I can no longer say my favorite “I love you, Americans, but you are so wackadoodle” because I just had my citizenship ceremony and I’m now American. Yay!
There were 10 Daughters of the American Revolution at the ceremony, which was super rad because I never thought I’d get to see one in real life. They all had perfect hair and beautiful brooches.
There were 62 immigrants total. The largest group was from the Philippines. The second largest, Hispanics. Mostly Mexico but also Peru and Ecuador. No Spaniards, no Basques. Five very eager Brits. Aside from us, two Russians, one Ukrainian, one Estonian. All women, all emaciated, all deeply enamored of peroxide. Nobody else from Eastern Europe. One Canadian. One Palestinian. One German.
The keynote speaker was very talented but extremely politicized. He gave a passionately anti-Trumpian speech about how “it’s not the best time to immigrate. . . our democracy is in greatest danger ever. . . Forces of darkness in the highest echelons of power. . . promote distrust of the free press. . .rely on the meddling of certain foreign powers. . .”
Then the judge was all, “Erm, it’s not as bad as all that. The student activists in Florida give us all hope. Senator Dick Durbin is the greatest friend of immigrants.”
I almost registered to vote as a Republican because I’m contrarian and this was a bit too one-sided for me. Actually, I didn’t register to vote at all because N had to go back to work and I’m very hungry. They served us a breakfast but I couldn’t have any of it because of my diet.
Clarissa's Blog 
Congratulations, Clarissa!!!!
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Congratulations, fellow citizen!
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Congratulations! 🙂
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Congratulations for getting the most desired citizenship on this planet, regardless of whatever those dramatic speakers said!
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Aw, thank you! Everybody was super nice and welcoming.
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Congratulations!
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Yeah, CONGRATULATIONS!!
You still have time to register Republican! 🙂
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Congratulations! Is Illinois a state where you can vote in a primary only if you are registered in the appropriate party? That is the case in Delaware, but it varies from state to state.
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Congratulations!
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“keynote speaker was very talented but extremely politicized”
I do think that was very inappropriate, speeches on such occasions should be extremely non-partisan and about civic responsibilities of citizenship and not a breech of public space with blubbery private emotions…
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Yeah. . . It was weird. It’s like, if now is not a moment to feel some unity, then when? “Welcome to the family and by the way here’s a load of dirty laundry just so you don’t harbor any illusions.”
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Of course.
But we’ve all collectively made being a green card holder or a citizen extremely politicized over the last decade.
Voting is one thing a citizen can do that non-citizens can’t and voting is always political.
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Did N. also become a citizen? I seem to recall that you said that it would take longer for him.
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We did the ceremony together because I had to cancel the first time I was scheduled and then the second time I was scheduled got moved to a later date.
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So is N now a citizen or not?
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Yes! Bye bye, Putin.
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“Bye bye, Putin.”
And goodbye to some fluidity? IIRC the last time your family went to Canada the three of you had passports from three different countries… and the next time you’ll have the same.
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We are not giving up those passports. N still has property in Russia and he doesn’t want to lose it. So he’s not informing the Russian government of his new citizenship. Those folks are so rabid that who knows what they’d do.
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Congratulations and welcome to you both!
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Thank you! We feel very welcome.
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Congratulations!
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