#1441 On Citizenship
Listening to America
Listening to America
4.6 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 4 May 2021
⏱️ 61 minutes
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Summary
In this episode we speak with President Jefferson about American immigration policy during his time and ours, as well as the requirements to gain citizenship. Jefferson describes the discriminatory policies of his time, and then agrees to answer some of the 100 test questions immigrants must correctly answer to gain citizenship in 2021.
Find this episode, along with recommended reading, on the blog. Support the show by joining the 1776 Club or by donating to the Thomas Jefferson Hour, Inc. You can learn more about Clay's cultural tours and retreats at jeffersonhour.com/tours. Check out our new merch. You can find Clay's publications on our website, along with a list of his favorite books on Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and other topics. Thomas Jefferson is interpreted by Clay S. Jenkinson.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Good day, Thomas Jefferson, our podcast listeners. As always, thank you so much for listening. |
| 0:07.6 | Thank you so much for supporting the show. My apologies to you, Clay. I cut you off during |
| 0:13.1 | the show and you didn't get to update people on your book and your online courses. I shall rectify |
| 0:18.8 | that during the podcast. This week, after many times discussing it, we actually presented President |
| 0:27.1 | Jefferson with a portion of the U.S. Immigration Citizenship Test. We started talking to him about |
| 0:35.2 | immigration during his time and it really turned out to be great fun. Well, you know, I cheated. |
| 0:40.4 | I wrote the answers on... Oh, you did not. On my inner arm and I pulled up my sleeve from time to time. |
| 0:46.8 | I couldn't have passed it under a fair test, so I cheated. But it was interesting. And so, |
| 0:53.1 | you know, this comes out of Joe Ellis. So, Joe Ellis is our returning champion. We speak to him |
| 0:58.9 | from time to time. It is undisclosed location in Vermont. And he has said, I think five or six |
| 1:05.0 | times in the last six months, you know, every high school student in America should be required to |
| 1:09.2 | take the citizenship test. And I think he thinks that they would fail and that, you know, this is sort |
| 1:15.1 | of a come-up and it's kind of thing. I'm not so sure. I don't know the answer to that. It'd be fun |
| 1:20.1 | to try that. But then I thought, well, if we're going to, if we're going to be like middle-aged |
| 1:24.5 | men talking about whatever young person should know in that kind of way that men talk, I thought |
| 1:32.4 | I should take it myself, either as Jefferson or as myself. And so, you kind of sprang this on me. |
| 1:38.5 | I didn't prepare. And I think that it was very, very interesting. And I'm glad we did it. And I would |
| 1:44.3 | like to actually take the full test. And then I would like to write a letter to the immigration |
| 1:48.9 | people of contesting some of the questions because I think that, no, I'm not talking about Jefferson's |
| 1:55.8 | politics. I think they need to be, they need to be very straight. I mean, there can be nothing |
| 2:01.6 | that's a trick. We should ask for general, not arcane information. And so, most of the questions |
| 2:09.6 | that you read out to me seemed really good and legitimate. But a few of them, I thought, |
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