American-born Americans: Are You Smarter than a Naturalized Citizen?

I’m supposed to be finishing up an article on new moms on staff, but I got another notice in the mail that resembles a sweepstakes notification.

My naturalization interview is in January so I’ll be spending my winter break prepping for two speaking gigs and studying for my civics test. I’m not going to study for the reading and writing portion of the test where I will need to read one out of three sentences and write one of three sentences to prove language proficiency. Methinks I can pass the English proficiency test despite occasionally being asked, “Where did you learn your English?” 😉

There are 100 civics questions on the naturalization test, and I will be asked up to 10 of those questions. I must answer 6 out of those 10 correctly. For once in my life it’s OK to shoot for 60% but something inside of my cringes. Surely I can get an A+. Right?

American-born Americans do not need to study any of these questions before they are American. I am not at all taking for granted the freedoms afforded me as a legal resident alien, and I am not at all taking for granted the freedom to apply for citizenship. I am not all that excited about having to take a test. And I feel a bit uneasy about pledging my allegiance to a flag…I’ll write about that one later…

Back to the test. For all of my American-born readers, do you think you could pass the test without studying since you are already “American”?

Sample questions:

  1. How many amendments does the Constitution have?
  2. What is the “rule of law”?
  3. The House of Representatives has how many voting members?
  4. The Federalist Papers supported the passage of the U.S. Constitution. Name one of the writers.
  5. Who was President during World War I?
  6. What is one thing Benjamin Franklin is famous for?
  7. There are four amendments to the Constitution about who can vote. Describe one of them.
  8. What is one promise you make when you become a United States citizen?
  9. Under our Constitution, some powers belong to the federal government. What is one power of the federal government?
  10. How many justices currently sit on the Supreme Court?

No cheating. How did you do?

I don’t mind studying for this test. I believe it’s important to know and understand one’s history, and American history is a part of my story. After all of this I will hopefully have a piece of paper that makes it legal in a new way even if I’m certain I will still get asked, “Where are you really from?”.

Gifts From the First Generation

The hope was to have this post ready for Choo-Suk (the Korean Harvest Moon celebration, often described to immigrant children as the Korean Thanksgiving), and then I pushed my self-imposed deadline to Thanksgiving. I let several things get in the way.

Anyway, I grew up in the Korean immigrant church. The family story is that one of the first places we visited upon our arrival to Chicago was to Sunday service at First Korean United Methodist Church. Through the years our family would change church affiliations, but we would always be at a Korean church. They were not perfect churches. And those churches had their share of broken people and broken systems. But reading through Dr. Soong-Chan Rah‘s book, The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church From Western Cultural Captivity gave me reason to pause. Rah uses the Korean immigrant church as his example for Chapter 8 – Holistic Evangelism, and it made me think back to my childhood and youth.

As the commenting raged on on other blogs about how Asian Americans need to get over their race issues and put Jesus first, I found myself thanking God for the gifts of grace, the power of faith, and the complicated and amazing ways in which my faith have shaped the ways I view ethnicity, race and gender and vice versa. Weren’t we all “fearfully and wonderfully made”? Won’t “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language” be in God’s presence and glory?

So I go back to the memories of church – the sights, the sounds, the smells, and I am filled with gratitude for the gifts from the first generation.

I thank God for the experience of the first generation Korean church and:

  1.  the church’s additional role a cultural school for me. I learned about Jesus and I learned about being Korean. I learned to read and write (though only mastered both to a 2nd grade level) the only spoken language knew until I was in kindergarten. That basic foundation of the language connects me to a rich history and culture that I grew up experiencing through all of my senses. I learned Korean folk dancing that allowed my body to tell stories that I could not speak.
  2. the gift of liturgy and hymns. They were sung and spoken in Korean. It’s now my lost language, almost like a faint memory that still speaks to places in my soul and communicate nuances I can still only grasp in Korean.
  3. the community the immigrant church provided for my parents and their peers who displaced themselves for the promise of a better life.
  4. the community the immigrant church provided for me and my peers who had no choice in our displacement but needed a group of friends (and frienemies) who could relate to the bicultural experiences our parents could not help us navigate.
  5. the gift of faith because it was at church my parents’ faith was nurtured in their native tongue and where local Bible school students interned and shared the gospel with me in English. I still have the Bible given to me by my Sunday School teacher, John Bezel, and remember his willingess to learn about the Korean American experience as he shared about Jesus.

Saying Goodbye to the Green Card – I’m In the System

By Thursday I needed a break from the frantic and frenetic pace of being a present mom and wife, preparing for our region’s Black Campus Ministries student conference, and being the in the middle (but sometimes invisibly) of the Deadly Viper situation. I found myself relieved that I had to go my fingerprints taken for my citizenship application – some time to decompress in the car and then in the waiting area. Clearly you can understand that my state of mind was compromised.

I walked in and realized I could not run away. The male desk clerk looked at me (sisters, you know what kind of look I’m talking about, right?) that made me grateful I was holding my Bible in front of my chest. I took the form to fill out and sat down, only to find that FOX news was on the tv – closed-captioning running and the volume up. 

I couldn’t imagine anything louder than the tv, but then a conversation between a woman asking about the fingerprinting process and an INS officer took over the room. She was asking whether or not the office provided fingerprinting for a fee because her initial application was denied and she was hoping to move the process along by getting the biometrics done before a new application was completed. She spoke with an accent, and with every sentence I swear the INS officer raised his voice.

She would ask a question or make a comment, AND THEN HE WOULD SPEAK SLOWER AND LOUDER THAN HE DID A MOMENT AGO PERHAPS TO MAKE IT CLEARER. Apparently speaking louder and slower helps us non-Americans understand you better? I thought about saying something, but an internal filter kicked in and while I was having a conversation with myself in the silence of my head about speaking up and helping her and this LOUD INS OFFICER COMMUNICATE she left and I was up for fingerprinting.

I was imagining ink pads and paper, but clearly the US government has better technology – all computerized with no ink. It was a pretty cool thing to watch, but then I had this strange feeling. All of my personal information, including every ridge of my fingerprints was in the system. I am still not a US citizen, but the government knows about me.

It felt vulnerable in an uncomfortable, unwelcomed way as information about me was taken in an uninviting, uncomfortable way. I looked at the table where I had put down my purse and Bible. The government knows about me, but I had to remind myself that only God really knows me. He knew the ridges in my fingerprints even before I knew I wanted to become a US citizen. It comforted me in way I can’t explain in a moment where I felt completely uncomfortable in a way I can’t explain.

The government knows. But to God, creator of the universe, I am known.

And a random thought on efficiency – there ought to be a way to simultaneously apply for citizenship and a passport so that once citizenship is granted a passport is issued. Call me crazy.

Saying Goodbye to the Green Card – Step 2 & of Course More Deadly Viper

There is another conference call set up for 9 a.m. CST Friday, November 6, with Zondervan execs. Eugene Cho, Soong-Chan Rah and I will represent.

What does Zondervan need to know/understand? What are the cultural and spiritual issues that need to be addressed in a profit-driven system?

Please discuss.

And previously scheduled was my trip to get fingerprinted. I got my study guide for the citizenship exam. I learned that I only have to study the questions with an “*” because I’ve been a legal alien resident for more than 20 years.

And I have to take an English test.

Stop laughing.

Saying Goodbye to the Green Card – Biometrics

I’ve received notice that the government is ready for me to be fingerprinted. The FBI will cross-check my prints against its databases while my paper documents are verified.

Fingerprinting has nothing but negative connotations for me. If you’re being fingerprinted, you did something bad, someone thinks you did something bad, or your parents are afraid you’ll be abducted so they have your fingerprints, recent photograph and physical description on hand for the police.

Some of you may be wondering if I’m being a wee bit over the top with my thoughts in this process. I hope not. I hope that thinking through what citizenship means is appropriate, needed and welcomed by those born into the privilege…because the fact of the matter is that even after I’m (hopefully) naturalized I’ll still be asked, “Where are you from?” 😉

 

Saying Goodbye to the Green Card – Processing

My application is officially “in process”. 

Yesterday the sort of official-looking letter arrived. Honestly it looks a little bit like those sweepstakes notices that urge you to call now to confirm your personal information to see which of the amazing prizes you have won: $100,000 in cash, a new car or a clock radio.

But I am grateful for this letter because it is making me think about citizenship in the earthly sense and the implications of living that out knowing my heavenly citizenship calls me to think and live sometimes differently than what current culture would dictate as acceptable or understandable.

Now that I know the government has cashed the check, I know that I’ve been assigned an application number. Someone, I presume, will be making sure I am who the documents say I am, and then I will be scheduled to appear for an interview.

Peter asked me, “What do you want to do when you get your citizenship?”

I made some snarky comment about wearing an American flag on my lapel, but then I realized he was being serious. I’m not sure if I’ll want to do anything special, but that could change.

As letter stated: I’m in process.

Martha, Martha. Today is Not Cupcake Day.

Even if there were 25 hours in a day there still wouldn’t be enough time to do the things I want to get done – never mind the things that need to get done.

This morning took the cake. Cupcakes actually. My three children are currently at two schools – the middle school and the elementary school. Each school has its own set of activities and fundraisers, and I feel compelled to help when I can. Isn’t that what good parents do? Correction. Isn’t that what good moms do? As a mom who works full-time outside of the home, I’ve been able to take advantage of my flexible hours and home office to get some in-school volunteer opportunities, but on the whole I’m a shoe-in if you need a case of water for a luncheon.

This morning I thought I was delivering in order two dozen cupcakes for 8th grade cupcake day by 8:30 a.m., assorted baked goods individually wrapped for the 5th grade bake sale anytime after noon, and 200 napkins and a loaf of crusty french bread for the middle school teacher dinner after 3 p.m.

Today is not cupcake day.

All I could hear in my head after Peter came back from grabbing the orange-frosted cupcakes from Bethany (who was red-faced after her dad walked into band to free her from babysitting cupcakes all day) was Jesus:

“Martha, Martha. You are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed – or indeed only one. Mary has chosen better and it will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:41, 42 TNIV

I want my kids to know that I care about them and their school – cupcakes, assorted baked goods individually wrapped, napkins and crusty french bread kind of care for them. I need to feel connected to what is going on at the place where my kids spend most of their waking hours. I want to do what I can when I can because I already know the dates on the calendar where my roles collide.

But on this morning I was reminded that today is not cupcake day. I am worried and upset about many things – the laundry, the e-mails, the phone calls, the mess in the family room/kitchen/bedroom.

How on this morning will I sit and choose the better thing?

When Your Star Shines Brighter

When the idea of a group of Asian American women writing a book about faith, gender and culture started out with a snowball’s chance in hell, I had one fleeting thought that unnerved and annoyed me: What if this book actually gets published? Will my husband be OK with my success?

Somewhere in quiet, indirect messages I grew up to understand that boys were preferred over girls and smart, successful girls are scary or, even worse, undesireable.

It’s not that I thought two chapters in a book would launch my New York Times Bestseller literary career. But I understood that in the ministry world I’m in being a published author opens up opportunities that may have taken a lot more to open in the past. This is no time for false humility. After spending five years in the marketplace and then nearly a decade in ministry part-time, loving and learning from college students while raising a young family, my star was rising.

It is no small feat to be able to write a statement like that. Culturally there is no place for self-promotion – self-effacing comments, maybe. And by culturally I mean having grown up with a certain brand of Korean-American spirituality/fundamentalist/evangelicalism that let me know that under no circumstances was I to take credit for anything that I happened to achieve or fail. 

Good grades? I was lucky, or God pulled through. A promotion at work? I was lucky, or God had a plan. A big project flops? Bummer, or it wasn’t God’s will. Oversimplified? Without a doubt.

I will say here that my husband has been very supportive, but even then the kind of comments he would field while I traveled hinted at the audacity of what I was doing – pursuing a rising career. Men and women would gush over his willingness to babysit the kids while I was away writing or speaking, as if he had granted me a favor. Men at church would joke about “letting” me have so much time away from him and the kids. Women would ask how I could spend so much time away from my family.

It was as if my rising star needed to be explained away as an anomaly or excused as a luxury.

I’m not sure if it’s the sudden change in weather that is making me a bit cranky these days. I’m pretty sure it’s because over the past few weeks I’ve talked with a few other women who have wrestled with being a supportive wife and present mother who has an opportunity to stretch her wings and fly a bit. And maybe my fuse for this internal conversation is growing short…I want to respond graciously when I’m asked about the toll of my travel schedule on my family (because I really do agonize over it). I want to respond confidently when I’m asked about my ability to speak to a large audience about matters of faith and life. But I know I’m cranky.

Anyone else cranky out there?

Does God Care I’m an Asian American Woman?

So my posts about becoming an American has been generating some great on- and off-line conversations and comments about citizenship, identity, etc.

My job involves engaging people into the conversation about multiethnicity/multiculturalism & Christianity. The conversations are always rich and often difficult. A question that “AS” brought up in her comment is one that often bubbles up to the surface:

What does it mean to say that “God doesn’t care if you’re black or white, male or female, rich or poor?”

What do you think? Does God care? Does it matter to God?

Saying Goodbye to the Green Card – Step 1

I carry a green card. It’s not actually green, but it means that I am a legal permanent resident of the United States of America. I can stay as long as I stay out of major trouble and the US government says I can stay.

My parents and I immigrated to the US in 1971. The Republic of Korea was undergoing enormous change, and martial law was feeding unstable political flames. I’ve asked my parents several times why they chose to leave their families behind. They have repeatedly said that America was where they wanted to raise their children.

My parents packed a few suitcases, including a box of instant noodles and party dresses. My mother had had the dresses made out of the beautiful silks and brocades she had received from her in-laws as part of traditional engagement and wedding gift exchanges. My mom once told me that she fully expected to wear those party dresses in her first year in America. Most of them hung unworn in her closet and forgotten until I coaxed them and their stories out of the dust.

My green card combined with my ability to speak my second language better than my first has meant access & privilege – things many “Americans” born into citizenship may never consider as such. I don’t know. Nothing is a given when you are an “alien” amongst “native-born”.

After 9/11 my father begged me to get my citizenship. After Virginia Tech, my father called me up again asking me why I hadn’t applied. There were legitimate, deeply philosophical reasons behind my maintaining legal Korean citizenship, but as things in my adopted homeland continued to look at immigrants with raised eyebrows my father’s wisdom kept gnawing at me.

Step 1 – fill out 10 page application complete with legal signature, photographs, copy of green card and a check for $675 will be in the mail no later than Friday.

I have spent my life living in between cultures, but today it seems all the more so.

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