By Lindsey McPherson
“America to me is foremost about optimism: optimism that our friends, family and communities will come together to help each other; optimism that through hard work we can succeed; optimism that America is indeed exceptional; optimism that America is resilient and ultimately on the right path.”
The author of those words is Pete, Old City evening regular and new United States citizen. He wrote them when drafting a letter to send with his citizenship application. Although he never sent the letter (at the recommendation of a lawyer he consulted in the application process), those thoughts will likely be in the forefront of Pete’s mind today as he is officially sworn in as a United States citizen.
Pete admitted he does not know much about what is to take place at the swearing in ceremony other than an offering of free cake to the new U.S. citizens and their family and friends, but he predicted his emotions would get the better of him.
“I’ll probably be balling,” he joked.
But it’s taken a long time for Pete, who had been living legally in the United States for years on a green card he inherited from his parents, to connect with the emotional side of becoming a citizen. “I just felt American for a really long time,” he said, explaining that during his young adulthood he viewed officially applying for citizenship as “a bureaucratic step that seemed like a pain in the ass.”
Pete, who was born in Hong Kong but grew up in Toronto, has lived in the United States since he left Canada to attend college at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Not knowing what to do with his degree in urban planning, Pete spent a year after college living in Beijing under a scholarship from the Chinese government to study Chinese. (Pete grew up speaking Cantonese but the scholarship was focused on studying Mandarin; the two were more different than he expected.) He spent part of his time living in China working for UNICEF.
When Pete returned to the United States, he got a job working for a U.S. international development contractor in Washington, D.C. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Pete’s firm was awarded projects based in Afghanistan, one of which resulted in Pete spending a year and a half in Kabul working in agricultural reconstruction.
After five years of government contract work, Pete decided to apply to Northwestern University’s a three-year, joint JD/MBA program. But before starting the program, Pete spent three months living in Amsterdam “trying to be Dutch.”
Pete returned to Washington after graduate school to work for the World Bank but after three years there he decided he was tired of micro-finance work, so he took a year off and went backpacking. He traveled back home to Toronto and to Thailand but spent most of his time in India, where he did yoga and meditation.
All that zen must have had an effect on Pete because when he returned to the United States he had a lot of energy to do what he described as “really boring shit.” That included learning how to drive (yes, Pete did not learn how to drive until he was in his 30s), buying a house, and creating a financial plan.
That same energy motivated Pete to finally fill out the paperwork to become a citizen. It was during this process that Pete decided to consult a lawyer — “just in case” — who advised him not to submit the letter because it was unlikely to be read by the people who screen the applications.
“It’s funny because I actually spent a lot of time writing it,” Pete said. “That was actually probably the most emotional part of the process.”
The written test itself was rather simple — Pete had acquired a lot of knowledge about the United States through studying and living here — and the in-person interview, which he completed in August, involved a similar line of questioning.
“It was actually really non-emotional and it was actually really pleasant,” he said, noting, “I expected to be interrogated.”
Pete found out he passed his citizenship immediately after the in-person interview. Since being approved for citizenship, Pete said he feels more secure but the real emotional test will come at the ceremony, in which he expects he’ll be surrounded by immigrants who’ve had a much tougher journey toward becoming an American citizen.
“For me it was very much of a privilege,” Pete said. “I contributed; it’s not like I haven’t earned it necessarily but I haven’t gone through like trials and tribulations for the most part.”
And then there are the perks of citizenship that Pete is looking forward to: voting; being a holder of an American passport and being able to use those designated lines at the airport; serving on a jury; and maybe even one day running for office one day.
Pete’s path to citizenship might not be the typical story of living the American Dream, but there’s no doubt he is living it. In his current job, which he found after returning to Washington from his back trapping trip, Pete manages operations — building operations for a network of 15 charter schools in six locations throughout the city. The charter main goal of the charter school network is to help under-served students finish K-12 and get through college.
“Even though our students are socioeconomically disadvantaged, I — and they — believe that demographics should not define destiny,” Pete wrote in his never sent citizenship letter. “As a result, this year, 100% of our high school seniors were accepted into college!
And this, essentially, is why I love everything about this country — and in particular, the American spirit and our universal belief in the American Dream.”