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Three choices to buy from
I Will Be An American . . .Someday: Questions and Answers
to the Citizenship Test. By Gary Bloomfield. ISBN: 978-1481012690. $10.00
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This is sample test manual with answers to the Citizenship Test administered by
the Office of Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to prospective
candidates to become naturalized American citizens.
Gary Bloomfield’s earliest memories are of growing up in La Rochelle, France.
His father was an American soldier who only spoke English. His mother was
Japanese, born in Canada and she spoke Japanese, English and French. Gary’s
nanny was French who didn’t speak English, and so Gary’s first language was
kiddie French. Then in the mid-1950s, France’s President Charles De Gaulle
ordered all American troops out of the country, and suddenly Gary and his family
felt like refugees, returning to the United States, temporarily living near his
grandparents in Michigan. By then he was old enough to go to elementary school,
but he couldn’t speak English, so the teachers put him in a special education
class, for slow learners. It took a few years, but eventually he learned
English. His dad was sent to Colorado, and while they lived there, Gary’s mom
was studying to take the American citizenship test. Gary would ask her questions
and together they learned about American history, and how democracy works. Gary
learned all of the state capitals and most of the Presidents.
With his father in the Army, Gary would live in Michigan again, then Missouri
and Germany, where he met his future wife, Anita, who was born in Germany, and
she too would also one day become an American citizen. Two years after he
graduated from high school, Gary joined the Army and was stationed in Korea,
where he taught English to orphan school children, and Korean soldiers. He would
return to Korea three years later, and again teach English to Korean college
students, and Army soldiers. As often as possible he continued to meet with the
orphan children he’d met during his first tour in Korea. Many of those children
who he fondly remembers, eventually came to America and became U.S. citizens.
When he returned to the United States, Gary volunteered as a tutor with Laubach
Literacy, specializing in foreigners who wanted to improve on the English they
learned in school, in their homelands. As they became more proficient with
English, several of them wanted to become American citizens, so Gary continued
tutoring them. He also simplified the citizenship questions and began writing
this book, I Will be an American…Someday Soon. That title comes from a promise
one of his students made. In fact, a year later, she did become an American.
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