On March 2, in a ceremony repeated many times a year, in places all over the U.S., 127 people from 45 countries stood in the atrium at the Denver Public Library, raised their right hands and pledged fidelity to a country that, until that moment, was not their own.
People from Afghanistan and France, Canada and the United Kingdom, Venezuela and Vietnam and Mexico traded in their worn green cards for certificates that guarantee their ability to participate fully in American life. To vote. To cross U.S. borders without anxiety. To keep families together. To be free in a way they say is impossible in some of the places they came from.
Denver Public Library commissioner Kevin O’Connor, reflecting on his own family’s immigrant roots, and acknowledging “the comfort of having been born in this country,” said the naturalization of new U.S. citizens represents a renewal of the nation and what it stands for.
“We see in your faces, our faces,” he said. “Unless we are Native Americans, we are all immigrants.”
At least two men in the crowd were becoming citizens as they prepared for service in the U.S. military, William Makuach Kuch, formerly of Sudan, and John Ross Valino, who came from the Philippines. “I am definitely proud to be a member of this country,” Valino said.
Justice Kwame Appiah, who came to the U.S. from Ghana with the help of the LDS Church, said he will remember the day he took the oath of citizenship as “the greatest day of my life. I have come to stay.”
Mirjana Panic, 46, said she always dreamed of being an American, even when she was growing up in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Eleven years ago, political and economic conditions spurred her to flee to the U.S. When she raised her hand to pledge allegiance, her 19-year-old son, Branislav, was there too. Her husband, Mile, will go next, once his paperwork comes through.
“I have waited a long time,” said Panic, whose 15-year-old daughter, Branislava, received citizenship automatically because of her age. “I am so happy.”
Karen Castillo, 33, grew teary when she recalled how long she waited to emigrate from Venezuela. “It was very important for me to become a citizen after 15 years of waiting to come to America and have a better lifestyle. And vote. This is a very special day.”
Solomon Tessema, a portrait artist from Ethiopia, waited years before winning an immigration visa lottery and then waited exactly five years and six months more before he was able to pledge citizenship in the U.S. “I am very happy,” said Tessema, who now works at Central Parking in Denver. “I get the freedom. In the third world, there is no freedom.”
Anushé Mirabedini Fisher, a Boulder book translator and mother of two who came to the U.S. from Iran in 1977 for college, relishes the freedom of traveling under a U.S. passport. “It is lovely.”
Until recently, Fisher said, it didn’t seem important to seek citizenship. “I had children, I was too busy. But then my husband said part of me was not really here. It was so touching.”
Maria Elida Cepeda, 45, came to the U.S. from Chihuahua, Mexico, 20 years ago. She completed high school with her daughters, now 20 and 17, and then set out to study for her citizenship exam.
“I am so proud to be a citizen. I am so excited right now,” said Cepeda, who prepared for the test late at night, after she got off work managing apartment complexes in Wheat Ridge. She encouraged others to do the same. “It’s not that hard. Don’t be afraid to do it.”
It took 10 years after he left Zacatecas, Mexico, for Hugo Muñoz to prepare for U.S. citizenship. He brought his wife, Irene, and their 2-year-old daughter, Sophia, with him to celebrate. “It is good,” he said. “Now we can vote.”
Javier Strohmeier, 38, followed his mother and two brothers to Colorado from Lima, Peru, seven years ago hoping to find opportunity. His hopes were not so different from those of his great-grandparents when they emigrated to Peru from Germany in the early 1900s.
Here he is an IBM system administrator and partner in the family business, Colorado Karate Club in Brighton.
“I love this country and love all the values it represents,” Strohmeier said before heading out with his younger brother to register to vote. “I am happy to be an American now. I really mean it.”
Staff writer Dana Coffield can be reached at 303-954-1954 or dcoffield@denverpost.com.
