Government. and that such obligations shall include encouraging greater opportunities to learn the English language. I believe it is important to understand that we need every citizen and. frankly. in the long run every person who comes here to learn English. We need to be willing to say it proudly and simply and not with hostility but with a sense of joy: Yes. we want you to come. yes. we want you to immigrate. and. yes. we want you to become American. but there are standards. For me one of those standards occurred with the naturalization ceremony. Naturalization ceremonies normally involve people of many countries with many language backgrounds. and part of the great joy of seeing them stand there and. in whatever quality of English they have mastered. repeating in English their Pledge of Allegiance. indicating in English their new commonality. They may come from Thailand. from Nigeria. from Paraguay. but when they are in that room becoming American. they are joined together by their Pledge of Allegiance and they are joined together by their new common language. They leave that room as Americans. not hyphenated Americans. not partial Americans. not semiAmericans.
Keywords matched
naturalization immigrate Naturalization