Mohammed Ben Mellah, an immigrant from Morocco, signs July 29 at a class on becoming a U.S. citizen offered through the Community College of Aurora on Lowry Campus. Students who take the naturalization test are asked 10 questions about the United States where they must answer six correctly to pass. That part of the test is oral, given by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and test takers are graded on their ability to speak English.  They’re also graded on a brief reading, and written portion of the exam. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)

AURORA | It seems fitting that Irene O’Brien, an instructor for a class that helps students pass the United States citizenship test, should have a master’s degree in theater. A large part of her job is helping immigrants and refugees become confident in enunciating as well as understanding the colorful cast of characters who make up American government. 

“Try speaking out loud. Don’t keep it in your head,” she says as students respond to a monotonous female voice on a gray television prompter that is asking them one of 100 possible questions they could encounter on test day.

Irene O’Brien, a U.S. citizenship instructor, teaches her class of students from Morocco, Ukraine, Burma, China and Mexico July 29 at the Community College of Aurora on Lowry Campus. Students who take the naturalization test are asked 10 questions about the United States where they must answer six correctly to pass. That part of the test is oral, given by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and test takers are graded on their ability to speak English.  They’re also graded on a brief reading, and written portion of the exam. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
A breakdown of the federal and state government hangs on the wall of a U.S. citizenship class July 29 at the Community College of Aurora on Lowry Campus. Students who take the naturalization test are asked 10 questions about the United States where they must answer six correctly to pass. That part of the test is oral, given by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and test takers are graded on their ability to speak English.  They’re also graded on a brief reading, and written portion of the exam. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Irene O’Brien, a U.S. citizenship instructor, teaches her class of students from Morocco, Ukraine, Burma, China and Mexico July 29 at the Community College of Aurora on Lowry Campus. Students who take the naturalization test are asked 10 questions about the United States where they must answer six correctly to pass. That part of the test is oral, given by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and test takers are graded on their ability to speak English.  They’re also graded on a brief reading, and written portion of the exam. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Irene O’Brien, a U.S. citizenship instructor, teaches her class of students from Morocco, Ukraine, Burma, China and Mexico July 29 at the Community College of Aurora on Lowry Campus. Students who take the naturalization test are asked 10 questions about the United States where they must answer six correctly to pass. That part of the test is oral, given by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and test takers are graded on their ability to speak English.  They’re also graded on a brief reading, and written portion of the exam. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Irene O’Brien, a U.S. citizenship instructor, teaches her class of students from Morocco, Ukraine, Burma, China and Mexico at the Community College of Aurora on Lowry Campus. SENTINEL FILE PHOTO
Mohammed Ben Mellah, an immigrant from Morocco, signs July 29 at a class on becoming a U.S. citizen offered through the Community College of Aurora on Lowry Campus. Students who take the naturalization test are asked 10 questions about the United States where they must answer six correctly to pass. That part of the test is oral, given by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and test takers are graded on their ability to speak English.  They’re also graded on a brief reading, and written portion of the exam. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Name tags of students from Morocco, Ukraine, Burma, China and Mexico wait to be picked up July 29 at a class on becoming a U.S. citizen offered through the Community College of Aurora on Lowry Campus.Students who take the naturalization test are asked 10 questions about the United States where they must answer six correctly to pass. That part of the test is oral, given by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and test takers are graded on their ability to speak English.  They’re also graded on a brief reading, and written portion of the exam. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Emma Lazarus’ poem “The New Colossus” hangs on a wall for a U.S. citizen class offered through the Community College of Aurora on Lowry Campus. Students who take the naturalization test are asked 10 questions about the United States where they must answer six correctly to pass. That part of the test is oral, given by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and test takers are graded on their ability to speak English.  They’re also graded on a brief reading, and written portion of the exam. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Worksheets full of vocabulary words and flashcard-style questions are just one of many piles of paperwork passed out to students July 29 at a class on becoming a U.S. citizen offered through the Community College of Aurora on Lowry Campus. Students who take the naturalization test are asked 10 questions about the United States where they must answer six correctly to pass. That part of the test is oral, given by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and test takers are graded on their ability to speak English.  They’re also graded on a brief reading, and written portion of the exam. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Name tags of students from Morocco, Ukraine, Burma, China and Mexico wait to be picked up July 29 at a class on becoming a U.S. citizen offered through the Community College of Aurora on Lowry Campus. Students who take the naturalization test are asked 10 questions about the United States where they must answer six correctly to pass. That part of the test is oral, given by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and test takers are graded on their ability to speak English.  They’re also graded on a brief reading, and written portion of the exam. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)

Students who take the naturalization test are asked 10 questions about the United States where they must answer six correctly to pass. That part of the test is oral, given by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and test takers are graded on their ability to speak English. They’re also graded on a brief reading and writing portion of the exam.

“In some sense, they’re being tested when they walk in the door,” O’Brien said of the nine students participating in a 10-week course on the naturalization test offered through the Aurora Language Center at the Community College of Aurora. 

The students pay $40 to study four hours a week with O’Brien. The college was able to start offering the class, which runs both mornings and evenings at a discounted rate thanks to a grant they received from USCIS last October. It pays for at least $100 of the test materials as well as O’Brien’s time. 

The class at the college’s Lowry campus, a former army base, include students from Ethiopia, Ukraine and Iraq. 

“They come from Mexico, Lebanon, Brazil, Sudan, Turkey. It’s a little bit of everybody,” said Stephanie Lawton, program director of CCA’s community English as a Second Language program at Lowry.

The diversity of students is not surprising given that one in five residents who now live in Aurora are foreign born, and nearly that number speak English less than very well, according to the 2012 American Community Survey.

Back in class, the prompter asks questions that are progressively harder, from knowing the number of amendments to the U.S. Constitution as well as the number of members in the U.S. House and Senate, to naming at least one author of the long-forgotten Federalist Papers. Those answers, by the way, are 27 amendments, and there are 100 U.S. Senators, and 435 House representatives. Either James Madison or Alexander Hamilton would be an acceptable answer for a colonial rabble rouser who wrote essays in support of ratifying the Constitution in the late 1700s. 

About 91 percent of immigrants pass the citizenship test, according to USCIS. American citizens have a much worse track record. A survey conducted by Xavier University in 2012 found that about one third of U.S. citizens would fail the test if they had to take it today. That survey also found 71 percent could not name the Constitution as the “law of the land,” and 57 percent did not know what an amendment was.

And those statistics make the sincerity that the students in O’Brien’s class feel about becoming citizens all the more powerful. 

“If you’re not the religion they want in my country, you have a hard time getting the job you want,” said Sondang Liberatore, a student who immigrated to Aurora from Indonesia in 2001. “In my country, you pay. If you want to have a good school, the people can’t afford it.” By paying for school, she means kindergarten through high school, which she said is very expensive in Indonesia. “I work and then send money to my country. Then my sister and brother can finish school until college,” she said. 

Traveling with a visa is also a concern for many who take the class. All must have green cards in order to be eligible for the class under the grant from USCIS.

“I would like to go to my country, and not be scared of the government,” said Aung Ko Ko, a refugee student from war-torn Burma who said a passport would guarantee him more safety. Nai Mon Htow, who is also a refugee from Burma in the class, described the loneliness of leaving his family, but also why he thought the hardship was worth it.

“I want human right, for the freedom for my whole life,” he explained. “That’s why I come to the United States.”

Lawton said the next citizenship class begins Oct. 14, with registration taking place from Sept. 30 through Oct. 8.

To learn more, call CCA Lowry Campus at 303-340-7086 or visit ccaurora.edu/esl