Tomorrow
I’ll sit at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed,–
I, too, am America.

- From “I, too, Sing America” by Langston Hughes

If you see me, tall and sturdy with chocolate skin, you will take me for one of Langston Hughes’s “darker brother” who had been kept in the kitchen for so long and consequently fed himself well. But once I speak and you know I am from somewhere else, you look at me as if I am a freak. You imagine that jungle life of Tarzan. When you hear that I am from Africa, you conclude that I must be HIV positive. For some of you who do not like people from certain places coming to America, you look at me with the same resentment with which you look at day laborers. In your mind, you see me as the law breaker who smuggled himself into the United States to add to the adulteration of your America. But because you won’t be able to say that without some liberals calling you a racist, you just say that I am taking away your jobs.

Because I speak English, with an accent, you cannot accuse me of not speaking the language of the United States. You only respond to every sentence of mine with, “What did you say?” I have seen your right hand go behind your right ear so many times in that complex gesture of incomprehension and indignation that it doesn’t trouble me anymore. If you want to be cute, you will just say, “Pardon?”

I think about what will happen to my relationship with all of you, come Tuesday. Yes, on Tuesday, if I do not commit a crime before then, I will become an American, too. I will ditch my old country and put my faith in the United States of America. I will take the oath to fight and defend the United States. Yes, I know what that means. I will be literally saying, “George, here I am, send me to Iran.” It is not a small act for a man to denounce the land of his birth and swear to bear arms against it. You will be surprised to know that I have worked it all out in my brain - how to relate to my newly found country. What I wonder is if you have any desire to now relate to me as one of you. Remember, what will change on Tuesday is not the color of my skin or my accent. It is just my legal status. My worldview will still be the same.

Unlike many of you who become Americans because you had the good fortune of being born here, I went for an interview to become an American. Lucky me, I was asked questions that many of you do not know. I liked the question on who Martin Luther King, Jr. was. It made me feel that the contributions of my cousins who came before me were being acknowledged. I also liked the question about who helped the pilgrims. My own question, if I was allowed to ask one, would have been, and what happened to those Indians, because I have never met them. Oh, I also liked the one about what countries you fought during the Second World War. My own question would have been how those countries turned around to become your friends while those who fought along with you became your enemies.

I was asked to read and write. Just for you to know that I can write my will and read the Declaration of Independence. I was asked to write that Congress was part of the U.S government. I had wanted to ask, with or without the likes of Jack Abramoff? The passage I read was the one about America being the land of the brave. I agreed with that for I was brave for daring to come to America. It is one painful thing you always forget in your criticism of the old me- the immigrant. Just in case you do not know, walking in through a poorly ventilated tunnel, or climbing over a fence guarded by Minute Men and CNN’s Lou Dobbs, was not an easy task. I also read a line about the freedom in America and how many people paid with their lives for it. You may not believe me, but I know what it feels like. In my old country, we are still sacrificing and it is not yet uhuru.

Some of you may say stop the bullshit, why do you want to be an American citizen. In fact, it was one of the potential questions I studied. It was posed as, “what are the benefits of being a citizen?” In the prepared answer, they thought it was for me to obtain federal government jobs, travel with a U.S. passport and petition for close relatives to come to the U.S. Those three used to be good answers, but not anymore. I have stayed too long in America and have seen how the work place treats people like me that I don’t aspire to work for anyone much longer, including the federal government. I do not mind traveling with U.S passport and saving that money I give to European countries in the name of transit visas for spending six boring hours at their airports. But with America’s behavior around the globe, I pray no terrorist catches me with that blue passport. About my close relatives, trust me, they are just like yours. Apart from holiday periods, I don’t really want them near me.

In America, my body and soul is at home. I am home with republicanism and capitalism for my Igbo ancestors practiced that before Christopher Columbus discovered America. Having said that, when I die, I want to be buried in my home town, Nnobi. I want my ashes and my soil to rejoin those of my ancestors. I will soon be an American quite alright, but I was Igbo first and will always be Igbo. I want to be buried near my grandfather for that is my only hope of reincarnating. Did I hear you say, a divided soul? Well, that is what we, the hyphenated Americans, are. In Ijeamaka, my daughter, I have given you a complete American.

So, on Tuesday, I will get to the end of my immigrant journey. It is the same end all immigrants aspire to reach. I will become a citizen of my host country. I know it is an honor and a privilege. For the rest of my life, I will be grateful. I have no doubt about how I will continue to enrich my new country. I will cheer America when it does something noble, which hasn’t been much of recent. I will criticize it when it pursues inordinate ambition, which has become more often than not.

And you bet, next November, I will help vote out anyone who wants to distort our Bill of Rights. And that is the real deal about becoming an American. We have to save America, our America, y’ know. Goddamnit, we have to keep America, my America, a land of the free and the last best hope for mankind.

You can see that my sense of freedom as found in citizenship is fully emerging in my willingness to question things. It is not lost on me that the most important duty of an American is to question America. I will passionately contribute to that everlasting quest for a more perfect union. Wait until Tuesday to see what I will turn into. I ain’t running into an Igbo enclave afterwards. I will eat an apple pie. I will sing the national anthem with gusto. I will step on top of the highest table that my feet can reach. For those, I understand, are what America demands of me.

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This piece was first published on Tuesday, January 31, 2006. It is reproduced here for the sole purpose of amusing Kim Zigfeld.