Finally an American Citizen

As most of you know Patrick is from the Fiji Islands - born and raised. He came to America in the Fall of 1999 to attend school, and that is where we met. We married a few years later and Patrick applied for his green card (permanent residency). That was quite a journey and took many hours of filling out forms, standing in line, multiple interviews and hundreds of dollars. After living in the U.S. for 5 years as a permanent resident he became eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship (Naturalization). After his application was accepted he was required to pass a civics test.

Some of the questions were quite easy:

1. Who is currently the president of the United States?

2. What is the White House?

3. What do we celebrate on the 4th of July?

But there were also some more difficult questions:

1. Who becomes President if both the President and Vice President die?

2. What were the first thirteen colonies?

3. What four ammendments address voting rights?

He passed 100%!

Then came time to be sworn in as a citizen. So, we made the trip on Thursday, October 25th to the Federal District Court in Missoula. We were pleasantly surprised by the warm welcome of all the courthouse employees. This was a change from the rude, inconsiderate immigration employees we had dealt with in San Jose. After going through security Patrick had to stand in line to register himself with the court. After about an hour of waiting in line and getting everyone else registered they invited us into the courtroom.

They gave us a nice program that listed all of the people that were to be sworn in and what country they were from. The stats:
-32 immigrants
-17 different countries: Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, India, South Korea, Iran, Fiji, Ukraine, Poland, United Kingdom, Italy, Romania, Greece, Sweden, Morocco and the Philippines

All upcoming citizens were seated around the courtroom while family and friends were seated to the back. Gaby and I patiently waited for the ceremony to start.

They began the ceremony with the Color Guard and then the singing of the National Anthem. For some reason I kind of got choked up during the National Anthem, and Patrick said he felt the same way. Once the anthem was sung it came time to "swear-in" the new citizens. They were all sworn in together and then called individually to receive their certificate of naturalization.

The judge then shared some poignant thoughts and the ceremony was over! Patrick is officially a citizen of the United States!