I’ve been doing that thing again that I do often where I time-travel a lot.  I recently went through lots of old media and documents on my computer and hard drives.  I came across my personal notes from that time I got my US citizenship.  It was 2008, and they were changing the prices of everything.  My mom and my sister told me to get the citizenship now because the cost of getting it later would go up, and so would renewing my green card.  So I decided to do it too because I hate extra stress and problems down the line.

These are the brief notes I jotted down while going to my citizenship interview.  I was finishing up my third year of college (film school) and went to the interview by myself:

5/8/2008

11:51 AM

Government Center, Boston MA

39 minutes until my USCIS interview for my citizenship.

I am here by myself right now. How do I feel?

A little sad. Almost cried when I got here.  Called Jon on the union phone. He and Em will meet me later.  Didn’t cry.  A little scared.  I didn’t really study much.  I’m dressed like a slob.  I really have to pee.  I’m too early.  Took photos of the JFK building.  Feels like a betrayal of my roots but a passage to my future.  What roots?  What are roots. I would like to pursue a vision of a world with no boundaries so I never have to feel this way again (or feel the need to take pictures of government buildings again).  How cheesy!  I feel cheesy, tacky.  Is this something to mourn or celebrate?  Neither?  Just another appointment?  Like a dentist, a doctor check up?  An advisor meeting for school?  Reading too much into it?  It was rainy this morning but now the sun is coming out.  Symbolic?  Or is it just the weather?  Weather.  Get over it.

A man looked at me, suspicious.  He’s waiting for someone/something too.  Who is this girl, dressed all in black, taking photos and notes outside the JFK building?  I hope photo film doesn’t get X-rayed and exposed when I go inside.  Security at Government Center seems very tight.  I’d like to go inside and blow my nose now.  I’m sick today.  Was late to work one hour because phone is broken and there was a multiple car accident at Packards Corner this morning.  Hope no one died.  Wonder what’s wrong with mom’s health.  No one talks in this family.  Wonder what they felt like when they went for their interview?

Went inside.  Film was X-rayed but security guy said should be fine – only trouble is with high speed film, ISO 500 or more.  Would’ve been a problem in the 1970s but not today.  Went to bathroom.  A woman came in and shit.  I should shit my last Polish shit in the JFK building?  Yeah.  I should.  Hard to shit with that kind of pressure.  Ha.

Went to a room.  They said go to this other room.  Lots of window booths.  Go to window 1 after going to front of line.  Then go to window 15.  But just wait in front of it.  They’ll call your name, says a Spanish lady.  Everyone is really nice here.  Just waiting for my name to be called.  I bet they’ll mispronounce it.  I could have a citizenship in every English speaking country and I BET they will still mispronounce my name.  Some things don’t change.  Some labels stay the same.

When/if I have kids, what will they be?  Polish?  American?  Will they tell their friends at school that they’re ½ Polish, ¼ Italian, and 1/8 Transylvanian?  Buy bumper stickers with a flag of whichever one of those is most popular at the time?  And buy college tapestry flags of whichever is cool?  Will they hide it when it’s uncool?  Will they say, simply, I am an American?  I think either situation would be awkward for me, their mother: Polish but Americanized.  But really wishing there were no nationalities or countries.  All for one and one for all.  Would be nice.  But too easy?  We’re all human, at the very least.  Except those heartless sellouts in Hollywood, I guess…

They call my name.  Stumble on the last.  A nice, slim, professional young lady with frosty eyeshadow invites me inside for my test.  She asks me to read a sentence: something about having a good job.  She asks me to write out a sentence: “I have three children.”  I write it.  “That’s scary…” I say.  We laugh a bit about how silly this test is for me.  I am so American, apparently.  I guess most immigrants really do have three children, at least., is the popular belief it seems.  I take the test.  A few questions (the ones I studied at the Union before this, THANK GOD).  “What is the Constitution?” she asks.  “Uhh… The Supreme Law of the Land,” I say, in my Gandolf voice.  She smiles.  The situation called for it.  It’s a joke.  I pass.  A few official “PASS” stamps and off she sends me to E-170 to wait for the interview, I guess.

E-170: A woman is called.  She tries to go inside with her friend.  They stop her.  You wait out here.  She looks pissed and annoyed.  Sits down.  2 doors keep opening every 30 seconds or so, and men in ties call out names.  They stumble over the names, half-whispering them in embarrassment (embarrassment over their overly American-ness, even though we are after all, in a government building in AMERICA) probably because they are addressing a bunch of immigrants in a waiting room.  Immigrants are always in waiting rooms in seems – let’s not piss them off, they must be thinking.  Probably not.  This is Boston.  We are politically correct.

There’s a big picture with drawings and writings by children, you can tell from far away because of how scrawly they are.  At the top it says “2004 Celebrate America 5th Grade Writing Contest”.  Sounds like something I would have participated in while in 5th grade, trying desperately to get my shitty poems and stories in some rip-off lame anthology that only the parents of those who got in would actually buy.  SCAMS.  I did 2 of those in elementary school before I caught onto them.  Before I realized everyone in America just wants money $$$.

This place feels anxious.  CNN plays on a flat screen TV at the front of the room.  I see a lady sitting up front from me.  Looks like she passed too.  I saw her studying hard, INS booklet and highlighter in hand.  She once looked over at me, nervously.  She looks more at ease, and now reads her own book.  On the walls of this room are:

- non-geographic map of the world

- a picture/painting of sad looking “immigrants” in caps and handkerchiefs in front of Ellis Island. “ELLIS ISLAND” reads the top

- a picture painting of the swan boats in the public gardens

- American Eagle superimposed on an American flag; Pledge of Allegiance written along the bottom

- photo of NYC, pre-9/11, twins fully in view

One of the creative writing winners reads: “Why I am Glad America is a Nation of Immigrants”.