Sunshine and Citizenship

Our friend Joseph's church in Evanston has a gathering called Sunshine Group every other Friday evening. For about 20 years now, people of all abilities have been gathering for a meal and a time of faith sharing. A month or so ago, Joseph, who goes regularly, invited us to participate and we found it to be such a neat time of authentic connection. Though I could not attend Sunshine Group yesterday with Eric and Joseph because I normally work until 8pm Fridays (I know, you wish you could work Friday nights, too), I met them, along with Chuck and John, on the EL. Chuck and John are two participants who live down closer to downtown than we do, and we had the joy of accompanying them home on the train. When we arrived at the new assisted-living apartment complex where they have lived for one month, they invited us in for a tour. Here are Chuck and John and the guys in the new place.


Today my office put on a "mega-workshop" at West Side Technical Institute (a city college where Instituto del Progreso Latino has some of its offices). Between 9 and 3, about 300 permanent residents, with the assistance of volunteers, filled out their application for naturalization, went through a legal screening process, had their required photos taken, and received information about citizenship classes that we offer. All the folks on the bleachers in the background are waiting for their number to be called.

The workshops make for exhausting and chaotic, but very fulfilling, days. The 10-page applications are tedious and require us to record things like exact dates for trips out of the country during the entire time the applicant has been a US resident (for those who have 25-30 years of residency, this is a pain in the butt), and personal information for the person's spouse's ex-spouse. We also have to ask questions like "have you ever been a habitual drunkard?" "do you hold any titles of nobility in any other country?" "have you ever advocated to violently overthrow any goverment?" and "do you belong to any terrorist organizations?" Surprisingly, no one that I've worked with has ever responded affirmatively to any of these questions.

Anyway, it's an interesting process and the time goes by very quickly. And it's really neat to be able to be a caring and patient person who assists in making one step of a really long, confusing, and often frustrating process a bit easier.

Now it's off to class for many of them, where they will prepare for the citizenship interview/exam by studying information that is "essential" to being an active, responsible citizen. Things like, "who said 'Give me liberty or give me death'?," "name the 13 original colonies," and "what is the name of the ship that brough the Pilgrims to America?" Plus they have to practice writing sentences like "America is the land of the free," which is not only propaganda, but also perpetuates using the name "America" for the United States.

Ok, I obviously have some issues with the process, but thankfully, the vision of our classes is a bit broader. We hope to give students/applicants a broad understanding of the context of the history and civics questions and teach skills that will help them be more active in their communities, like writing letters to their representatives and participating in community decision-making.

Unfortunately, the citizenship application process is just going to get more difficult. Check out this Washington Post article, Citizenship Changes Draw Objections, if you're interested in some of the details.

Ok, Eric's been cleaning the apartment for a while now and I keep saying that I will join him soon!