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I became a US citizen yesterday!

4 years in the making, a dream for much longer than that. I was fortunate to have one of the fastest routes to citizenship and to have mostly experienced a very smooth process with lovely immigration agents who processed my cases with respect and dignity.

I spent the last 9 months living in fear, watching immigrants get demonized and even permanent residency (green cards) to be treated as “a privilege” to be revoked at whim.

I've been quiet, afraid to say anything in public that could be misinterpreted or used against me.

I've repeatedly said goodbye to my city, I've cried walking my favorite streets, bracing for the worst as top officials bragged about getting rid of immigrants and "cleaning up" the country as if we were filth.

Now, I intend to find ways to use my citizenship for the greater good and to be civically engaged in ways not available to people here on visas and green cards, affected but forced to suffer in silence. I am looking forward to discovering what that will look like for me.

#USA #citizenship #immigration #immigrants

1/2 (A mini-thread)

Mariya Delano

@mariyadelano@hachyderm.io replied · 6 days ago

2/2 Reflection on #citizenship:

I do not treat the concept of “ #democracy" lightly. I was born into the aftermath of centuries of totalitarian oppression that ended suddenly, leaving the nascent Ukrainian state of the late 90s and early 2000s floundering in the turbulent whirlpool of hopes and fears felt by millions of people who were finally allowed to ponder: how to build a free democratic state in the place of Soviet and imperial ruins?

I was taught the words "democracy", "citizen", "freedom", "voting", “liberty" (and more) by people who, less than two decades prior, weren't allowed to leave the borders of their country. I was told about self-determination by people whose political choices were ridiculed, punished, and eviscerated form most of their lives. The duty of governing ourselves felt to us ephemeral - a nice fantasy, akin to a fairytale or a utopia from fictional works.

And then I saw those same people fight with their bodies and souls once the previously unfathomable democracy was threatened. Protests in 2004, then again in 2014, then the unthinkable war against foreign invasion in 2022. Democracy no longer felt abstract or silly. It became as tangible as saying "I love you".

I write of Ukraine as I reflect on becoming a citizen of another country because the history and values of my adopted United States feel as real as the skin on my legs, the significance of its legacy lays as heavy as the weight of my waist-long hair, and the desire to uphold the freedoms of its Constitution burns my throat as harshly as dehydration after a long day in the sun.

People have asked me why I even want to join this country, when the present moment is shrouded in impenetrable darkness. And I answer: because I've felt the warmth of a newly lit fire of freedom breaking through shadows that for centuries looked like solid walls. I have seen kindness, and solidarity heal the fear and hate of oppression. I've seen liberty emerge from nothing but the human soul.

I am not a religious person, but I have faith. Faith in the ideals at the foundation of the American project. Faint but powerful recognition that "we the people" now includes me.

I love #America. And I hope to keep loving my home for the rest of my life.

A photo of a typewritten page with the same text as this post. It also has a photo of a little American flag.

Glyph

@glyph@mastodon.social replied · 5 days ago

@mariyadelano if it weren’t for people like you I would have no hope for us. thank you for sharing your vision of what the US can be, and congratulations on getting all the way through our horrible broken immigration system!

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