Let me start by saying that I have nothing at all against the city of Miami, Fla. I repeat: I have nothing against the city of Miami. Got it? Good.
I have a few friends from Miami. They are all good, wholesome people who really care about the important issues in this world, like fashion and makeup. They care about being tan and looking good (important things) and what’s on the next episode of Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami.
Whenever I speak to any of my friends from Miami, they usually bring up Miami in any way they can. I’m not against having pride in the city that you’re from. In the past, I have boasted about all of the many great things about my hometown, Houston. For instance, Houston is the 4th largest city in America and the birthplace of Anna Nicole Smith. It hosts the American Hockey League’s 6th best team, the Houston Aeros. Although we had shoddy defense, we did make the playoffs!
So if you think that I just hate cities, you’re wrong. That’s not the problem at all.
The problem I have is that there’s something in Miami’s air that makes most Miamians (I looked it up) think they have the best city in the world. Or even that Miami should be its own country. Whenever I try to argue against this with any of my Miami friends, I’m usually told, “Well, you’ve just never been to Miami.”
So after hearing about Miami over and over again, I decided to do a test to see if people from Miami were as cool and as smart as they seemed.
I picked 20 questions from the citizenship test that is taken by immigrants to become citizens of the greatest country in the world: the United States of America.
Now I won’t name the people who took my test in fear of them being ridiculed, but the results were less than what some would call “positive.”
When asked who our enemies were in World War II, one participant responded, “Was that Vietnam?”
Maybe this wasn’t fair; maybe everyone forgot all of this information when they took their final exams in high school and didn’t need to know how many years a Senator is elected for in congress. So I decided to do another experiment and ask some people from different states, including Texas.
It wasn’t pretty.
“Wait, there’s like two Senators per state, right?”
“Yes,” I responded.
“So what, like, 200 Senators in the Senate?”
This made me realize something: Not many people could take the test if they were immigrants and pass it. Has it become so passé to know information about our nation’s government?
So my problem does not lie with Miami. I hope anyone from Miami who read this article and hated me throughout it came to the conclusion that I do not hate Miami. It sounds like a beautiful town. I’d like to go see the beautiful Cuban–I mean, American–women there.
By the way, if you’re curious as to what score I got on the test, it was a 110. I got every question right and gave myself 10 bonus points for being so awesome.
John Paul Green is a sophomore theater major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].
