I Pledge Allegiance...

July 15, 2008

I am officially a US citizen.

I attended the naturalization oath ceremony this afternoon at the Nob Hill Masonic Center, the last step in the naturalization process. I had to "check in" by 1:30 PM, which meant standing in a long line (my last immigration line ever!...I hope...). They directed me to a designated section of the auditorium, where they promptly took away my green card and replaced it with a mini American flag. Uh...

Will had to sit up in the balcony level with the rest of the guests, as all the citizens-to-be sat in the lower section for the ceremony. I sat in a section on the very right side of the main stage. Not the best seats in the house, especially as they were planning on showing three videos, of which I could not see the screen. Oh well.
There was a long pre-amble, with lots of instruction about what to do after you become a citizen (get your passport, register to vote, review your certificate of naturalization, etc. etc.) The ceremony finally started with the presentation of the flag colors by some ROTC volunteers.
There were 1451 citizens-to-be, and before taking the Oath of Allegiance, the facilitator listed off alphabetically all 103 countries that the new citizens had emigrated from and invited those folks to stand when their country was called.
It was entertaining to see that the majority of citizens-to-be were from China, India and Mexico. Following the Oath, there was a keynote speaker, Michael Krasny, a professor at SF State and the host of KQED's Forum.

There were some cheesy moments, from President Bush's welcome message, to the Lee Greenwood "I'm Proud to Be An American" music video. The official ceremony ended with all the new citizens standing and saying the Pledge of Allegiance, and then the flags were retired by the ROTC.

The whole thing took about 2 hours, and it was a bit of a zoo. The nice thing was that I was able to hand in a package to apply for my passport right after the ceremony, and also register to vote. Easy as American pie.