Unlike many other countries, the United States has never established an official language, although paradoxically, Founding Father John Jay in the Federalist Papers "saw the English language as the tie that bound the federal structure together" (McKay & Weinstein-Shr, 1993, Autumn, 1993, p. 400). Even current literacy requirements for naturalization and permanent residency in amnesty situations were a relatively late addition to the entry and naturalization standards of what was often called a nation of immigrants. Until the beginning of the twentieth century, alternating periods of nativist sentiment failed to swamp an underlying belief that immigration was tied to the cultural history and destiny of the United States.
Immigrants were welcomed for their willingness to work, if not for their culture, and low educational standards and the need for strong backs provided a role and a welcome even for those with little English. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, however, technological advances and a changing view of immigrants .shifted towards an expanding gatekeeper role for English literacy in determining permanent residency status and citizenship (McKay & Weinstein-Shr, 1993, Autumn, p. 400). Although the first test recommended by a federal Immigration Commission in 1907 specified that language requirements might be met by literacy in any language, concern for literacy reflected prejudices and attitudes about immigrants who "were thought to be less intelligent and less willing to learn English than prior residents" (McKay & Weinstein-Shr, 1993, Autumn, p. 401). Throughout the remainder Of the century, the job market's demands for English fa continued to grow. In response both to this escalating demand and legislator's views of the Americanization process, immigration and naturalization legislation now requires higher levels of English facility:
Today, to qualify for naturalization, there is an English literacy requ...