American Magazine, Nov. 2013

“It’s highly
emotional.
Many times
people cry at
naturalization
procedures.
Are they crying
because they’re
so happy to be
Americans? For
many I think
that’s true. Are
they crying
because they’re
leaving something
behind and cutting
themselves off
from a dimension
of their former
life? It is a very
important moment
of transition.”
—Alan Kraut,
professor of history
“I’m always
going to be an
Afghan, but
I’m also an
American now.”
Eleven-year-old Mohammadulla Hassan’s
days were spent in the manner of men.
Inside the cramped two-room apartment
he shared with his parents, five of his seven
siblings, and another family in Islamabad,
Pakistan, he’d be jostled awake by 7 a.m.,
then head to work. At the local bizarre he
sold plastic bags for two rupees each (turning
a one rupee profit) to shoppers buying fruits
and vegetables. As day turned to dusk, he’d
scour the city collecting scraps of cardboard,
which he then flipped to recyclers for three
rupees per pound. Often, he didn’t return
home until 9 at night.
He had never been enrolled in a school,
knew no English, and although he could
speak Farsi, could not read or write it.
The Hassans are Afghans and Shiite
Muslims, refugees who were driven from
their homeland in the late ’90s by the Taliban.
Across the border, life was safer but no easier.
“We didn’t have any future,” Hassan, now
19, says. “Education was always important
to my parents. We weren’t able to get that in
Pakistan. My parents knew that if we moved
back to Afghanistan, it would be the same
thing. To come to the United States, there
would be opportunities for a better life.”
Dullah, as his friends call him, is
recounting this on a bench in front of the
Mary Graydon Center on a sunny early
September day. Behind him on the quad,
students lounge on blankets, soaking up sun
and laughing with their friends. Frisbees,
not bullets, fly through the air. That he could
blend into this idyllic setting—a few weeks
earlier he arrived at AU to begin his freshman
year—is a proposition he or any other rational
person would have found unthinkable just
eight years ago.
Only in America, as the cliché goes. For
millions of immigrants who make their way
to this country in pursuit of the same thing
the Hassans were chasing—“a better life”—the
phrase has deep meaning.
Hassan has a full plate these days. He’s
adjusting to the nuances of dorm cohabitation,
diving into financial accounting class (he wants
to become an economist), and trying to find time
to play soccer. But these activities, all important
ones to an undergrad, have taken a back seat to
another: pursuing American citizenship.
Pushed by their hearts, their heads, or
their wallets, hundreds of thousands of
people each year become U.S. citizens. Their
motivations range from patriotic to pragmatic.
Like the country they’re becoming a part
of, new Americans are a complex, diverse
group with a wide spectrum of pasts, present
circumstances, and futures.
Naturalization is not a quick process.
Applicants must be permanent residents for
at least five years; undergo a background
check; prove they can speak, read, and write
English; and pass a civics test before they earn
the right to raise their right hand and take the
oath of allegiance.
“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely
and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance
and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate,
state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have
heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will
support and defend the Constitution and laws
of the United States of America against all
enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear
true faith and allegiance to the same; that I
will bear arms on behalf of the United States
when required by the law; that I will perform
noncombatant service in the armed forces of the
United States when required by the law; that I
will perform work of national importance under
civilian direction when required by the law; and
that I take this obligation freely without any
28 American Magazine NOVEMBER 2013