So I am a citizen of these United States of America! What a great feeling!
I got naturalized at the Pennsylvania Convention Center on Wednesday April 04, 2007 along with 1250 other immigrants. This was a mega-oath ceremony.
The oath letter said to arrive at the Pennsylvania Convention Center at 9:35am and report to Station D. It said not to come before 9am coz they would not let you line up before 9am. I got there around 9:20 and people were already lining up inside the Convention Center's Grand Hall. The guards checked our IDs and asked to see the oath letter. Different people got different colored oath letters. Each color represented a specific section. I think people with yellow oath letters were to report to Section A, and those with blue letters were to report to section B etc. My oath letter was orange and so I was to report to section D. We were asked to have our green cards ready with the oath letter.
They lined us up according to section and began letting us in to Hall B (which was on the 2nd level of the Grand hall) in groups of 14 people from each section. The reason they chose 14 was that each section inside Hall B was composed of rows that were 14 places across. So they would call 14 people from section A and then 14 from Section B etc. Before we were allowed into Hall B they stapled our Green Cards to the oath letter and made sure we had filled in the questions on the back of the oath letter. They let us in one by one and took us to our row. As they let us into our rows they took our oath letter with the green card stapled to it and kept them in order. The reason they did this was so that so it would be easy for them at the end of the ceremony to give us the certificate of naturalization in the correct order in which we were sitting. They also gave us an envelope with the program, a congratulatory letter from the President, a paper with the oath of allegiance and the pledge of allegiance, and a paper with instructions about the certificate of naturalization, AND a mini US flag.
Basically we were seated in 5 sections (A to E); each section had about 20 rows with 14 seats in each row (enough for 1400 people). Behind the soon-to-be citizens was the guest seating. They said to bring only one guest. But I realized that because many people would not bring anyone that you could definitely bring more people and have no problem. (In fact they don't question the guests who came to see so you could bring as many people as you like)
I was seated by 10am about 7 rows from the front and in the middle of the row. Because the ceremony would start at 11am we had 1 hour to kill. Once you had your assigned seat you were free to move around without any problem. You could go to the bathroom or talk with guests who were seated at the back of the hall.
At 11am the show started with the presenter talking a little and then there was something called "the Presentation of the Colors" which is basically presenting different flags of the US. This was done by people who can trace their ancestry back to the revolutionary war of the 1770s which was pretty cool. They are called the "Sons of the American Revolution" and they wore the clothes people wore in the 1770s so it was very colorful.
Next they had a singer sing the National Anthem. She was good but I think she messed up the words towards the end but I don't think anyone noticed. After that there was a speech by the leader of the “Sons of the American Revolution” which was pretty nice. Basically he said we who were naturalizing today were as much American as the sons of the revolution who can trace their families back to the Revolutionary war. This was pretty nice thing to say. After that was the presentation of the oath takers. They read the names of countries from Albania to Zambia and as they called your country's name you stood up. Interestingly, nobody from Iraq was naturalizing with us. After all of us stood up we had to raise our right hand and swear the Oath of Allegiance. And after that Bingo! We were citizens. We cheered!!
Then we had to sit down and listen to the key note speaker. This was a naturalized guy from Latvia who lives in Philadelphia and is super rich and has done amazing things for the community and started many foundations etc. And he gave a very very good speech. He told us how he and his mother emigrated from Latvia and explained the many hardships they had. Pretty good story. He then gave us three pieces of advice: 1) We should embrace hard work; 2) We should get as much education as possible and take risks; and 3) It was not enough to be successful, that we also had to give back by doing things for our communities rather than complaining. It was a great speech! After that we stood and said the pledge of allegiance and the there was a video from President Bush congratulating us and then another music video of the song "God Bless the USA". After that, the “Sons of the American Revolution” retired the colors (they took the flags and left).
Before we could leave they gave us instructions about signing the Naturalization Certificate (which, by the way, has a photo of you on it), and about the voter registration tables and passport application tables outside and then they told us to wait until a USCIS worker handed us our Certificate of Naturalization. Basically they came row by row and gave the certificates to us and congratulated us as we left. The whole ceremony lasted about 1 hour and 5 minutes. As we left Hall B, the “Sons of the American Revolution” stayed for photos with all the new Americans. It was a lot of fun and I took several photographs for posterity. I am sure I will look back on those photographs one day and smile broadly. And then I left as a citizen of the United States of America.
I got naturalized at the Pennsylvania Convention Center on Wednesday April 04, 2007 along with 1250 other immigrants. This was a mega-oath ceremony.
The oath letter said to arrive at the Pennsylvania Convention Center at 9:35am and report to Station D. It said not to come before 9am coz they would not let you line up before 9am. I got there around 9:20 and people were already lining up inside the Convention Center's Grand Hall. The guards checked our IDs and asked to see the oath letter. Different people got different colored oath letters. Each color represented a specific section. I think people with yellow oath letters were to report to Section A, and those with blue letters were to report to section B etc. My oath letter was orange and so I was to report to section D. We were asked to have our green cards ready with the oath letter.
They lined us up according to section and began letting us in to Hall B (which was on the 2nd level of the Grand hall) in groups of 14 people from each section. The reason they chose 14 was that each section inside Hall B was composed of rows that were 14 places across. So they would call 14 people from section A and then 14 from Section B etc. Before we were allowed into Hall B they stapled our Green Cards to the oath letter and made sure we had filled in the questions on the back of the oath letter. They let us in one by one and took us to our row. As they let us into our rows they took our oath letter with the green card stapled to it and kept them in order. The reason they did this was so that so it would be easy for them at the end of the ceremony to give us the certificate of naturalization in the correct order in which we were sitting. They also gave us an envelope with the program, a congratulatory letter from the President, a paper with the oath of allegiance and the pledge of allegiance, and a paper with instructions about the certificate of naturalization, AND a mini US flag.
Basically we were seated in 5 sections (A to E); each section had about 20 rows with 14 seats in each row (enough for 1400 people). Behind the soon-to-be citizens was the guest seating. They said to bring only one guest. But I realized that because many people would not bring anyone that you could definitely bring more people and have no problem. (In fact they don't question the guests who came to see so you could bring as many people as you like)
I was seated by 10am about 7 rows from the front and in the middle of the row. Because the ceremony would start at 11am we had 1 hour to kill. Once you had your assigned seat you were free to move around without any problem. You could go to the bathroom or talk with guests who were seated at the back of the hall.
At 11am the show started with the presenter talking a little and then there was something called "the Presentation of the Colors" which is basically presenting different flags of the US. This was done by people who can trace their ancestry back to the revolutionary war of the 1770s which was pretty cool. They are called the "Sons of the American Revolution" and they wore the clothes people wore in the 1770s so it was very colorful.
Next they had a singer sing the National Anthem. She was good but I think she messed up the words towards the end but I don't think anyone noticed. After that there was a speech by the leader of the “Sons of the American Revolution” which was pretty nice. Basically he said we who were naturalizing today were as much American as the sons of the revolution who can trace their families back to the Revolutionary war. This was pretty nice thing to say. After that was the presentation of the oath takers. They read the names of countries from Albania to Zambia and as they called your country's name you stood up. Interestingly, nobody from Iraq was naturalizing with us. After all of us stood up we had to raise our right hand and swear the Oath of Allegiance. And after that Bingo! We were citizens. We cheered!!
Then we had to sit down and listen to the key note speaker. This was a naturalized guy from Latvia who lives in Philadelphia and is super rich and has done amazing things for the community and started many foundations etc. And he gave a very very good speech. He told us how he and his mother emigrated from Latvia and explained the many hardships they had. Pretty good story. He then gave us three pieces of advice: 1) We should embrace hard work; 2) We should get as much education as possible and take risks; and 3) It was not enough to be successful, that we also had to give back by doing things for our communities rather than complaining. It was a great speech! After that we stood and said the pledge of allegiance and the there was a video from President Bush congratulating us and then another music video of the song "God Bless the USA". After that, the “Sons of the American Revolution” retired the colors (they took the flags and left).
Before we could leave they gave us instructions about signing the Naturalization Certificate (which, by the way, has a photo of you on it), and about the voter registration tables and passport application tables outside and then they told us to wait until a USCIS worker handed us our Certificate of Naturalization. Basically they came row by row and gave the certificates to us and congratulated us as we left. The whole ceremony lasted about 1 hour and 5 minutes. As we left Hall B, the “Sons of the American Revolution” stayed for photos with all the new Americans. It was a lot of fun and I took several photographs for posterity. I am sure I will look back on those photographs one day and smile broadly. And then I left as a citizen of the United States of America.