July Fourth, 2013, 6:15 a.m. Gary and I head down to Charlottesville for a very special event. We were thrilled to “score” tickets to this “sold out event” the day they went up for grabs. The venue was Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson and no, it wasn’t a rock concert, but rather the fifty-first Fourth of July Naturalization Ceremony at Monticello! The tickets were free and the temperature and humidity guaranteed to be high. Our designated arrival time at the remote parking lot was 7:15 am so that we might be searched, banded and loaded on buses in time for a 7:45 am departure to the top of the mountain. For the next ninety minutes, an undulating sea of red, white and blue fashions filed out of school buses with all the excitement of school children on a field trip. Gary and I must be NUTS to be doing this, but then again, so are the hundreds of other people streaming around us. Yup. We are SURROUNDED by DEMOCRACY JUNKIES!
We met people who do this year after year, because they can’t think of a better way to spend the Fourth of July! We went because we wanted to witness the magic, the drama, and the thrill of what it is like to BECOME an American citizen. There is nothing quite like it anywhere in the world.
During the ceremony, Dave Matthews, originally from South Africa, recounted his rocky journey to American Citizenship. He attributed his eventual acquisition of citizenship to his single mother’s dogged persistence, recounting that three years into the process, the INS notified her that all their documentation and filing paperwork had been lost, and she had to start the process all over again. Eventually she was able gain citizenship for herself and her four children. He spoke from the heart. He spoke directly and with great empathy to the soon-to-be citizens. In researching his life, I found that Dave Matthews had been born a Quaker, and did not want to be conscripted into military service in Apartheid era South African.
Next, Federal Judge Harvie Wilkinson III of the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit also addressed the newly minted citizens on separation of Church and State, quoting Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802.
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State." Jefferson reflected his frequent speaking theme that the government is not to interfere with religion.
As Jews, we are painfully aware of the obstacles to immigration placed on Jews as they desperately tried to escape the net of death cast broadly over Europe by the Nazi’s. Our own State Department, rife with anti-semitism, withheld thousands and thousands of life-saving visas by placing obstacle after obstacle in front of perspective immigrants. It seems that even today, jumping through hoops is a favorite exercise at the US Immigration and Naturalization Service! It seems that there are still obstacles to overcome. But the race is not to the swift and the process can take years if not decades.
No matter what your politics, and your views toward Immigration Reform, we are, ultimately, a nation of immigrants. Musician and philanthropist Dave Matthews spoke eloquently on the subject. He reminded us, that, with the exception of Native Americans, we are ALL immigrants; no matter HOW LONG AGO our ancestors arrived on these shores. He quoted Emma Lazarus’s poem on the base of the Statue of Liberty , which I give you here in its entirety.
The
New Colossus
Not
like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With
conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here
at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A
mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is
the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother
of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows
world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The
air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep
ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With
silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your
huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The
wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send
these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I
lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
