On Becoming an American Citizen

You have to pass a test to achieve US citizenship, so I memorized one hundred questions and answers word by word. I wasn’t going to leave it to chance since I already had the experience of nearly failing International Law at university because my professor didn’t allow for text interpretation —if the law used “automobile,” you couldn’t write down “car,” for example. That’s one of the lessons I got from university, which, like many of them, has been useless since. 

The guard at the entrance frisked me, and then he pointed toward a room. You sit there, he said, sounding like Tarzan. Five immigrants were already waiting: two from East Asia, two from Mexico, and one from the Caribbean. The East Asian women couldn’t speak English —not even “please” and “thank you.” One of the Mexicans sat beside me, an older man wearing a straw hat, jeans, boots, and a plaid shirt. With his stumpy, coarse fingers that looked like cigars, he rolled the study guide into a taco and placed it between his legs. 

“Excuse me,” he said. “You’re Mexican, right?” He asked.

“Unfortunately,” I said.

“Did you study the questions?”

“Yes.”

“How important do you think it is to know the answers?”

“You mean, on a scale of 1 to 10?”

“I suppose so.”

“On any other day, I’d say it’s a one. But today, it’s definitively a ten.”

“I haven’t taken a test since elementary school. I didn’t really study.”

“Are you nervous?” I asked.

“Very.”

“That’s because you didn’t study,” I said.

“I guess. Where are you from?”

“I was born in Monterrey. You?”

“Zacatecas.”

“I’ve been to Zacatecas with my friends once for New Year’s. The city has a beautiful colonial downtown,” I told him.

“I’m from the countryside.”

“Are you a farmer?”

“I was.”

“And what do you do now?”

“A little bit of everything. What questions do you think they’ll ask in the test?” He asked. 

“It will be a selection from the questions you’re holding in your hand.”

He unrolled his booklet and stretched the pages.

“There’s going to be an oral part. Do you speak English?” I asked.

“A little bit,” he said.

“Do you know who the president is?”

“Bush.”

“There are two Bushes. Which one?”

“The son.”

“That’s right. If you don’t know the answer, say George Washington. But if they ask you for a number, you say fifty.”

“Fifty?” He asked.

“Yes. Fifty.”

“What’s the question?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s like when you play Trivial Pursuit and get an 18^th-century South American question, and you don’t know the answer. What do you say?”

He stared at me.

“Simon Bolivar,” I said.

“Of course,” he said.

“And when you get a 20th-century Germany question?” I asked.

“What do you answer?” He asked.

“Well, it’s not going to be Bertolt Brecht. Unless the question is about theater.”

“But those Germany questions are not in the exam,” he said.

“You’re right. This will be a United States test.”

“That’s good.” 

“Not as good as you think. The topic of the United States is a bit tricky. If you get a Founding Fathers question, the answer could be Washington, Jefferson, or Franklin. If it’s a civil war question, you must go with Abraham Lincoln, but if they ask you for a general, the answer will be Lee or Grant, depending on whether they want North or South.”

“Then why should I answer George Washington?”

“Because you didn’t study,” I said.

“Right. How long have you been here?” He asked.

“In the US or Texas?”

“Either one. Or both.”

“In the US, five years. In Texas, three. How about you?” I asked.

“Fourteen years,” he said.

“Fourteen years!”

“That’s right.”

“And you don’t even speak English?” I asked.

“I do. I speak a little.”

“Fourteen years!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, you can’t say you didn’t have time to study,” I said.

My turn came, and I walked into a yellow office. An eggshell-colored Gateway PC sat on top of a steel banker’s desk. Behind it was a balding man wearing a short-sleeve button-up the color of wheat bread. The man, the desk, his shirt, the Gateway PC, and the towers of documents… it was like experiencing life inside a mushroom and cheese omelet. The man asked me to sit while he stared at a paper. He confirmed my details and asked me three questions.

1) Who was the first President of the United States?

2) Who is the President now?

3) How many stars are on the flag? 

I answered the questions, and then he pushed a white sheet of paper in front of me. “Write the following,” he said, “The teacher reads books to his students.” I wrote the sentence down. He looked at it and said, “Thank you. Come back at two o’clock”. 

“What for?” I asked.

“The ceremony.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.” He said.

I returned at two o’clock, and the place was packed with more than one hundred immigrants. The guards herded us into a small room, where three bureaucrats waited behind a desk. The guards told us to get in line. I looked around, and the two Chinese ladies who couldn’t speak English were also in line. The man from Zacatecas approached me, and then he made introductions. I shook hands with his daughters, his son, and his wife. 

“This is the man who helped me out. He gave me the answers,” the man told his family. They bowed their heads and thanked me. The wife grabbed her camera and instructed us to get closer. Then she took a picture of us as the man gave me a side hug, smiled, and rubber-stamped the occasion with a thumbs-up. 

My turn came an hour later. The bureaucrat verified my paperwork and personal information, and then she asked for my green card.

“Do you intend to keep my green card?” I asked.

“You’ll get your passport in a couple of weeks.”

“I’m traveling to Vietnam tomorrow, so I need the green card to return to the US.”

“We need to keep the card,” she said.

“Why do you need to keep it?” I asked.

“We can’t process your application otherwise.”

“Can I get a form to help me return to the US without the green card?”

“No.”

“I need the card then,” I said.

“Do you want to be an American citizen or not?” She asked. The other two bureaucrats paused their work and waited for my answer.

“I want to be an American citizen, but I also want to go to Vietnam tomorrow.”

“Then we can’t process your citizenship. We’ll contact you in the future.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re holding up the line. Next, please.”

“Wait. What if you don’t contact me? You don’t know me. You won’t remember to follow up. Look at this place. It’s a cemetery for official documents.”

“I’m going to ask you to step aside, please,” she said.

“How do I know I won’t get lost in the system? Can you give me a receipt or letter stating you’ll follow up?”

“Please lower your voice, sir.” She raised her hand, and two guards approached me and escorted me out of the building as if I were in a nightclub and had taken my pants off on the dance floor.

So, I went to Vietnam and Cambodia. And speaking as a tourist, it was a positive cultural experience. However, you couldn’t pay me enough to live there. It would make no sense for me to leave a third-world country and move to another third-world country. However (and it took me years to realize this), hundreds of cities in the United States look worse than third-world countries. Starting with South Dallas, large segments of Baltimore, MD; Detroit, MI; Stockton, CA; Camden, NJ; Gary, IN; Rochester, NY; McAllen, TX; the bulk of Alabama, Mississippi, West Virginia, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. The list goes on and on. I wouldn’t move to those places either.

Two weeks after returning from Vietnam, I received a letter from the US Citizenship and Immigration Offices inviting me to my naturalization ceremony in Arlington, Texas. The letter arrived when the immigration officer said it would, and I was as surprised as I’d ever been. I thought I would spend months tracking down paperwork to have to start all over again —which is what would have happened in Mexico. 

The day of the ceremony arrived, and given my previous experience, I expected something as exciting as having Christmas dinner at Denny’s. But this time, the convention center was spacious, and the proceedings were well organized. The immigration officers were cordial and seemed happy to see us. More than three hundred immigrants attended. There was a stage and a giant American flag, and we got up and sang the National Anthem. Later, a man played the guitar and sang “America the Beautiful.”

Another musician played “God Bless America” on the saxophone. The MC read the names of the attendants’ countries, and we stood up when we heard the name of our country. The MC said Angola, so the Angolans stood up, and the rest applauded. He said France and the French stood up, and we celebrated. Germany, Kenya, Nigeria, and Norway. The more we cheered, the more excited we got. It was like being at the Olympics or the World Cup. He said, “Mexico,” and half of us got up. I looked around, and everyone smiled. The MC kept going until he got to Zimbabwe, and by then, we were all on our feet, applauding. Where else could this happen? I thought as the standing ovation kept getting louder. We were happy to be Americans —and, in my case, thrilled because I didn’t have to live in Mexico ever again.

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