Tuesday Omar took the oath for citizenship. My Aunt Nancy, mom, dad, and 2 sisters, Lindsey and Kelly came and stayed the night to join us in this once in a lifetime event that most people do not experience. Monday night was spend with cooking for the party the next day, watching football (of course I didn't do that), and playing Settlers of Catan.
Tuesday morning we were out the door by 8:30 AM to make it Florida State College theater for the ceremony. We walked into the large reception hall where a huge line was snaking around. They almost wouldn't let us in because it was so full. Omar got in line and we were pushed to go find a seat upstairs. It was then time to wait. Omar had to be there by 9:15 AM which he was, but obviously he must have been the last to arrive, I didn't know people would arrive so early for this thing. We assumed it must start at 10 AM.
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| Check out how many people are becoming citizens! |
We were not able to see Omar come in and sit down or during the whole ceremony. I was worried that maybe they turned him away and he had been sitting outside the whole time, phoneless. He had to turn in his green card (he has never called it that though, he refers to it as his resident card), and also a piece a paper with questions filled out. A few days prior to the ceremony he asked me to bring it to him. We read the questions and the first one I checked off as yes. It asked have you married. YES, he married. So then it showed he would need to bring his marriage certificate with him. He expressed that he already gave them a copy and I then realized that I didn't understand the instructions well. The instructions were have you done any of these things since your interview a few months ago. OOPS, we checked off the wrong answer. We switched to "no" but the damage was done. I was afraid maybe immigration would say, "sorry, you will have to try again another time since you didn't read the instructions properly."
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| Nancy, Craig, and Kelly waiting for the ceremony to begin |
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| The Certificates |
At 10 AM the ceremony began. Flags were raised, the national anthem was sung, a speech was given regarding how this should be a memorable day and how close it is to Martin Luther King Jr holiday which represents something that this country is all about, freedom. The Social Security office spoke a few times telling us a TON of information of the next steps and papers, and who knows what else we need to do. Finally it came time for the calling of names.
There were 109 names read that day, I was beginning to wonder if Omar really was in there because many rows had past and still no Omar, there was really no one left. To my relief he was #108.
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| Our very own #108, due to his name they were confused on where to have him sit so they made him last, he missed a lot of the beginning of the ceremony |
I was amazed at how many people were becoming citizens and how they all were from Bosnia and the Philippines. There was maybe 10 people from Latin countries, which was a shocker to me. I guess they don't for 1 of 2 reasons: One, they are just like Omar, lazy to get their citizenship, after all Omar could have been a citizen long before we were married and he is now only the 2nd in his family to do the work to become one. His mom and brother have now started the process. Two, they are probably mostly illegal and that is why they aren't able to become citizens.
Omar finally looked proud as he took his certificate and waived his little American flag. He has really not cared much about this whole thing to begin with.
When we walked back out to the reception hall there was a whole other shift of people waiting to do the same thing we did, I wonder how many shifts they do and how often they do them. It is crazy how much of a melting pot our country really is. Omar wished that he had that shift because then his date and time would have been really cool... 1/11/11 at 11 AM.
Omar signed up to vote after he became a citizen, let the Party wars begin!
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