On Becoming American

by Calla Jones Corner

Jun 19, 2024

March 17th, 1995, Richard, my British born husband became an American citizen. We had been living in the States since 1988, when we moved here from Europe, where we had lived since 1967. As I am an American and a job change for Richard was in the works, so the U.S. seemed the logical choice of future abode. Our decision was also helped by the fact that two of our three children were heading for college in the States and Richard did not want to return to England, for various reasons, which he would elaborate on if asked.

Since Richard took the oath of naturalization that sunny day in Bridgeport, Connecticut, he’d been asked many times how he felt about being American. In his usual, understated, tactful way, Richard answered: "I don't feel any different. I've always considered myself a citizen of the world." For the twenty-three years that we had been married, and were residents of Switzerland, Belgium and then the U.S., I'd often heard Richard describe himself this way.

I, however, had never been asked how I felt about Richard being American. My answer would have been that I was grateful we don't have to go through different lines at airport immigration and that if I died, Richard wouldn't be socked with exorbitant inheritance taxes to keep him from fleeing abroad, and that I was angry and embarrassed at the nonsense he had to go through to get American citizenship!

My anger and embarrassment started back in Brussels in 1988, when Richard applied for his green card. This was a complicated, time consuming and, at times, demeaning process (much paperwork, an x-ray for T.B., an AIDS test and an exam for venereal disease) to which most immigrants, illegal or legal, aren't submitted. One had only to ask Sixty Minutes' Leslie Stahl. The previous year she interviewed the INS about the easy entry of so-called political refugees to this country. Stahl cited a traveler from Pakistan being given residency on the basis that he had no papers (they were flushed down the plane's toilet before landing).

Studying Hard, Hoping to Pass

Then there was the interview/exam in Hartford on March 9th, 1995. Richard's appointment was for 2:05 pm. We arrived at 1:30, Richard looking "veddy British" in his double-breasted blue blazer and old-school tie. After handing his appointment card to a woman behind a desk, we were told to take a seat in the dirty, overcrowded, (in fact seat-less) room and wait for his name to be called. We stood against a wall and watched with amusement at the typical bureaucratic scene around us: an Iranian woman, who didn't speak English, trying to explain to a Federal employee why her husband, back in Teheran, needed to come to the States; two adorable Mexican children chasing each other around the room while their pregnant mothers tried to control them and renew their green cards; an unsympathetic and clearly annoyed immigration officer listening to a Vietnamese student's problems that were put forth in clear, correct, but accented, English.

At 2:45, not having heard Richard's name called and eyeing a wall poster that warned us the office closed at 3:00, we went to the desk lady to inquire what was up. She didn't seem to know or care that we'd driven 1 1/2 hours and had arrived a half-hour early.

Ring, Ring, Goes the Bell

We hurried into the hall to find someone who might be concerned about us. A man came out of a room and Richard gave his polite spiel. The man, thirtyish with rumpled khakis and tieless, said he'd been calling Richard for forty-five minutes and asked where he'd been. I was on the verge of playing Audrey Hepburn and answering, like Sabrina, "Above the garage," when Richard offered his hand and introduced us. A quick "You don't want to shake my hand, I've got a cold", was the response.

Then Richard was told to show his papers and sign the affidavit for naturalization. Richard, who had studied American history for six months for the exam, said, "But I was told not to sign until I'd had the interview and exam." The man looked at his watch and said "Oh, alright, but you'll have to hurry. Let me see your photos." Richard produced the photos that he'd had professionally taken according to the instructions. "These are no good," the man said. "There's a hair over your right ear. Go quickly to room 419 and have them retaken. It will cost twelve dollars!" The instructions had said, "no hat, no glasses and no hair." We had taken that to mean no toupee. One can only guess what someone who doesn't speak English as a first language does with that. The INS may be paying a lot of salaries with that one fuzzy instruction.

Soon as Three O’clock Rolls Around

Room 419, which Richard jokingly called room 101 (in reference to George Orwell’s “1984”), consisted of a baggy-panted, high-topped adolescent in charge of a camera and fingerprinting machine and four other similarly attired youths waiting in line for their snaps and prints (government job applicants?). No amount of polite reasoning would move Richard up the line. Was the Queen’s English a foreign language? Or maybe he had just fallen victim to the “don’t give up your seat to the elder generation” generation.

Finally, Richard got his photos, was interviewed, and tested, and signed his affidavit. The six months of studying had paid off – 100% on the exam! It was clear that his accent or his parents’ careful and traditional child-rearing hadn’t been necessary to pass the interview. What his degree from Oxford provided, however, was free proofreading for the State of Connecticut of the instructions for the following Friday, (in circulation since 1987): “Please being (sic) the following items with you ….”

Down the Hall and Into the Street

Once in the car, away from the decidedly unromantic Federal Office building, I gave Richard a big hug and a kiss. Then I told him how outraged I was at what he'd just gone through. I added that this country should have been welcoming people like him with open arms, that maybe even people like him should be paid to become American citizens. Why, I said, just the other day I'd seen on TV that Cubans are still paid by the U.S. government to settle in the United States on JFK's misguided assumption, back in 1961, that by subsidizing the educated elite Cuban refugees, more of those desirables would come here and "voilà!" Castro's Cuba would fall.

On the way home we sang the National Anthem. Richard, who had sung under the baton of Sir Thomas Beecham in London, didn't miss a word or a note. I, a 13th generation American on my father's side, hit many false notes as I sung wrong lyrics.

Lucy, our youngest daughter, who was home for spring break from college, joined us in Bridgeport the next Friday for the swearing-in ceremony. We again arrived early, Dad in his elegant British attire and Mom and daughter dressed suitably for the important occasion.

You’re Lucky if You can Find a Seat

We sat in the courtroom and watched the other sixty-seven candidates arrive with their families. All were nicely dressed. Happily, there was none of the disorder that we'd experienced the previous week. From watching much of the O.J. trial, I wasn't at all sure that our courtrooms in Connecticut hadn't become, like those of California, subjects for derision and laughter.

Seated around us were, I assumed, decent people, who had learned English, who had signed an affidavit that said they weren't criminals or prostitutes and who agreed to defend the United States in time of war. None of them looked like Richard but that was O.K. The world is changing and, as an American who had spent nearly half her life abroad, I had no problem with culturally diverse populations. On the contrary, I believed racial and ethnic diversity was beneficial to the United States. It's when ethnicity became more important than nationality that I began to worry.

Signing of the naturalization certificates, paper shuffling and a small speech by the clerk took an hour. On the dot of 2 pm, a young female judge entered the room. She welcomed us and spoke for ten minutes about the cultural diversity of her own family (French, Spanish, Romanian and a few other nationalities) and told us that thirty-seven nationalities were represented in the room. She said she believed that this diversity was one of the strengths of the U.S. She was articulate and spoke well. I began to think that, maybe, as many of our naturalized friends had told us, the actual ceremony would be moving and meaningful and would somehow, make up for the disturbing and humiliating experience in Hartford the previous week. I wanted more than anything for Richard, an exceptional man in many ways, a man who earns his income from defending the First Amendment of The American Constitution, to be able to tell his story of becoming American without sarcasm or irony.

When the judge finished her bit, she asked her young assistant to say a few words about her experience in becoming American. This woman from Jamaica spoke about being the first in her family to leave her country and become American and college educated. She talked about how she missed the warm, sunny beaches of her own country and hated the snowy New England winters. She said she tried to put aside the inclement (my word) weather conditions of Bridgeport because she had_,after all, gotten a free college education here. I glanced at Lucy to see if she was listening and registering what this woman was saying. Was she, Lucy, putting two and two together and realizing the double indemnity in this woman's statement? Did she understand that her parents' taxes had helped pay for this woman's education and were also paying in full for her and her sister's college degrees?

Deliver Me from the Days of Old

Then this young woman, whose salary was being paid for by everyone in the room, advised the candidates to take advantage of what the U.S. had to offer immigrants. I wondered what else she meant: food stamps, the majesty of Yosemite? The woman never mentioned what the duties of citizenship were; voting, jury duty, recycling. But then neither had the judge. Had JFK's immortal admonition to "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" passed on?

The candidates then recited the Pledge of Allegiance and one by one went forward to collect their certificate of naturalization and shake the judge's (who didn't have a cold) hand.

On the way home, instead of singing the National Anthem, we talked about the ceremony. I wanted to make sure Lucy knew my criticisms and understood them. I mentioned to her that I had noticed the courtroom we had been in was Bridgeport's Bankruptcy Court. As she's familiar with my use of sarcasm as a teaching aid, I told her that if the INS didn't reform its policy towards immigration and if the world at large continued to view the U.S. as a nation of freebies, this country would not only become financially bankrupt but morally bankrupt as well.

That day has indeed come.

On Becoming American

by Calla Jones Corner

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