Cezary Salad

When I first came to the U.S. from Poland in 1993, one of the first words I learned was “flag.” That’s because each morning, as I came into Mrs. Sellers’s 4^th grade classroom, I had to stand up and pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the . . . you how it goes and how – sometime around high school – it fizzles out of our daily existence and we rarely, if ever, recite it again.

But early last Friday, nearly fourteen and a half years later, I found myself reciting the Pledge of Allegiance again, this time as part of my long-awaited, hard-fought Naturalization Ceremony to become a Citizen of the U.S.

It was a low-key ceremony with a certain, manufactured feel to it since it was one of several scheduled that day at the Federal Building in Lower Manhattan. Nevertheless, one could tell by the sense of excitement and suspense in the room that it felt like something big – an event on par with a graduation or marriage or the birth of a child, which decimates one’s life into a before and after period.

Seated in between an elderly woman from Trinidad and a Frenchman, I could see people from all walks of life – young and old, poor and well-to-do, black and white. And seated in the front row was a fully uniformed & decorated marine who had already enlisted and served his country prior to becoming a citizen.

“You came here as 260 people from 56 nations, but you will leave here as one citizens of one nation,” our master of ceremonies declared. Then, one by one, she called out each of the 56 nations represented – from Albania through to Yemen – and one by one, the citizens of those countries stood up to applause, until everyone was standing. Then she asked us to raise our right hand and repeat after her the oath of citizenship:

“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”

As we recited these words, several INS workers walked around the room inspecting the crowd to make sure that everyone indeed had their hands up, lips moving, reciting the oath; no fakers allowed. Afterwards we recited the Pledge of Allegiance, sang the National Anthem and watched a brief, surprisingly articulate message from one George W. Bush. Finally, we picked up our booklets with the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and great American speeches (which were waiting for us on our chairs when we sat down) and filed out row-by-row, graduation-style, to pick up our fancy green Certificates of Naturalization.

“Congratulations, you are now U.S. Citizens!”

Thank God.

It’s not just about being able to travel easier with an American passport, being able to vote, or feeling like you’re at last one of the family. The deep appreciation I feel for this Certificate of Naturalization comes from the infinite gratitude that I have for the countless opportunities that this country has given me. Last summer, visiting the neighborhood where I grew up in Gliwice, Poland, I remember when an old man sat down next to me and my sister on a bench while she and I sat there eating lunch and conversing in English. He asked us where we were from and when we told him that we were visiting our childhood neighborhood from the U.S., his eyes teared up. He asked us to forgive him for drowning his sorrows in a bottle of vodka in front of us and told us how he wished he had had the same opportunity; how he’d spent his whole life working as a contractor doing odd jobs for whatever money he could find and now, in his fifties, he was out of a job and with no way to help his children support their grandchildren and watched them suffer in the same poverty which he had spent his whole life. My sister and I don’t have to relive the lives of our parents; we are free to follow our dreams and we are eternally grateful to them for bringing us to America and for working menial jobs at minimum wage so that we could go to school and have a chance to realize the promise of America.

Last Friday, as I took that oath, I felt like had at last realized that promise and that this whole, long journey from one continent, country and identity to another was, at last, complete.

But teary and sentimental as this may all sound, there are some hard truths we Americans (I can finally say that!) must face up to:

· Increasingly, the middle class in this country is becoming an endangered species as more and more families find themselves in the same position as the old drunk in Gliwice: unable to provide a better life for their children and grandchildren, watching in sorrow as they work harder and longer just to stay in the same place

· Increasingly, America is no longer the land of promise that it used to be. As the world flattens, may would-be immigrants find opportunities in their back yards or their neighbors’ back yards, with much less hassle and without the indignities of xenophobia and intolerance that they often face here in the U.S. If the U.S. is going to remain the beacon of opportunity in the world, it must, in the words of Thomas Friedman, continuously innovate its “special sauce” that makes it the great country that it is

· Increasingly, America doesn’t command the same respect abroad as it used to. To many around the world, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and the mistakes or Iraq define the U.S. as much as the sacrifices of Okinawa and Normandy during WWII

The problems facing the U.S., like inflation, eat away at the promise and meaning of that flag to which we swear allegiance. If it’s to mean the same thing to future Americans as it did to me when I first came here, we need to roll-up our sleeves: we’ve got some hard work ahead of us.