What for? Without taking away from the happy, kindly congratulatory feelings of the congratulations -- I really didn't get it. Is it indeed something to be congratulated for, this change of nationality? I didn't pay any part of the application fee, pass any particularly difficult test, or indeed, choose to come to this country in the first place. I didn't do any of it. Choose any of it.
But maybe it's not really about me anyways; what I've done or haven't. It's more like "congratulations for this great piece of luck" kind of deal. You're in the group, now -- may you officially and freely partake in Social Security (contributions). Even if you didn't know what you were getting yourself into (the most momentous life decisions get made this way, I feel). And it's true that I'm so thankful to be here, honestly. Not because I fled from an oppressive political regime or because my home country is war-torn and tattery now, but because I was free to think and to dress and to study and to dream the way I got to here.
And to eat celebratory Kroger cake and homemade pho in the same meal, surrounded by a rowdy bunch of hyphenated-Americans singing the Star-Spangled Banner.
America the Beautiful indeed.
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