Today, and at 9 am, was the court ceremony for the citizenship for my wife. Got up early in the morning, gathered the papers and got in the car as we drove to downtown Indianapolis. The appointment was 9:00 am. We were there at 8:50 by the court room door. Got in, sat down and waited for the ceremony. 9:00 am sharp, one Chinese American immigration worker started by telling the 52 naturalized citizens of what to expect in the ceremony.
The started calling names, and each person, went to the bench, took the certificate, and sat down on a designated seat. They called my wife’s name, and she got up, and took her certificate, and sat down. She looked back at me very panicked. I gave a look to comfort her and went to her and reminded her that this is nothing serious, just a celibration..sort of.
At 10 am, 49 new citizen were sitting down. Finally, the last three, who’s names were called earlier but were not there yet, came through. Two Egyptian young girls (sisters) and a Saudi young man. Now, we have a full house.
The judge then asked each one to stand up, and state the country of origin. This was something new to me, I never seen this before. I heard countries like south Africa (almost 10 from there that looked like nazi in hiding), Pakistan, libya, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, selvadore, Dominican, mexico, Serbia, Albania, and many countries. In the end, he told them why he asked the origin. He iterated the fact that every American came from somewhere sometime ago. He wanted all to know and see this as they r becoming citizens. He had a long speech, which I was really impressed, to a point that I was begging a korean woman to calm her son’s down a little as I wanted to listen. It was a very impressive speech about freedom of expression, democracy, and how citizens will loose their right, if they don’t exercise they right to vote and elect.
Then, a line of “politician opportunists” read congratulation letters from congressmen and house members of Indiana. All in all, 9 speakers gave speeches to the new citizens. I was only impressed by the judge. During the other speeches, I was busy searching the room for good looking chicks to smile, say howdy, and use zaid as a bait to get them come and say “ooooh..what a cute boy”. I couldn’t find any good looking ones.
I, however, was angered by the 25 or more kids who were thinking they were in a park. God I hate this. I mean if u know ur kid is a noisy kid, please get a baby sitter. One particular kid got on my nerves big time. As I was going back in the court room, I saw a seat open. I went there, but one of the kids there (he was Pakistani) said “there is someone sitting here” Ok..my normal reaction would be “so?” and would sit down. But I always try to be nice as much as possible. I smiled at him, walked to the side, and stood leaning in the wall. Suddenly, a 4 or 5 years old kid sit in that seat. I starred at that kid, and he was looking scared at me. I kept starring at him. He never looked at me again.
In the end of the ceremony, I sat in the back seat. Those kids were playing and making noised. Then, that same kid came and wanted to play with them. That’s when I yelled at him saying “why can’t u kids be quite? Go outside and play, or be quite. This is not the park”. His mama came running toward him, as I sat leaning back. I managed to see his mom’s face, who was not very happy, but I didn’t care anyway. Couple of the people managed to give me a “good job buddy” look as they too were bothered by them kids.
So, walked back to the car, drove back to the house. So, today, my wife is a US citizen, and I gotta be honest, this was a very impressive day. I heard great speech by a judge that moved me and made me proud of such rights to vote, and express freely.
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