Naturalized

About three weeks ago, after having lived in the country for over 50 years, my father became a United States citizen. 


Zenon Wojcik moved here at the age of six from Germany with his family. Although my father's family came to the U.S. from Germany, our family is of Polish heritage and my grandparents were refugees from WWII. 


My father's birth in Germany did not automatically grant him German citizenship. His parents were Polish, so that meant he was Polish. 


Throughout my father's life in the U.S. he has never needed a passport. Whatever documents passaged him from Germany to here were lost somewhere in the timeline. 


The last and only time he navigated out of U.S. land was in his early 20's, during his time in the service in Vietnam, in which case a passport wasn't necessary.


Now, 40 years later, my father and mother are planning a two-week trip to Kenya to visit my sister who currently resides there. 


The only object standing in between my father and this trip is a small, 24-page booklet that identifies one's nationality to the rest of the world's border keepers. Most importantly, this booklet will grant him access back into the U.S. upon his return to the place he's called home his whole life. 


Without a Polish passport and without a German passport, my father could not prove his nationality belonged to anyone. In a sense, he was stateless. The only way for him to leave the United States was to become a citizen.

On May 24, 2012 my father took an oath and was sworn in as an American citizen.

His neighbors got to know his personality pretty quickly.

They played the "Star Spangled Banner."

They also played "Proud to be an American."

'Steve' took his oath with about 100 other people.

An LCD monitor behind my parents reads "Celebrate Citizenship / Celebrate America"