I’m an immigrant’s kid. I didn’t give that much thought as I grew up. My grandparents died long before I could know them, so I heard nothing about my heritage from them. Dad was naturalized, and that was that.
I eventually learned that he had earned his naturalization the hard way. He had an undying suspicion, possibly justified, that those of us who are birthright citizens take for granted things like the Constitution.
Dad came to the United States from Canada when he was a child. He grew up American in all but the legal sense. I take it from his stories that my grandmother never quite got over leaving francophone Canada, but Dad never shared her nostalgia.
Pearl Harbor was attacked two weeks before Dad turned 19. He was in the U.S. Army before the month was out, assigned to the Pacific theater as a medical corpsman. Two years later, somewhere in the South Pacific, he and a few fellow soldiers were summoned into the presence of their group’s commanding officer.
To their surprise, they were told that they were being sworn in as United States citizens. There had been no advance notice of any kind. One soldier ventured to ask, “Aren’t we supposed to pass a test?” “You passed it,” said the officer.
No exam. No ceremony with flags and photographers. Just a motley crew of soldiers born in random countries, quickly becoming American citizens before going back outside to tend to the wounded.
Dad told me this story shortly before he died. He almost never talked with my sister and me about the war, but in his last days, he was happy to share the story of how he became a citizen. It helped me understand more deeply why Fourth of July celebrations meant so much to him.
As I said, he earned his naturalization the hard way. He treasured his citizenship. Even when our country’s leaders seemed to be steering things in the wrong direction – and Dad aired his opinions about such things – he loved this country. Never jingoistic, always patriotic. Always ready to speak up, never willing to shout down. He set a good example.
I write this on Independence Day as my neighbors are setting off fireworks. I’m normally averse to such noise. As an immigrant’s kid, though, I’m loving this. Tonight’s noise is about the Declaration of Independence. It’s about the Constitution and its preamble, and how we’re still reaching for a more perfect union. And it’s about a man 9000 miles from home, just barely an adult, being told “you passed it.”
I hope there may yet be immigrants’ kids whose parents have stories like that to tell.
Ellen Kolb 