Naturalized

Mechanics Hall in Worcester, MA wasn't exactly what I was expecting. What I thought would be a bland warehouse with long neon-lit corridors and waxy linoleum floors turned out to be a grand, quasi-historic monument of a building. The foyer boasted red plush carpet and a curved twin stairway hugged by gold side-rails that led up to a mysterious second level, where glittering chandeliers hung from the cavernous ceilings. Unfortunately, all the glamor was somewhat tarnished by the addition of cheap aluminum folding chairs lining the walls of the entranceway, and the veritable Babel of foreigners gradually filling them and all the empty space around them. The foreigners were all well-dressed, perfumed, clean-cut and professional-looking. I cast an eye at all the tailored suits and stiletto heels and, in my denim skirt and thrift-store collared button-down, felt uncharacteristically underdressed. But there was a discernible note of nervousness in the air, a hint of desperate anticipation that soured the atmosphere, a cross between an opera house and a dentist's waiting room.

Like a plucky artisan in a sea of disinherited nobility, I acted cool and disinterested. I took a seat in an empty chair and opened up Leszek Kolakowski's Main Currents of Marxism (volume one, chapter one: The Origins of Dialectics). There was still a good hour-and-a-half until the time printed on my invitation, but already the foyer was beginning to fill to capacity. Ushers dressed in suits and pastel ties flitting through the crowd, instructing people to have a seat and wait. Most did, either sitting placidly with their arms crossed or fidgeting anxiously with their invitations. A small but tenacious contingent, though, strode boldly up the stairs, as if they expected a second, higher tier of administration in the balcony above the rabble. "Why are people going up the stairs? Do we need to go up the stairs?" someone called to an usher. "No, no... they're just going to use the bathroom. Please stay here and wait," the usher said, a note of frustration creeping into his overly polite voice, and then went to chase down the upstart stair-climbers.

More and more people drifted in, and the noise level in the foyer rose steadily. When the ushers finally announced that we were to form two lines, left staircase for guests and right staircase for oath-takers, there was hardly any room to move. A thick snake of bodies began pushing itself up both staircases, forcing the ushers to chirp in barely-contained panic: "Careful, please! No pushing! Please, be considerate of those around you. There's plenty of time. Please, please -- proceed slowly." The snake did not relent. It just kept churning steadily up the steps, only narrowing at the very top, where two ushers were checking invite letters and green cards. I began to feel sorry for the ushers and their desperate politeness, as if they'd somehow been transported from their modern-day office jobs into the 18th century to act as slave-overseers and were really apologetic about it. They all spoke clearly and distinctly, drawing out every syllable like adults addressing well-mannered children. To break the officious atmosphere, they would ask how we were doing, or which countries we were coming from. I imagined there were quite a few people with actual titles here, well-educated dignitaries, respected professionals who examined the ushers with world-weary eyes. If they'd been more comfortable with the language, they'd certainly have knocked these provincial bureaucrats down a peg or two, but for now they were forced to nod and murmur deferentially. When I reached the top of the stairs, the usher took my invite and flipped it over to make sure I'd filled in the "Signed at____" portion correctly. "Excellent!" she said, her stern face breaking into a warm, motherly smile because I'd written "Worcester" instead of the popular mistaken answer, "Boston." She had the same smile on her face as my third-grade math teacher. "Yeah, thanks," I said acidly, snatching the letter back. Her grin faltered, but she had to move on quickly to the next person in line. "Worcester. Change that from Boston to Worcester. Do you understand me? Do you speak English? Where's your interpreter?" I heard her saying to the wizened old Asian woman behind me.

Before going into the main room, I went through a small convention hall, where a conveyor belt of teen volunteers handed out packets of citizenship information ("Learn About Our Flag!", "A Citizen's Handbook," "A Welcome From the President") and miniature American flags. A quiver of panic ran through me when I saw the flags, and my mind flashed back to high school pep rallies. Trying to suppress my tenth-grade instinct to run and hide in the girl's bathroom, I went to find my seat.

The auditorium was even more regal than the entrance. Elaborate marble balustrades lined the walls, along with framed oil paintings of the Founding Fathers, and the ceiling was a richly-stuccoed neoclassical confection dotted with pink and blue frescoes. But the centerpiece of the room, hanging in the front and covering up an ancient brass organ, was a giant screen with a moving graphic of a billowing American flag, with the caption "Celebrate Citizenship, Celebrate America" emblazoned in the center. The young man next to me -- mid-twenties, slender, dressed in all black -- took a picture of it with his phone and started texting rapidly. There was something familiar about the wariness in his gray eyes, the slightly defensive hunch to his bony shoulders, the ironic smirk on the corner of his lips. Russian, I thought and knew he was thinking the same thing about me. True to the iron-clad law of "Slavic brotherhood," neither of us said anything or looked at each other again.

We waited. For ages. For three hours, while the auditorium filled up with over 700 people. I read about dialectics (from Plotinus to Hegel) until my eyes started to glaze over, then closed them and nodded off into fitful half-sleep, waking up every time the loop of patriotic music broke off, paused for a moment, then restarted. The thought crossed my mind that when airlines hold people hostage in cramped quarters with no food or water for hours on end, it's a scandal, but when the Department of Homeland Security does it, it's a celebration. In the balcony above us, the "guests" were snapping pictures, waving homemade signs, playing with their toy flags. At noon, the ceremony finally started. The PowerPoint projector switched from the billowing flag slide to a five-minute film on the importance of immigration in this country (presumably assembled before the whole Arizona debacle). Amid the kitschy stock footage, I noticed an archival clip of immigrants arriving on Ellis Island, the same clip I'd watched over a dozen times in Yuri Tsivian's Soviet film class and analyzed for coded ideological content. I was still trying to remember what Tsivian had said about the peculiarity of the camera angle, the way it made the static ship look like it was moving, when somebody got on stage and led us in the oath. Just like in school during the pledge of allegiance, I couldn't bring myself to repeat it. I mouthed some of it -- "...bear arms," "without any reservations in my heart," "so help me God" -- and blah blah blahed the rest. A judge came in and officially approved the motion to make us all citizens, and everyone started clapping. Some people waved their flags. The PowerPoint presentation moved to the final slide: a rousing rendition of "Proud to be an American" over video clips of happy children running through wheat fields. I desperately fought off the urge to crawl under my chair.

Afterwards, we had to wait some more, this time for the elderly, pregnant, and disabled to come get their citizenship certificates first. There was a small commotion in the row behind me; somebody had lost their invitation, which it was necessary to have in order to receive the certificate. The Indian man sitting behind me found it on the floor and handed it over to its owner, who breathed a huge sigh of relief.

"Now that would be funny," the Indian man said, "if you lost it at the very last minute. They'd probably put you in the back of the line, and you'd have to start all over again. Another ten years."

The owner of the invitation laughed goodnaturedly, then said in lightly Arabic-accented English, "Yes, no kidding. It really has been ten years for us. We started before 9/11, and then after that, you know... everything slowed down. I can't believe it's finally over. It feels so good."

And, just like that, I didn't know what I hated more -- the overblown ridiculousness of the ceremony, or my own smug, entitled detachment from it. I hadn't waited ten years for this moment. I hadn't even waited ten months. I didn't really give a damn, because as inconvenient as it was to carry a Ukrainian passport, I never really had to worry about being searched at airports, or having the wrong skin color or accent, or being threatened with deportation to a country where I'd be arrested just for thinking half the stuff I think, let alone writing it down for the world to see. All this time, I've operated under the assumption that I was different somehow, special, more in touch with the populist ethos via the grassroots immigrant experience. But when I had to spend the night in the Amsterdam airport because even a one-night layover required a visa, I didn't feel any solidarity with the various undesirables -- African, Asian, Muslim -- who slept in the cramped airport seats next to me. And I certainly didn't feel any solidarity with this motley group of foreigners around me, all dressed up and staring with happy, shining eyes at the giant illuminated screen. I just felt embarrassed, alienated, and alone. I guess when it comes down to it, I realized, I've been American all along.

The screen was raised but the projector stayed on, casting a red-white-and-blue veneer over a portrait of George Washington. I stumbled out of the auditorium in mild shock, picking up my certificate and stuffing it into my bag. Like a half-delirious debutante, I made my way down the red carpeted steps and wove through the throng of friends and family that had gathered in the foyer to welcome their born-again American loved ones into the world. I hadn't eaten since the Dunkin Donuts bagel twist at eight; it was now close to two. Without stopping or looking back, I trotted hurriedly to the train station, "Proud to be an American" still pumping through my head.

When I got back into Boston, I was equal parts starving and exhausted, so I grabbed a Milky Way from a kiosk in the subway. I handed a dollar to the young Arabic-looking man working the counter and turned to go, but he called after me. I turned back, reaching for my wallet thinking I'd underpaid, but he met me with a half-sly, half-shy, all-flirty smile.

"Where are you from?" he asked sweetly.

"Ukraine," I replied, then almost slapped myself. Why did I still automatically do that? Why couldn't I just let go of these stupid essentialist truths? Of this semi-constructed foreigner persona? Why couldn't I let myself blend in?

"Oh? You here for school? How do you like Boston?"

"Yeah. Uh, it's nice."

"What's your name?"

I paused. He was looking at me with so much openness and adoration, it was hard to believe. I wanted desperately to tell him what happened today, to explain the mixture of absurdity and mortified revulsion I felt during those four long hours. To make a genuinely human connection with someone other than the only person I could ever truly count on to understand me, the scathingly ironic, rootless cosmopolitan voice inside my head. Instead, I mustered up all the coy femininity I could and gave him a friendly smile.

"I'll see you around," I said, and went to catch my train.