Don't know, but something must be in the water around work. For the second time in as many years, a fellow work colleague who was not born in the land of the free decided he would march down to the local courthouse, before a sitting judge raise his right hand and pledge to renounce his mother country and support the flag and Constitution of the United States of America instead. Well it wasn't QUITE that easy, but still, that is basically how it happened.
Anyway it gave me pause to think about here was a person who had to learn US history; US public figures of the last 230 years like George Washington and why he is on the one dollar bill and why Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, all 271 words and maybe the shortest political speech in history at only two minutes is considered one of the most important speeches in our country's history; rudimentary US Constitutional law; and a 100 question reading and speech test, in English; along with the background checks and such over a many year period just to be able to say these words before the Judge:
"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."
Whoa! Powerful stuff!
Anyway, I was working in the News Room when the newly minted American arrived back at work, dressed in his Sunday finest. He was being lead by the assistant News Director to the News Conference Room for an impromptu reception of homemade sheet cake when applause from that mass huddled in cubicals working on the daily details of news gathering rang out in his honor. I took my turn of picking up a paper plate of cake and shaking his hand and said something to him I said two years ago to another co-worker who had also pledged allegiance to the flag and Constitution, "Congratulations.... Citizen." He thanked me and in his eyes I saw a different person, not the prim and proper Englishman of old that I have known for 12 years, but an American. I think for the first time since he was awarded citizenship, it had begun to sink in, he is NOW an American and the good and bad that comes along with that. I told him that 4 O'clock Tea Time was something we didn't do here in the US. He laughed and said that might be a little hard to give up.
You might be asking where did I get the idea to say those two words "Congratulations. Citizen"? Honestly, I stole it. I am not that original nor do I claim to be. Just read this blog, you can tell. In the 1984 film "Moscow on the Hudson" Robin Williams plays a saxophone playing Soviet Russian defector. The film is a comedy about how everyone is from somewhere else and how the US is really that melting pot we talk about. William's character, Vladimir Ivanof's girl friend Lucia Lombardo (played by Maria Conchita Alonso) is awarded citizenship. During the swearing in ceremony, the presiding Judge speaks to the partitionor's or about how they are about to be a part of a great society built on immigrants and how they will no longer be from somewhere else, but from now on they will be just simply be known as "American Citizens." At the end of the statement, the oath is administered and the Judge closes by saying "Congratulations.... Citizens." and for some strange reason it hit a cord with me and I have remembered it all these years later.
In 2004 the wife and I took a vacation up along the Blue Ridge Parkway from the North Carolina/Virgina border with the plan to go all the way to the Skyline Drive in northern Virgina and along the way stop at Thomas Jefferson's Montecello on July 4th since they have a large swearing in ceremony for new citizens then. We thought it would be fun to go and see hundreds of people sworn in as new American Citizens at the birthplace of the Declaration of Independence on Independence Day. Well the 3nd day in to the trip, we are about 2 days away from Charlottesville where Montecello is located, when a hurricane blows in off the coast and starts to dump rain all over the middle Atlantic region. Since the main reason for the trip was to SEE the sights along the Blue Ridge Parkway and up in the mountains with the clouds, you don't see anything much more than a few feet in front of you. We decided to cut the trip short and head back home since the rain had moved into the mountains and had stalled out. So we didn't make it to Montecello.
I finally got the chance to say the words myself for the first time in 2006 with a co-worker in my department who is from Pakistan. It was more wonderful to say it than I imagined. It was a celebration of our now shared country and for the first time in my own life, I realized that the best thing I can ever be called is "American Citizen."
So this time when I said it, the emotional feeling was one of great honor for me to be passing that feeling of being called "American Citizen" on to someone who had never known the feeling. I saw him a short time later in his office as I was leaving for the day and I asked him how did it feel. His response brought a tear to my eye. He simply said, "I feel like an American."
Yeah brother, I know the feeling.
