SF DO Ceremony Experience: Paramount Theater, Oakland
Finally done with the Oath Ceremony today and applied for my passport. Families are in the upper balcony and there doesn't seem to be any restriction there on food/drink or dvd players/video games etc as long as you use a headphone.
We did have a constant chorus of kids wailing, so in short, it is OK to take your kids with you. We took our 2yr 8 month old son and he was OK. The various videos being shown during the program do help by distracting the kids for a bit (He did complain to his mommy that there were no animals in the movies.)
A few things that may help others going to the Paramount Theater in Oakland:
1. Parking is impossible - even in Oakland. We got there at 9 and I drove around for 25 minutes before my wife just dropped me off outside Paramount theater and ended up parking in a garage on Harrison street (about a quarter mile away).
2. They start the pre-ceremonies around 9:35 or so, so you really do need to be there on time. (That is where someone tells you what to expect during the naturalization ceremony, cracks a bunch of jokes, attempts to welcome everyone in several languages etc. Quite entertaining)
3. As this person put it, the Oath is not a test. His said that "The Oath was written a long time ago and has language in it that may seem odd to some of you. So if you don't agree with parts of the Oath, it's OK to leave them out, but try to say most of it" (so you can leave out 'so help me god' at the end if that troubles you).
4. If you are applying for a passport, you need to bring the form they gave you at the Interview as it is a special form that can only be used at the Oath Ceremony. You cannot take that form to the Post Office to apply later, nor can you use an online printed form to apply at the Oath ceremony.
5. Don't fill out your check for the passport fees. They may change. (Which also means that a money order would have been useless today). They added 11 cents to the overnight return postage so I had to make a change to my check. Having said that, I don't know why the online application 'strongly recommends' that overnight mail be used for the passport return. I spoke with the lady who administered the passport Oath and she told me that the passport is sent out priority mail with tracking and delivery confirmation. So the $14.96 additional for express mail is really a waste of money unless you're also expediting the passport as well (which I wasn't).
6. They sang the national anthem before administering the Oath. I think that was odd. It should have been the first thing AFTER administering the Oath. ('Congratulations new citizens. Please remain standing for the national anthem' instead of 'hey you citizens of all these countries, sing our national anthem')
7. There was a snafu with the President's message where they couldn't move on to the next video. We heard Obama congratulate us 3 times as they kept starting and stopping the same video. Then they fast forwarded it - to everyone's amusement...
8. Other stuff was really mundane.. like watching little patriotic video and slide shows. Took me back to my childhood where short patriotic clips would play in movie theaters before the main movie.
9. Certificates were handed out while we were seated at around 10:50 or so. Basically several old dudes were standing in the theater aisles and calling out names they couldn't pronounce in a voice that nobody could hear (the theater gets noisy once people start moving about). I just went and stood near the guy in the aisle so I could see when my certificate came up.
10. Signed my certificate (and as expected fouled up my signature). Not too worried about it as this certificate will not see the light of day once I get it back from the Passport Office.
11. Fought my way out of the theater. It seems that old habits die hard. (For those who don't know how to move in jam-packed crowds, move diagonally). Perhaps that was also due to the fact that the Chinese/Indian delegation probably was about a third of the people being naturalized at Oakland today (China lost 250+ citizens at Oakland today - the most of the 103 countries represented) and people from densely populated places just don't have the concept of 'personal space'.
12. Bought a $5 'premium' naturalization certificate folder outside.
13. Checked my watch: 11:15 am
Finally done with the Oath Ceremony today and applied for my passport. Families are in the upper balcony and there doesn't seem to be any restriction there on food/drink or dvd players/video games etc as long as you use a headphone.
We did have a constant chorus of kids wailing, so in short, it is OK to take your kids with you. We took our 2yr 8 month old son and he was OK. The various videos being shown during the program do help by distracting the kids for a bit (He did complain to his mommy that there were no animals in the movies.)
A few things that may help others going to the Paramount Theater in Oakland:
1. Parking is impossible - even in Oakland. We got there at 9 and I drove around for 25 minutes before my wife just dropped me off outside Paramount theater and ended up parking in a garage on Harrison street (about a quarter mile away).
2. They start the pre-ceremonies around 9:35 or so, so you really do need to be there on time. (That is where someone tells you what to expect during the naturalization ceremony, cracks a bunch of jokes, attempts to welcome everyone in several languages etc. Quite entertaining)
3. As this person put it, the Oath is not a test. His said that "The Oath was written a long time ago and has language in it that may seem odd to some of you. So if you don't agree with parts of the Oath, it's OK to leave them out, but try to say most of it" (so you can leave out 'so help me god' at the end if that troubles you).
4. If you are applying for a passport, you need to bring the form they gave you at the Interview as it is a special form that can only be used at the Oath Ceremony. You cannot take that form to the Post Office to apply later, nor can you use an online printed form to apply at the Oath ceremony.
5. Don't fill out your check for the passport fees. They may change. (Which also means that a money order would have been useless today). They added 11 cents to the overnight return postage so I had to make a change to my check. Having said that, I don't know why the online application 'strongly recommends' that overnight mail be used for the passport return. I spoke with the lady who administered the passport Oath and she told me that the passport is sent out priority mail with tracking and delivery confirmation. So the $14.96 additional for express mail is really a waste of money unless you're also expediting the passport as well (which I wasn't).
6. They sang the national anthem before administering the Oath. I think that was odd. It should have been the first thing AFTER administering the Oath. ('Congratulations new citizens. Please remain standing for the national anthem' instead of 'hey you citizens of all these countries, sing our national anthem')
7. There was a snafu with the President's message where they couldn't move on to the next video. We heard Obama congratulate us 3 times as they kept starting and stopping the same video. Then they fast forwarded it - to everyone's amusement...
8. Other stuff was really mundane.. like watching little patriotic video and slide shows. Took me back to my childhood where short patriotic clips would play in movie theaters before the main movie.
9. Certificates were handed out while we were seated at around 10:50 or so. Basically several old dudes were standing in the theater aisles and calling out names they couldn't pronounce in a voice that nobody could hear (the theater gets noisy once people start moving about). I just went and stood near the guy in the aisle so I could see when my certificate came up.
10. Signed my certificate (and as expected fouled up my signature). Not too worried about it as this certificate will not see the light of day once I get it back from the Passport Office.
11. Fought my way out of the theater. It seems that old habits die hard. (For those who don't know how to move in jam-packed crowds, move diagonally). Perhaps that was also due to the fact that the Chinese/Indian delegation probably was about a third of the people being naturalized at Oakland today (China lost 250+ citizens at Oakland today - the most of the 103 countries represented) and people from densely populated places just don't have the concept of 'personal space'.
12. Bought a $5 'premium' naturalization certificate folder outside.
13. Checked my watch: 11:15 am
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