President Bush told me he was proud of me today.
Well, not just me, it was me and the 500 other people sitting in the auditorium, mixing their international body odors together, representing what America is really about.
We all sat there, 3:00 pm on February 21, 2008 with our nickel American flags provided for us and watched the president on the screen welcome us to America and tell us he is proud that we have become naturalized citizens, true Americans.
It was a proud moment for us all, especially the sophisticated and pungently smelling Indian woman next to me who didn’t speak English but began tearing at the realization that she had finally made it.
She kept looking at me as if asking, "can you explain what is going on?"
I don't think she understood that my language skills had not yet reached India.
I did however wonder how long it took her to get to that seat next to me- it took us 15 years. That is quite a long time because 15 years ago, I was six years old and running around in a t-shirt and tights and calling it an outfit.
After our president’s speech, the swearing in ceremony took a cheesy turn as they played “I’m proud to be an American” while the camera spanned the countryside of the United States and ended on the Statue of Liberty, the true symbol for what America stands for. Being the true Americans that we are, my brother and I chuckled to the awkward lyrics that appeared on the screen along with the corresponding verses, but when we looked over, we saw our mom not only tearing, but singing along to that song so proudly and shamelessly with her heavy accent.
After making fun of her for about a full hour or two, I realized that that moment, that moment that we became Americans, was something indescribable to someone who has not experienced it, it was something that my mom could only have dreamed of. I guess it is best like being in love with someone for 15 years and only then, when all the paperwork is done, you are allowed to be called husband and wife or even friends. Before you were just a permanent acquaintance. It was a freeing moment and I understood why she teared up, I get that (though she tears to almost anything, just ask her about an Extreme Home Makeover commercial…). What I still don’t get is why she sang along to that song and kept singing it all the way home, all through dinner that night and well into the night before we went to sleep.
To me, what hit me hardest, what made me realize what was going on, what I had gotten myself into, what true beauty this moment held was the moment they made us stand. One by one, they called our countries and we were to stand and wait until every country was represented and until everyone was standing. We were the second country after Argentina.
“Armenia” the loud and enthused speaker proclaimed and my family stood in unison, proud to be the only ones to represent our country.
After Armenia, countries such as Canada, Japan, India, and even the overwhelming Mexico followed. Some stood with loud cheering (the Mexicans) while others with silent power (the Chinese), but we all, all stood with pride. It was as if the United Nations called all of its leftover countries and vagabonds for potluck and we all showed up, in our best outfits, with our cameras rolling and our national and adopted pride. It was beautiful and if I was an emotional person, that would have been my moment- that moment that your eyes begin shining from the salty tears and you smile and look up and time kind of freezes and you realize that life is good.
It was that kind of moment.
An hour after we walked in and waved our flags in unison and did all of the true “American” things- say the pledge of Allegiance, sing the Star Spangled Banner, sing “I’m proud to be an American”, listen to the president and say our oaths- we received a simple paper with a stamp and a few copied signatures, and we officially became American Citizens.
We became officially official because, after all, it doesn’t get any more official in America than swearing in at court…unless it comes to marriage oaths…but I will save that for later.
As we walked out, we turned in our voter registration cards, permitting us to vote in this presidential election. I don’t think I can describe what that means to us- to vote, to be a part of the change that will occur in this country, this powerfully egotistic country.
So as the current president was welcoming me to this smörgåsbord of a country, I would have the power to change who would be the next president to welcome the many thousand immigrants to be naturalized in the future years.
Will Obama be the one to welcome us, saying, “I am so proud of you, you brave people that will join our great nation.”? Or will McCain say, in his explicit language, “Welcome you $#@! Foreigners, I am so glad you came…”? Or will Clinton, heaven forbid, try to say something clever and polite? We shall see.
Though I no longer have my excuse that “I am not an American” for those pesky curbside lurkers constantly asking me to sign up to save this endangered animal or that exotic plant, I can vote and I can have an American passport. Those two privileges in themselves are worth every struggle that we have endured- whether it was being held up in an airport in Belgium where they didn’t recognize my traveling documents or even getting stuck at the border in Mexico and having to pay a $200 fine for not carrying my green card with me.
I am an American but I will always jealously guard my pride for my country so in all my American-ness, I still want my friends to call me little Armenian, perhaps little Armenian-American, or something of that nature- because after all, I am still little, still Armenian, and now, I am definitely and officially an American.
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