Naturalizing into an Amerikanerin
So I’m going through the process of naturalizing into a US citizen.
Although it seemed very natural that I should apply to be a US Citizen without even thinking twice given the chance when I’m eligible to do so, I did somehow managed to get myself beaten over it — on one hand, I was reminded of my grave responsibility to the family of Chow every time I called home and got my ass kicked for delaying the application ; on the other, I was reprimanded every time I brought up the topic of Naturalization to my “second dad” who once told me in all seriousness that Citizenship was not a matter of “convenience” and he would NEVER change his Chinese citizenship even if they make it 10 times harder for him to travel anywhere with his China passport. For a while feel like the kid in “Rich dad, poor dad”, torn between two worlds.
But ehh…politics is too much for my head. I decided that I should just go for it, esp of how much I much I’m attached to the US given I spent my “formative years” in the States and that I’m working in here and possibly staying here for as long as I live. POSSIBLY. So, with all the reasons aforementioned, I started to fill in the N400 form.
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Filling out the N400 form was another self-reflecting exercise.
For example, I found out that I have only been outside of the US for about two and a half months in total in the last five year of which about 50 days were spent in Hong Kong. That’s how much time I have spent with my family. But that’s probably how every other college kid is these days, going to college outside of their hometowns and all. Still, 50 out of 5X365 days is a pretty gruesome figure. If I had a kid and I’ve only visited him/her 50 days out of the past 5 years, he/she would have already declared me a heartless bitch, or worst still, a total stranger.
Some other things they ask you are pretty funky, like whether you have “Ever committed a crime which you have never been arrested for”, “Been a habitual drunkard” or “Been a prostitute, or procured anyone for prostitution”…. I wonder how often do they catch those idiots who have a sudden attack of conscience and couldn’t wait to confess their sins while applying to be naturalized into any country. I supposed it would reflect positively on their moral character. The next portion is even more funky. They ask if you are/were
1) A Communist
2) A Nazi or
3) A terrorist.
I’m pretty darn sure the real intent of those funky questions was to trick people who are either
1) Retarded
2) Cannot for the love of God follow instructions
3) Doesn’t read and write any English, or illiterate.
if they pick any of the answer.
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The fun part of being “naturalized” into an Amerikanerin, of course, is to the go to the interview. I have heard many stories about it. Once my professor from Australia told us that he, a PROFESSOR, I repeat, who has been teaching in CMU for >10 years, was asked to spell “Pennsylvania”. And that was before the invention of those nifty little auto-correction plugins in your word processor and web browsers, which have made a lot of us lose our ability to spell. He obviously walked out of there smiling.
My brother’s experience was a lot different. He is a history junkie, so even if he has to go to a citizenship test in Ireland in which, if it is to be occurred, they ask him talk about the Irish civil wars in 1922 and name the names of the generals, I think he’d actually has a decent chance of answering them. But yet he was asked to do something he wasn’t prepared for — to sing the National Emblem. Of course,he knew the lyrics ( having watch too many US sports games I supposed), but his singing ability wasn’t at all assuring and being put to the spot right then and there in a big hall that was utterly silent except for your own voice, I could imagine it would be pretty tough. He did make it tho. Phew!
So you can basically get anything in the interview. When mine comes (which could be 6 months out), if it’s at all entertaining to you guys, I may write a post or two about it =)