Becoming an American

ATLANTA 2000 - My journey ended Friday.

Following four years of bureaucratic bottlenecks and political delays, the floodgates to citizenship had finally been flung open for me. In a matter of minutes, I completed my cultural and intellectual transformation that began on a December night in 1984. I became a U.S. citizen, a proud American. I joined more than 190 other immigrants in the ground-level auditorium of the Richard B. Russell Federal Building in Atlanta and took the Oath of Allegiance.

"I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty," I read aloud from the written oath issued to each of us.

"I will bear arms on behalf of the United States I will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces when required. I will perform work of national importance."

Each line I read amplified a commitment that had been made unconsciously in my heart years ago but was now written in ink. Each pledge reminded me that the promise of America was not just in the opportunity and freedom she offered immigrants like me but in the responsibility that we new citizens have to ensure the door remains open for those who will follow.

I felt the cloak of citizenship weighing on my shoulders. It was a burden I was proud to bear. And, looking around the auditorium, I knew that sentiment was unanimous. Friday morning's gathering was part of the Immigration and Naturalization Service's massive push to swear in 1.3 million new citizens by Sept. 30, 2000.

Similar ceremonies were taking place in South Carolina and throughout the country. Like those other ceremonies, ours was filled with natives of India, Vietnam, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Surinam, El Salvador, Mexico, Canada and Greece -- all soon-to-be Americans drawn to this country by dreams of opportunity.

Each person waiting to be sworn in had a different story -- a unique path that brought them to this place. Yet everyone in the room, regardless of language, culture or religion, shared a common destination. The concept of citizenship holds rich meaning for immigrants. They may pay taxes and live lives of civic responsibility, but citizenship promises to fulfill their desire for access and opportunity.

It means the right to vote, to serve as jurors, to fight -- and die -- for their adopted homeland. It offers membership in a culture that is envied and copied around the world. Many of the new citizens I met in Atlanta had applied within the last year or two. Not me -- my application was first submitted in 1996 in New Jersey. Subsequent moves to Charlotte and then to York County pushed my application to the bottom of the pile. Eighteen months ago, in desperation I asked U.S. Rep. John Spratt's office to intervene. Through Spratt's office I learned that the INS had lost my application. I had to produce copies of my petition and show a canceled check to prove I had paid the $95 fee. Failure to produce the document could have delayed my citizenship application even further. Thus, with my application revived, I received a trail of correspondence during the last 12 months from the INS: requests for fingerprints in Charlotte, an interview appointment in Greer, and finally, a swearing-in date at a location 220 miles away in Atlanta.

Friday's ceremony marked the end of a long journey for myself and for dozens like me. As we rose to take the Oath of Allegiance, beside me stood Henry Romero, a 24-year-old construction foreman from El Salvador.

In 1987, Romero flew to the United States to join his parents, who were among the thousands of El Salvadorian refugees that had fled the murderous civil war in their homeland. On Friday, dressed in a beige sport coat and matching pants, Romero took his place in the nation of Americans.

"I want the right to vote. That's the important thing," said Romero, who lives in Lawrenceville, Ga. Romero believes that voting is a right not appreciated enough by his neighbors. "Americans -- they don't know what they are missing," he said.

Immigrants will sometimes speak of "they" to refer to native-born Americans, those whose birthright has spared them the indignity of standing in the "alien" line at airports or waiting before dawn outside an INS office, only to be sent home for yet another document.

"A lot of people don't think about the pressure," Romero said. Then he cherished a new realization: "This is the last time I have to walk into an INS building."

A few rows from where Romero and I stood, Donna Butler Williams, a physical education teacher from Summerville, was also becoming an American. For the native of Canada and Winthrop University graduate, citizenship means not having to worry about her retirement benefits.

"I didn't want to work all these years and retire and not reap all my benefits," said Williams, expressing a common concern for immigrants. Many worry that changes in immigration law could restrict social security and other benefits to non-citizens, even those who have lived and worked in the United States for years.

Williams' family settled in Hilton Head when she was in junior high. After 28 years, she said she already felt like an American.

"I've been here that long," she said.

In the next row was Edet Ikpeme, who came to America from Nigeria to attend Northeastern University in Boston 20 years ago. In 1998, he decided it was time for him to become a U.S. citizen.

"I've been living here so long, I might as well become one," said Ikpeme. With a wife, an eight-month-old baby and a promising career as a quality assurance analyst in Atlanta, Ikpeme's American dream was still incomplete. He couldn't vote; he wasn't a citizen. "It felt like unfinished business," Ikpeme said.

Minutes later, after all the oaths had been said, citizenship certificates distributed and family pictures taken, Ikpeme and the rest of us new citizens walked out into the midmorning sunlight and blended into the pedestrian traffic of downtown Atlanta.

Each of us clutched our citizenship papers with the certainty that our place in America had been legally secured.