Local opinion: A first-generation American meets new Americans

Recently, I had the privilege of attending my son-in-law Yoganand’s swearing-in as a naturalized American citizen.

In the main display room of the Pima Air and Space Museum, surrounded by the artifacts and symbols of American ingenuity, industrial proficiency, and service to country, on that Friday morning, 100 individuals from 20 countries (one of which, Eritrea, I had never even heard of), took the oath of allegiance to the USA. More than half the individuals were from Mexico. Others came from countries as disparate as India, Congo, Australia, Brazil, Netherlands, Syria and Ukraine, just to name a few.

Toward the end of the ceremony, individuals were given the opportunity to speak on this momentous occasion in their life. Eloquently and emotionally, several spoke to their ideological and economic aspirations.

As a first-generation American born to immigrant parents, I myself witnessed in my lifetime those emotions and aspirations. Both my parents were born in foreign countries: my father in Alcamo, Sicily, and my mother in Brooklyn, New York. Lest you think Brooklyn is not a foreign country, consider that the language of commerce in her insulated neighborhood, and especially in her household, was overwhelmingly the Sicilian dialect, and that although as a child she played in the streets of New York, she virtually never heard the English language spoken until she attended first grade. I suspect that many of those naturalized citizens come from similar households, neighborhoods and experiences.

My father fled the European continent in 1936 during a time of economic depression and the growth of fascism. He saw America as the land of opportunity. He understood the cost of expatriation, the abandonment of his way of life and the adoption of the culture of a new and strange country, and willingly paid the price. He knew that the promise of America, beyond economic opportunity, provided him the freedom to earn respect and grow as an individual. He embraced these ideals and purposefully instilled them in his children. He was a proud naturalized American. Until the day he died, he spoke with a thick Italian accent, much as those who were sworn in this day and every day still speak with their native accents. And though he became an exceptionally successful craftsman in the field of antiques restoration in the highly competitive New York City antiques market, he experienced, far too often, prejudice for being an immigrant. Yet that never dulled his enthusiasm and pride of being an American citizen. He understood that those who looked down upon him were ‘cafones.’

Other than native Americans, we all come from immigrant stock. The vast, vast majority have enriched the blood of our nation. During the ceremony, in a pre-recorded message, President Biden pronounced, as others on the podium had, that America is a great and unique concept more than a place. That concept includes the acceptance, indeed the celebration, of differences. These naturalized citizens, past and in the future, who were willing to uproot their lives, who studied our history, who learned our laws, who worked to be productive members of our society, and who embraced our way of life, by the very nature of what they did are true Americans. And those others who would expound on and practice prejudice, are only American by accident of birth, if even that.