Casinos and the Spirit of America

The Press of Atlantic City reports a story that touches on our themes of citizenship, community service, and interest group activity.

ATLANTIC CITY — How many amendments does the U.S. Constitution have? The House of Representatives has how many voting members? We elect a U.S. senator for how many years? Who was one of the writers of the Federalist Papers?

These are just a few of the 100 possible questions on the official Naturalization Test developed by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS — questions that may trip up even natural-born citizens.

So Local 54 of UNITE-HERE, which represents Atlantic City casino service workers, has developed a series of classes for prospective citizens to teach them the ins and outs of the naturalization process — from the test to the application to everything in between.

“It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time,” said Donna DeCaprio, head of Local 54’s Multilingual Office. “Half of our membership are immigrants, and the citizenship test is very expensive — it costs over $600 to take it, and you only get two chances. It’s very intimidating for most folks. They don’t know what to expect.”