By Soniah Kamal
In the summer of 2012, I walked into the Richard. B Russell Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in downtown Atlanta, took an elevator to the 23rd floor and entered the Ceremonial Courtroom to become a citizen of the United States of America. I joined 150 fellow citizens-to-be as we watched the presentation of colors, hummed along to the national anthem, and stood up, one by one, during roll call to announce our country of origin. We rose collectively to recite the oath and pledge of allegiance. And, as brand new citizens, we listened to the guest speaker’s welcome address.
I had no idea that, eight years later, I would deliver my own welcome speech to 250 people, future U.S. citizens and their family and friends — in that very hall at that very lectern. And not in my wildest dreams could I have guessed that, afterward, I would be asked to hand out the citizenship certificate and thus become part of these new citizens’ memories of relief, tears, hugs and photos.
I paused at the invitation to deliver this speech. The citizenship-oath ceremony is an occasion with people from all political leanings. It is a moment of togetherness at this time in history where such moments seem few. To give what is meant to be a happy, hopeful, uplifting speech is a tremendous honor — also, a challenge. I accepted.
On August 9, 2019, I stood in that quiet hall at that lectern wearing my father’s white kurta, a red patterned ajrak shawl and blue nail polish — a Pakistani outfit in the American colors of the flag which towered behind me. I felt the full gravity of giving this welcome speech, and I began…
soniah kamal presenting citizenship certificates in Atlanta. (Photo: Mansoor Wasti)
Thank you, Judge Amy Totenberg, for your introduction and welcome citizens and guests. As a novelist, my trade is to illuminate the universals across time and cultures — to connect worlds, to weave communal stories from our individual lives — and it is my immense honor to be standing here before you all in this capacity. Stories are the blood running through the veins of life. Stories connect. Stories bridge divides. Stories remind us of all that we have in common. We are the stories we tell and our bonds are the stories we share.
Each of us has a story of how we came to America and became American. Here is mine. In the early ’70s, my parents took a leap of faith and left their native Pakistan to seek their fortunes. I was six months old at the time and I would go on to grow up in England, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, watching my parents work hard to give me and my siblings the best of everything, including education. A part of my upbringing I cherish was attending an international school where the student body resembled a mini United Nations with kids from everywhere in the world. In fact, it looked like all of you today, a vast group of people gathered together from different countries, cultures, and creeds to become one.
My first look at what the United States of America means to me was delivered via a VHS tape a teacher brought from the U.S. and played at school. First, we watched a recording of Michael Jackson’s video, “Thriller,” and then a clip of a show called ‘That’s Incredible,” and then something that was going to change my life: a hilltop full of teenagers singing the lyrics, “I’d like to buy the world a home and furnish it with love. I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.” What remained with me was the powerful memory that this congregation of many coming together from everywhere is America. The child-me did not realize that this was a Coca-Cola advertisement. It wasn’t until decades later that I would view it again at the Coke factory right here in Atlanta, Georgia. So it was that business, enterprise and marketing informed the basis of my American dream. When it came time to apply to college, this image of nationalities standing together made me choose America. After graduation, I met the person who would become my spouse and I stayed on.
I have now lived in America for close to 30 years, several as a citizen. What made me an American citizen? A person yelled at me to go back to where I came from. That was the day I decided to apply for citizenship. I’d been told to go back home, and I realized that I was already home. America is my home and I became a citizen in this very Georgia courthouse where you also became citizens today.
Some of you may have traversed terrible borders, faced formidable barriers, and endured many hardships to come to America. Pat yourselves on the back, for today you have pledged allegiance to the United States of America and to this country you bring your experience, your energy and your expertise. This land is your land today, tomorrow, forever. You belong and do not let anything make you believe otherwise. In this land — famous for opportunity — some of you will have come for education as did I, some of you to join your families, some to further job and career prospects, some to spread fairness and equality, some to become rich and famous, some of you to seek refuge from persecution, to sleep in safety, to freely speak your opinions, the freedom to live your authentic self, some for the freedom to practice your religion or no religion at all.
So this is how I came to America and became an American citizen. But there is also another story — and that is the story of the moment I fell in love with America. Each of us has a love story of our particular moment. Mine involves traffic. Now, most everyone everywhere complains about traffic — be it rush-hour, or jams, or just too many cars on the road and someone driving too fast or too slow — and really it can seem an ordeal to get anywhere. In many countries it is the law to make way for siren blaring ambulances and fire trucks, etc., but it was in America where I saw vehicles actually parting and making way. I was in awe. My love, and respect, was cemented one evening at a four-way intersection with no traffic lights or traffic police. Instead of the traffic descending into chaos, each trying to go first, there was an unspoken order and respect for turns. I had truly never seen anything like this before and, at that moment, I fell for a country where even strangers value the rights of each other and give everyone a chance to move on.
This brings me to another reason I fell for America. Here, in America, you will be admired for achievements resulting from your hard work and not simply because of which family you belong to or who your parents are or your connections or money or what time period of history you set foot onto this land. Merit matters here, we believe. This is the promise and pledge of America, that you get to be you, you get to create you, you get to decide what substance you are made of, no matter who and where you hail from. This is an American Dream worthy of believing in and one we must uphold above all. We are a multitude of cultures and languages and cuisines and dress and values and traditions, and in America, we are all equal, a fact we should remember and cherish in good times — even more so in troubled times.
This is a tremendous time to be an American, a time when our right to vote makes all the difference, as does the responsibility of ensuring the right of free and fair elections. To be a patriot, a great American, means to ensure that every person upholds the essential rule of law in America which is that everyone is equal before the law — meaning no one is above the law. It is our duty as Americans to praise our home when deserved and, even more crucial, to speak up against injustice here.
Look around you for a second, in this room, in your neighborhood, in the streets, at the market, at your workplace, and you will see that, unless indigenous, the person next to you came to America from elsewhere too or that their ancestors did — no matter how far back. The United States of America is a country of immigrants, of naturalized citizens, a country capable of great kindness and inclusion of all.
Do you know what all of us naturalized citizens have in common? It is that we have passed a citizenship exam where we had to learn the answers to a hundred questions, out of which the examiner would randomly choose 10 questions, out of which we had to get six right in order to pass.
In my quest to pass the citizenship test, I took a citizenship preparation class offered for free by my local library. How many of you know who started the first public library in the U.S.? I will return to this question. In this particular citizenship class, our instructor, a smiling woman with very short hair, had grown up in France. I sat beside a German woman whose husband was from Iran. They were moving from Germany to the U.S. with the great hope of escaping racism. Around me were people from Vietnam, South Korea, Mexico, Ethiopia, Bulgaria, Brazil, Egypt, Ghana. An elderly man from China with snow-white hair was slowly moving a finger over the English textbook. I imagined learning Chinese in order to pass a citizenship exam. Impossible. And yet we immigrants make the impossible possible in our linguistic journeys.
A question asked on the citizenship test may well be to name one of the 562 tribes indigenous to this land and I could hear the Chinese gentleman murmur “Cherokee, Navajo, Sioux, Mohawk.” I would see this man, whose chuckle reminded me of the elders in my family, learn the answers to questions such as what is the longest river in the U.S.? It’s the Missouri River. What are the three branches of the U.S. government? They are executive, legislative and judicial, each to balance and keep in check the other. What did the 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution do? It abolished slavery. Who was Martin Luther King Jr.? A civil rights activist. What is Benjamin Franklin known for? For being America’s first postmaster general. Benjamin Franklin is also — and here’s the answer to my question above — the person who, in the year 1731, started my favorite place in the U.S. , actually my favorite place in every country in the world: the public library, that home away from home where it is warm, clean, quiet, and there is a bastion of free knowledge at your fingertips and a universe of stories within the pages of books.
Today, we are the ink in which the stories of this country are written. Today, your stories become American. Today begins a new page, a new chapter, a new book of the story that is your life. Today your stories become part of the American dream and also the American reality. Today, that dream you had of one day gaining the right to cast a vote in the way you see this great country run, today, that dream becomes reality. As immigrants turned citizens, no one is more excited than us to receive summons to serve jury duty or to vote in elections. We know that a democracy is only as strong as the voices and votes of its citizens, and every single voice matters, and every single vote counts, be it national, state or local elections for president, governor, or city council seats. Naturalized citizens or by birth, our voices and votes are equal.
Sometimes during a journey, we see an unfairness, injustice, discrimination, oppression … and we get tired, we get dejected, and we don’t know what we can possibly do to make things right and fair. This is where I say, give yourself an hour, a day, a week off, then get back up, for your voice, your vote, your participation is everything. Everything.
As we embrace American individuality, let us never forget that we, each of us and where we come from, make the community which renders this country excellent and strong and great. This is a country where the Constitution guarantees you the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and where you get to contribute to the future of your new country and build a home where everyone sings in perfect harmony.
Today you have pledged allegiance to the United States of America and you have become citizens of this promising country. We the people. We who choose to make America our home. We immigrants of every stripe, and color, and sexuality, and creed, and religion, and no religion. We immigrants with stars in our eyes and hopes in our heart, as we transition from one journey into another with this homecoming, right here. May your story in your new home be secure. May your story in your new home be sweet. May your story in your new home be everything you dreamt of and more. Welcome to your land. Welcome to your country. Welcome home, Americans.
Watch the full speech here.
Soniah Kamal’s novel, Unmarriageable, is a Financial Times Readers’ Best Book of 2019, a 2019 Book All Georgians Should Read, and shortlisted for the 2020 Townsend Prize for Fiction. Her debut novel, An Isolated Incident, was a finalist for the KLF French Fiction Prize and the Townsend Prize for Fiction. Soniah's TEDx talk is about second chances. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Guardian, Buzzfeed, Catapult, Normal School, Georgia Review and more.
