{"id":322721,"date":"2025-11-30T17:24:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T17:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/322721\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T17:24:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T17:24:17","slug":"the-united-states-of-amnesia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/322721\/","title":{"rendered":"The United States of Amnesia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By Claudia Catherine<\/p>\n

I read in the paper the other day that the government is making the citizenship test harder. Apparently, simply knowing that George Washington was the guy on the quarter isn\u2019t enough anymore. Now, the poor soul who wants to become an American needs to name five of the original thirteen states and explain the nuances of the Federalist Papers.<\/p>\n

I read this and felt a cold shiver run down my spine. Not because I\u2019m an immigrant\u2014I was born right here, in a hospital in Ohio, which automatically makes me a member of the club. But the shiver came from a terrifying realization: if I had to take that test today, right now, to keep my passport\u2026 I\u2019d be packing my bags for Antarctica.<\/p>\n

I tried it. I sat at my kitchen table with my coffee and tried to name five original states. \u201cVirginia,\u201d I said confidently. One. \u201cNew York.\u201d Two. \u201cPennsylvania.\u201d Three. Then my brain stalled. \u201cChicago?\u201d No, that\u2019s a city. \u201cDakota?\u201d No, too far west. \u201cEast Virginia?\u201d Does that exist?<\/p>\n

I gave up and Googled it. I\u2019m a fifty-year-old woman, a taxpayer, a voter, and I possess the historical knowledge of a golden retriever.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m not alone.<\/p>\n

If we applied this test to the native-born population\u2014the folks who scream the loudest about \u201cheritage\u201d and \u201cpatriotism\u201d\u2014the population of the United States would drop to about twelve people. And ten of them would be history professors who are currently arguing on Twitter.<\/p>\n

We have a double standard that is frankly hilarious, if it weren\u2019t so tragic. We treat citizenship like a country club. The new guy, let\u2019s call him Igor from Belarus, has to memorize the bylaws, know the history of the golf course, and recite the club president\u2019s middle name backwards just to get in the door. Meanwhile, we, the \u201clegacy members,\u201d are sitting by the pool, drunk on margaritas, asking if the Constitution is that movie with Nicolas Cage.<\/p>\n

I have a nephew, Tyler. He\u2019s 16. He goes to a good school. A \u201cprogressive\u201d school. I asked him the other day: \u201cTyler, who do we fight in the Civil War?\u201d<\/p>\n

He looked up from his phone, annoyed, and said, \u201cAunt, we don\u2019t focus on wars. We focus on the socio-economic impact of agrarian tension.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay\u201d, I said. \u201cBut who won?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about winning\u201d, he said. \u201cIt\u2019s about the narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n

See, that\u2019s the problem. The experts say that memorizing dates and names is \u201cold fashioned\u201d. It kills the \u201cjoy of learning\u201d. So now we have a generation of kids\u2014and let\u2019s be honest, a generation of adults\u2014who are excellent at having opinions but terrible at knowing facts.<\/p>\n

We are raising a nation of pundits who don\u2019t know where Delaware is.<\/p>\n

The statistics are depressing. Something like 14% of eighth graders are proficient in history. The rest of them think Abraham Lincoln was a vampire hunter because they saw the movie poster once.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the kicker: it\u2019s not just the kids. We look back at the \u201cGolden Age\u201d of education, maybe the 1950s, and think everyone back then was a scholar. They weren\u2019t. There are surveys from World War II where soldiers couldn\u2019t find France on a map. And they were in France.<\/p>\n

The difference is, back then, we didn\u2019t have to explain the Federalist Papers to get a job at the Ford plant. Now, we are demanding that Igor know more about James Madison than James Madison knew about himself.<\/p>\n

There is a teacher in Chicago who said something brilliant. She said, \u201cYou can\u2019t have critical thinking if you have nothing to think about\u201d. You can\u2019t analyze the Constitution if you haven\u2019t read it. You can\u2019t debate the Bill of Rights if you think \u201cThe Fifth Amendment\u201d is a band from the 90s.<\/p>\n

I firmly believe that if we want to make the test harder for immigrants, we should make it mandatory for everyone else, too. Every ten years. Like a driver\u2019s license renewal.<\/p>\n

Question 1: What are the three branches of government? Answer: \u201cRepublican, Democrat, and\u2026 Instagram?\u201d Buzz. Wrong. Please hand over your voting card.<\/p>\n

Question 2: Why is there a star on the flag for every state? Answer: \u201cBecause stars are pretty?\u201d Buzz. Wrong. You are hereby sentenced to watch three hours of PBS documentaries.<\/p>\n

It sounds harsh, but think about it. We are asking people to swear allegiance to \u201cthe principles of the Constitution\u201d. How can you swear allegiance to something you haven\u2019t read since 7th grade, and even then, you were mostly paying attention to the girl sitting in front of you?<\/p>\n

Igor, the new guy, is going to pass the test. He\u2019s going to study. He\u2019s going to know that there are 435 members in the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, I\u2019ll be here, asking Tyler if he knows who the Vice President is.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it that guy from the memes?\u201d, he\u2019ll ask.<\/p>\n

\u201cClose enough, Tyler\u201d, I\u2019ll say. \u201cClose enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

God bless America. We\u2019re going to need it.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Claudia Catherine I read in the paper the other day that the government is making the citizenship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,164942,164943,164944,164945,164946,164947,164948,164949,164950,164951,164952,3,164953,21,19,22,20,25,32876,24,164954],"class_list":["post-322721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-american-history-knowledge","tag-american-legacy","tag-civics-education","tag-claudia-catherine","tag-cultural-literacy","tag-federalist-papers","tag-generational-knowledge-gap","tag-historical-literacy","tag-immigration-double-standard","tag-mandatory-civics-test","tag-national-identity-crisis","tag-news","tag-political-ignorance","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-citizenship-test","tag-usa","tag-voter-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}