- By the way, I was raised by a black nanny
for my entire life growing up.
- Yeah lots of - Nannies.
- Yeah, lots of white people
have been raised by black nannies.
- I'll try to pivot, I'll try to pivot.
(Star Spangled Banner plays)
- Can I ask like what is everybody's family background here,
in America?
- I'll start. My dad is actually indigenous.
He's Native American, Cree Nation,
and my mom is a black American.
- Black American as well.
I'm born here and my parents are from Compton.
I also do have indigenous heritage as well,
the Houma Nation in Louisiana.
- My parents are just simple blue collar, working,
white Americans.
- My dad's from California.
His dad was from Canada, his mom is from Texas.
- I was born in New York, but my parents are from Korea.
- I was actually born in Europe and I've been here
for seven years and I filed for a green card recently.
- I was born in Colombia, raised there.
American dad and my mom is fully Colombian.
- What do we think makes an American,
or makes someone more American than other?
Like what are our opinions on that?
- I think it's a choice,
because we're like such a melting pot of everybody.
But if that makes you feel proud, then that's what you are.
- Yeah, I could like agree with that.
I also think too, though,
that like lineage does matter and make a difference.
Just 'cause there are communities in America
that have been here.
I think that should be taken into consideration.
- That's also my personal opinion, I get that a lot.
It's like, oh it doesn't get much more American than you
but like I haven't served in the military, I haven't,
you know?
- Right.
- I've served in the Air Force for six years
and I don't think that makes me more American actually
because it was more of a transactional agreement.
I got paid to do it.
- Yeah, I agree as well, I was in the military.
If you're just like a dad who wakes up,
or a mom who wakes up, working 80 hours a week,
those are real Americans right there.
People are like, "Oh he's military.
You must like love America so much",
and like America's just a piece of dirt on the ground to me.
People who contribute to their community in a meaningful way
those are the most American people to me.
- [Producer] Can you guys start rearranging yourselves
as you ask questions?
- I think number one for sure.
And I just think only because you two have.
- Yeah I can,
- [Lance] Connection to somewhere else.
- Go in the end for now.
- Yeah, I'll move.
- I'm at the bottom honestly.
For sure, for so many reasons.
It's kind of weird but I feel like I'm a human being.
Like that's my metric.
That's what I'm concerned about and I think
that that's more important than being from a country.
- I completely agree.
I imagine a future in which you can go anywhere,
participate in that community respectfully
and like be a part of it.
But I do think it's important to some degree
to classify things because there are a lot of wrongs
that America hasn't righted yet.
I think once we get to a point where we can all
like kumbaya together, none of this will matter.
- The fact that there's so much to talk about
in terms of like what has gone wrong, or who did what,
what you're doing is you're basically trying to blame
somebody, and at all times blaming people doesn't help
with the actual issue is like moving forward.
- But I mean we can't really move forward until
we acknowledge what happened yesterday and we atone for it.
- But why can't we just be okay
and like just be good like we're so far beyond that.
- We have to atone for certain things.
- No we don't.
That's like a sort of like a religious thing.
- I'll try to pivot, I'll try to pivot.
- You know it's not about pointing fingers
at individual people.
It's pointing fingers at like a system
that still has like negative effects
for lots of different groups of people.
- Does everybody vote that can,
and did you vote since you could?
- I did not vote.
- I didn't vote, either.
- I hate politics.
- But the main thing about what we fought for,
on any side in America,
were the right to do these things like vote.
- But we only have two parties to pick from.
I would prefer the third party
but the third party doesn't win
and if you vote for the third party,
you're actually just hurting your own party.
It's rigged.
- It's not really, if you get involved you can't help
but be a part, you know, you could change it.
- I'd rather take care of my immediate community,
my immediate goals, my immediate life.
I'm gonna' be a good citizen, a good taxpayer.
That's all that I need to do.
- I agree with that.
I also, I can't vote but I am very politically active.
- Right.
- So I think that might be more impactful than like,
all the, the third of the population who didn't vote
for whatever reason.
- [Producer] Do you guys believe
that citizenship status correlates to how American you are?
- I don't agree because there's a bunch
of people who come here with,
you have to have a million dollars,
and they put you into like a community of like-minded,
or like people, and all it takes is a million dollars
for these people to come in
and they don't have to do anything but just pay that money.
- Yes, there are people who have millions of dollars
and invest into the country,
but that's not the majority of the people.
And there are people who are undocumented
and they want to become citizens
because this is the only country they've ever known.
But they can't.
Are they less American just because of paperwork.
- I think a lot of it has to do with effort, too.
- I thought so.
I used to believe that.
I used to think that if I come here, I go to school here,
I work here, I can become a citizen eventually.
I had to get married
because that was the easiest way for me to come here.
I don't think it's a fair process.
I can get a green card in a year
just 'cause I married an American,
but other people have been here for decades
and still can't get a green card
and I don't think that that is fair at all.
- I think we should all just go through
and finish our rankings and just kind of say why
and then maybe.
- That would be good.
- I think I'm number one.
I think I'm the most American.
I am a continuation of a long line
of people who have done nothing
but thrive and contribute to this country.
- I mean you don't have an America
without black and indigenous people, just given the history,
and all the contribution.
So I do feel like she should have been first.
- Unfortunately, the thing about America is that race
is just connected to everything we do.
And that's why it's a mess.
There are several different Americas.
We do not live in the same world.
I can already tell we don't live in the same world.
- By the way, I was raised
by a black nanny for my entire life growing up.
- Yeah lots of - A nanny, so you have.
- Lots of white people have been raised by black nannies.
- Well I'm sorry she raised me
as my mom because my mom wasn't there.
- But you don't walk through life the way that I do,
and I don't walk through life the way that you do,
or that he does, or that she does.
- That's such a victim thing to say.
- I am not a victim.
- But you have as most potential as I do at birth.
- And I know that.
I'm not trying to play the oppression Olympics here.
I'm just trying to paint a picture
so that you can understand
that not everyone lives life like you.
I hope she at least heard what I said
and at least maybe it'll echo, you know,
in the future and maybe she'll remember like this encounter.
- I heard everybody's opinion and why they felt
that they did deserve to be an American or didn't.
We all have our views and I think they're all gonna' be,
in the end, the same that we're humans first.
- I think it's best for the sake of this conversation
to try to focus on our individual reasons why we're American
and not so much because our ancestors did this and that.
- Then why did you guys put me at the front.
- Because of what you mentioned,
like as far as I understood, you want to be here
and this is like where you see yourself
and where you identify yourself as being.
- [Producer] Do you feel American?
- Yeah, it's all I know.
- You're more American than I am
just because you would wanna' stay here.
I would drop my hat and leave immediately.
I'll go to the back line.
If like my girlfriend said I wanna' go back to Taiwan,
I'd go with her right away.
Free health care and no mass shootings,
that's already like two really good pluses to me, so.
- I choose America all the time.
But you know if an like an alien from outer space came here
and said he loved America
and he doesn't wanna' go back to space,
he's an American because he takes pride in it.
- I'm gonna' move myself to the.
- Yeah, I would also rate myself lower.
- I am like a dual citizen.
Like I'm not just American, I'm also Colombian.
That's still a huge part of what motivates me,
who I am, the culture that I engage in.
- I think you should come before me
because if we're talking about like individual contribution,
I think you've done more than I have.
- Yeah.
- There are guys who serve and do things,
and do really great things for this country,
but like not everybody in the military is actively
on the front lines fighting wars.
Not everybody's a Delta Force Special Operator.
I chose to, not for patriotic reasons,
'cause like do I go to school, and get a lot of debt,
and not even know what I wanna' do with my life
or do I take some time, think about it
and get the government to pay for my education.
- [Producer] Does everyone feel comfortable where they are?
- I would say she feels very strongly.
- [Lance] She does.
- I do.
- So where would you wanna' place yourself?
- I mean, I think that me personally, the passion
and the importance of me looking out for everybody
that's in American and wants to call themself American,
I think that's so valuable.
- I feel like you wanna' say number one.
- I mean I do, I do, honestly.
I think that is me.
- If we're going by her metric of contributions,
since I am a public servant, I do travel,
I do first responder work, emergency management.
I would say by that metric I would be number two.
- You actually help Americans, okay.
- [Producer] This is your final ranking?
- Yes.
- [Producer] You're locking it in?
Okay, great.
What I'm gonna' have you guys do
is take a mock citizenship test.
(group speaks at the same time)
- We got this.
- [Producer] You guys have all been given
20 random questions and let's see how well you guys do.
- Okay. - Okay.
(calm upbeat music)
- [Producer] How do you guys feel like you may have done?
- I think I did bad.
- There was at least five questions,
I was like, man, I don't know the answer to this.
- [Producer] In 7th, we have Abe with 11 out of 20.
We have a tie, Sydney, 11 out of 20.
- A tie?
- [Producer] You and Abe tied.
- Oh, okay, sorry Mr. Adler.
- [Producer] In 5th we have Devin, 12 out of 20.
- Sydney and I are definitely very impassioned
about the way we feel about America
and we were the lowest on the totem pole, so.
- [Producer] In 4th Lance, 14 out of 20.
In 3rd Daniel, 18 out of 20.
And at a tie for first,
we have Gabriel and Lilla with 20 out of 20
(group claps)
- [Producer] Passing the civics test is a 12 out of 20.
- What'd you get?
- 11. - We failed.
- It's kind of funny
that the people who had the loudest voices
are the ones that are at the bottom of this whole ladder.
- That tends to happen.
- [Sydney] That's fair.
- [Devin] Of course.
I will say when Lilla was talking about how hard
she had to contribute just to stay in this country
I think that speaks more volumes
than be being able to take a test.
- A hundred percent.
- I agree.
- I was surprised by how low some of the scores were
but I also wasn't surprised that I got them all right
because this is something I have to study.
So I don't think it's necessarily fair.
- It's much more important
for them to know what's going on right now,
rather than knowing like random like trivia questions
about history that not even American,
like American born people, know.
Being an American is not easily definable.
There's gonna' be always a sizable portion of the US
that no matter how American you are,
and how hard you work to be here,
their never gonna' recognize you as an American.
- I believe in a future in which America is a place
where everyone can live harmoniously.
I think we just need to do a better job
of listening to each other, being more empathetic.
- [Producer] Thank you guys so much.
Uh, let's cut.
(Star Spangled Banner plays)