Abstract
This article follows a bottom-up approach to language policy (Ramanathan, 2005; Wodak, 2006) in an analysis of citizenship in policy and practice. It compares representations of citizenship in and around a regional branch of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), with a focus on citizenship swearing-in ceremonies for adults and children, discourse of a USCIS field officer, and the linguistic landscape and social semiotics inside and surrounding the USCIS building. These local meanings of citizenship are contrasted with top-down, national meanings of citizenship that are enforced through Immigration and Naturalization Act policy, the naturalization test, and official discourse. Findings indicate that while the de jure citizenship policy of the local field office is to provide informational assistance to its community, its de facto practices suggest that help is prioritized for certain members of the population, in systematic and visible ways.
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