In the afternoon of Tuesday, November 22, I stood in a room as one of 76 immigrants from across 23 different countries who swore an oath of allegiance to the United States of America. I swore to uphold and defend the Constitution, and to bear arms for the sake of this country if required by law. I swore to renounce allegiance and fidelity to foreign states, and that I took on all these responsibilities freely. My parents were in the audience, and when I received my certificate I saw nothing but relief and joy in their faces. Looking back on the process that brought us to that moment, and what it means for my future, it has solidified in my mind that I should have no hesitations in calling myself a proud American, regardless of the happenings of November 8th.
One thing that most people who were born in the United States don’t quite grasp is the amount of time it takes from when one first comes to the U.S. to when they become citizens. I moved here from Mexico when I was six years old, so it has been 13 years since I’ve been living in the states and only now did I receive my citizenship. Part of why this takes so long is that the application process is slow, and in addition, there are multiple stages. The first is an application for permanent residence, which takes an absurd amount of time. Once you have received your Green Card, you must then be a permanent resident for 5 years without any major incident before you can do the final application for citizenship, which then in itself has multiple steps which take months to complete. It is a long and irritating process, one which involves at least one lawyer, lots of money, and a lot of patience. After such a large investment, the least one can do is see it through to the end.
Not only is there a large investment that goes into being a citizen, but there are many things that come out of becoming one as well. Although it may not be as obvious as it was when the country was first founded, the U.S. is still a land of limitless opportunity, especially when compared with other countries. Since moving to the States my parents have continued to move forward with their careers, and as they gain more experience the number of opportunities available to them continues to increase dramatically.
Meanwhile I have heard stories of people back in Mexico who’s potential has been wasted because no matter how hard they work and how hard they press for a promotion or change in lifestyle they are always pushed back down to where they were because forward thinking is not rewarded, rather the people who have already gained the positions of power want to stay there and will do what they must to do so, which leads to the second reason why living in the U.S. is better than the alternative.
Even though it’s not a perfect system by a longshot, the government of the United States has one thing going for it in that the citizens have a say in what happens. Although that led to Donald Trump becoming president, it still stands true that a democracy where citizens have a say holds a high potential for being better than anything else. Going back to Mexico as an example, it is technically a democracy, but everything is so corrupt that everyone knows who is going to win regardless of if that’s who they want or not. Corruption is rampant in every aspect of Mexican politics, and it spreads so far that even the police is in on it. Recently there have been countless news reports that say that the U.S. police force is too violent and needs to be restrained, but nonetheless this country feels infinitely more safe to live and walk around in that Mexico ever would, because while there might be a couple of bad cops the majority are there to actually do their job and protect citizens.
There are many things to not be proud of, that’s for sure. The educational system could be better, minimum wage could be higher, health care could be declared a basic human right, and we could have some systems in place to not allow such a horrible man even be a potential candidate for the leader of the nation, but the basic ideals on which the USA was built and the extensive systems in place to ensure every person gets to live their life to whatever extent they want to more than balance those out. I am proud to be a citizen of the United States of America.
