willing to actually put effort into learning about their new mother country, and you can never go wrong in learning the language of the place where you will live, work, and shop. I think doing it for passports is a little extreme, though.
