There was no need for a politician to tell anybody in that room that
America is an exceptional country. No politician needed to say that to
the fifth graders in Mrs. Roth's class who were studying the
Constitution and studying immigration. We certainly didn't need to tell
that to the immigrants from all over the world. I think I mentioned,
they were from 13 different countries. One of the great parts of the ceremony was when they asked people to
stand up to the country from which they came, and fifth graders also
stood up if they were from that country. There were kids from China;
there were kids from Mexico standing up in this fifth grade class;
incredibly, three kids from Libya whose parents are at the university
in some capacity in Fort Collins. As always in these naturalization ceremonies, people had tears in
their eyes because as one of them once said to me at another time in
Colorado, his dream had come true the minute he became a citizen of the
United States because he knew his children would be citizens of the
United States of America. Everybody in the room knew that. What is important for us is these fifth graders' perspective on
American government, on democracy, and on the history of this Republic
I think probably may not be quite exactly right because they, thank
goodness, have been untarnished by special interests, untarnished by
campaign money and partisan fighting, and power struggles that have
nothing to do with the American people or their priorities.
Keywords matched
immigration naturalization immigrants