For a decade, the Center for New Americans has been holding a naturalization ceremony on July 4 in Northampton.
Today 58 people from 33 nations became U.S. citizens.
Attending this annual event has become a family tradition. This year, I had the real honor of helping set up and then meeting Ann and the kids for the ceremony.
I met Margaret, who you can see setting up in the salmon-colored shirt setting up (right). She’s been a volunteer with the Center for New Americans and tutored one of the people being sworn in. She talked about her feelings of pride. Then there was David (left), who’s from Florence, who made a large sign and brought it to the ceremony because he “just knew it was the right thing to do.”
And, of course, there were dozens of families who gathered to celebrate their mothers, sisters, grandmothers, fathers, brothers, who had made the decision to become citizens of this nation.
Amid such horror on the border and the continued attack on immigrants across the nation, today felt almost radical. At times I was actually giddy in the midst of a ceremony that defied rampant xenophobia and racism.
One theme was clear throughout every set of remarks, especially those from the Honorable Katherine Robertson, U.S. Magistrate Judge: Immigrants to this nation make us STRONGER.
Hundreds cheered and shouted as these new Americans were sworn in (photo below). And at the end of the ceremony, the organizers turned up the volume, played “Celebrate,” and everyone started dancing.
It was one huge, diverse, joyous dance party in honor of 58 new Americans and their beautiful families and the people in our wider western Massachusetts community who turned out to cheer them on.
