Citizenship Essay

Kara Barmer                                       Citizenship Essay

Mr. Howard

Honors Civics & Economics

January 26, 2014

            Citizenship; what is it? What does it mean? And what does it mean to be a citizen of the United States of America? What is a naturalized citizen, and should they be given the same opportunities and privileges as a native born American citizen? What is my point-of-view of it all?

            What does citizenship mean? Citizenship means being a citizen in a place with rights, opportunities, privileges, and duties. Citizenship is not all about the rights, opportunities, privileges, and duties you get though. Citizenship is about being a citizen of a country, state, county, or even down to city or town and being loyal to that certain place you are in. You vow your life to loyalty of that place. You won’t turn your back on them; you will support them no matter what, even if you do not agree. And when I say “them” I mean the place you are in. The place you have vowed your loyalty to and the place you are a citizen of.

            What does it mean to me to be a citizen of the United States of America? Let’s just start with citizen. Well, like I said in the last paragraph, it means being loyal to the place you reside in. Being a citizen is also being involved in what is going on around you whether it is in your community, town, state, or country. Being a citizen of somewhere is not necessarily just a term for the place you live in, it is more than that. If the term citizen only meant that you lived in a certain area, anyone could call themselves a citizen of that place. Now what does it mean to me to be called a citizen of the United States of America. Well, it means everything I have already said. But it also means being free, having a choice in life. Being a citizen of the United States means being able to have a part of what is going on, being able to have a say in who the president is, or what laws we want or do not want. Also being a citizen means being able to be a leader of this country we call the United States of America. And being a leader does not necessarily mean being the president or even being in office at all. Not even necessarily being a governor of a state, or a mayor of a town. Having the opportunity to be a leader could be a police officer. Being a leader doesn’t exclude governor, mayor, president, senate, or any other office position. Being in the armed forces is being a leader. Im not saying that in order to be a citizen of the United States you have to be a leader, but you have the privilege to run  for the big office jobs, and you have every right to learn to be a police officer, military sergeant, or any other type of job you would like to participate in. Being a citizen means you have rights. Being a citizen means you are loyal and committed to the United States.

            What is a naturalized citizen, and should they be given the same opportunities and privileges as a native born American citizen? Well I can assume that we all know what a native born American citizen is. A native born citizen means that you were born a citizen. A naturalized citizen means that you came from another country but have moved to the United States and gone through all the legal details to legally become a citizen of the United States of America. I personally do not believe that a naturalized citizen should have equal rights such as opportunities and privileges as an American born citizen. I think they should be equal up until we get to the part in running for office and being in office. President and Vice President should be ruled out. You never know if they are really true to this country or not. Also, I think the majority of us know that the President doesn’t rule on his own. He has got to have the senates on his side to be able to do certain things. So I also do not think that they should be able to be a senate. As far as all the other jobs under president and senate, I do not see a problem with them being any of those. If they want to be governor, it is up to that state to know their background and decide if they want a native born citizen or naturalized citizen running their state. Same goes for mayor. But I do think that they should have the chance to be at least governor if that are that loyal and want to be involved in their new country.

            So now you know what I think what citizenship means, what a citizen is, what a American born citizen is, what a naturalized citizen is, and how I feel about opportunities of a naturalized citizen. This is only one opinion. Everyone is entitled to their own. I guess now it’s up to you to decide what you feel.