America Quiz Response

Write your response to the previous quiz.  Were you surprised by any of the questions?  Did you find some of them controversial?

Then research the questions you found surprising or controversial using the Resources page or any other sources of information you prefer.  Record your findings.

The first answer that caught my eye was that the U.S. does not have an official language! Upon researching this new tidbit of information, I’ve found that about 82% of people in the U.S. speak English as a native language, and 30 states do have an official language (English). 96% of the population speaks English “well” or “very well,” and there have been several proposals to make English the official language. Some other high-ranking languages (the most widely spoken in the U.S.) are: Spanish (the U.S. holds the 5^th largest Spanish-speaking population), German, French, Italian, Polish, Greek, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Chinese languages, Japanese, Korean, and Native American languages.

Another answer that surprised me was that only 13% of Americans are below the poverty line. I feel like we as Americans make such a big deal about the economy and financial issues, while we have a relatively low percentage of people who are actually in need of money compared to many countries around the world. However, looking at it from another perspective, that means that 39 billion people in the U.S. are below the poverty line. Needless to say, that is a LOT of people. I feel like this is something that other countries wouldn’t imagine about the U.S., and that we’re portrayed as rich and famous, not as a country in need of financial help. It really pains me to know how many people in the U.S. ARE rich and famous, and how many people are still below the poverty line, in need of help by the more fortunate. The lack of effort put into helping the less fortunate by those who can is amazing to me.