Becoming US citizens

Could you answer the 100 questions?

Two weeks ago, we visited E-160, the most important room in the nation, where people from all over the world find themselves on the last rung to US citizenship. We were in Boston with two young women we have come to call our children.

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When the girls first arrived from Haiti they were 10 years old, spoke no English (though they did know how to say, “I want some peanut butter!”), and bravely began a life full of surprises and challenges. Their home village Matenwa, high in the Haitian hills, had no electricity or running water, no town hall, no police station or post office, no paved roads, so their new world was full of firsts; the airport’s escalator a magical amazement, a strange thing called pizza, a Cape Cod of white people, sand, sea, and snow.

We (especially Ellen) had known their parents, grandparents, great grandparent years before their births. After tragic illness and death in the family, we felt we needed to do what we could to avoid yet more tragedy. It took as much stamina and guile, fancy footwork and legal gymnastics as we could muster, many weeks camped in Port au Prince, full support from their birth family and many others, to convince Haitian and American officials parked behind dozens of desks and counters that we should be allowed to bring them here.

That was nine years ago. They are 19 now, both graduating from Nauset High School this weekend, National Honors Society students, on their way to colleges in the fall. Both are first in their families to do these and many other things -- including becoming United States citizens.

Once their “green cards” were issued, which really are green, they needed to wait another five years to apply for citizenship. We waited, then applied. Months passed with no word, then suddenly letters; both girls would have examination hearings in the same week.

So began a game we played many nights around the dinner table, as we drove around the Cape, a game played by many immigrants: “The 100 questions.”

Homeland Security publishes a list of 100 questions. Any 10 of them, you don’t know which, will be asked at the examination. You need six right to pass.

Some seem easy:

Who was the first President?

Where is the nation’s capital?

What ocean is on the East Coast of the United States?

Who lived in America before the Europeans arrived?

When do we celebrate Independence Day?

Some seem less easy, though the answers remind us of what we’ve learned along the way:

Who wrote the Declaration of Independence (Thomas Jefferson)?

What do we call the first 10 amendments to the Constitution (the Bill of Rights)?

Who did the United States fight in World War Two (Germany, Italy, and Japan)?

What did Martin Luther King Jr. do (suggested answers, “fought for civil rights,” “worked for equality for all Americans”)?

Some, without study, most of us would not get right:

How many amendments are there to the Constitution (27)?

How many voting members serve in the House of Representative (435)?

When was the Constitution written (1787)?

What territory did the United States buy from France in 1803 (Louisiana)?

Who was President during World War One (Woodrow Wilson)?

If both the President and Vice President can no longer serve, who becomes President (the Speaker of the House)?

Under our Constitution, some powers belong to the states. Name one (examples; provide education, give a driver’s license, approve zoning).

Taken together these 100 questions comprise a pointillist picture of how we see ourselves, our government, our history. They stick to “facts,” historical, geographical, political (What are the two major political parties?). They do not delve into controversy or interpretation (a “problem” that led to the Civil War could be “economic reasons” or “states’ rights” as well as “slavery”).

We went over them so often we could recite them cruising along Route 6. So when their moments came, days apart, they knew they were ready:

Each applicant meets an examiner in E-160 and is escorted within, alone. In our cases both examiners were women of color, soft-spoken, one born in Africa and one married to an African. There was no sense they were trying to trick or trip up. They spoke the questions:

What the name of the highest court?

Who is the Vice President?

What is the capital of your state?

What stops any one branch of government from exercising too much power?

Who is the Speaker of the House?

In both interviews only six questions were asked, because that’s how many are needed to pass, and that’s how many were answered correctly.

There are other questions: Have you ever pretended to be a US citizen? Will you obey the laws?

There is some writing too, a spoken sentence to transcribe like, “The White House is in Washington DC.”

Then it’s over. Each girl walked out with yet one more piece of paper that included the word “Congratulations!” Both were told to expect another letter with final authorization and directions for how to be sworn in.

Does that sound anticlimactic, perfunctory after so many years, fears and tears? No no. It was a fulcrum moment, not defining the future but quietly wedging open a huge door into it.

We left E-160 and merged into a flow of generations, drops added to the coursing river that has made America what it is, merging with millions in ways no demagogue can usurp, manipulate, or poison.

It is our girls, with all those still coming, who truly could make America great again – or better put, continue to personify whatever greatness it has ever possessed.

With profound thanks to Project Citizenship, a Boston-based non-profit that provides free, high-quality services helping people become “naturalized”; legal advice, crafting applications, bureaucratic direction, emotional reinforcement. Check out this remarkable effort, patriotic in the best sense — and they welcome new Cape Cod clients: https://projectcitizenship.org/

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