This week, we’ve been having a series of conversations about the backstories of the immigration debate. So much of that debate centers on the border, and what should, or shouldn’t, happen at the moment people try to cross it.
But, for those who make it into the country, what happens afterward is just as important. And that part of the process doesn’t get talked about as much. So today, we’re closing out our series with a rare glimpse inside an often-overlooked American tradition: naturalization.
Rachel Monroe, reporter for The New Yorker, attended several naturalization ceremonies, including one held at the rim of the Grand Canyon. She spoke to a wide range of freshly-minted citizens about what their new status meant to them, and what they had to go through to achieve it. Monroe joined The Show to talk about her experience.
Full conversation
SAM DINGMAN: So, Rachel, there, there was one detail in your story that I just found sort of extraordinary as I read it, and then I realized it's probably not that extraordinary. But were they really handing out apple pie at the naturalization ceremony that you went to at the Grand Canyon?
RACHEL MONROE: Yeah, apple pie and a jazz band, and everybody had little American flags. It was, it was maybe the most American experience that I had ever had in my whole life.
DINGMAN: Yeah. Yeah, you know, that was one of those things that as I read it, I thought, really? Do they, do we do that?
MONROE: Well, I think, I mean, that's the interesting thing about the naturalization ceremony. It is at once very, very bureaucratic and very procedural, and everybody has to take the oath of citizenship, which, which is sort of a wild statement, you know, you have to like objure the authority of foreign princes and things like that. That's not the exact language, but everybody's kind of repeating after the judge being like, OK. But it's, yeah, it's also a celebration. It's a party.
DINGMAN: When there was that really, that was, that one really remarkable quote from your piece of, of somebody who was naturalized that day who said, “I feel like I'm officially part of the American landscape.”
MONROE: He was an incredible person. I, I believe you're talking about the man who worked at the Grand Canyon. He was from Venezuela and had, you know, one of his first memories was seeing a picture of the Grand Canyon in a book when he learned to read as a child and then grew up, came to the U.S., got a job on the maintenance staff at the Grand Canyon. Worked in the park and then was able to be naturalized there, which was really moving. And all many of his co-workers were there, you know, kind of in their work clothes, crying and hugging him at the end, and you just see how meaningful this is to people.
DINGMAN: Yeah, well, on that note, there are some remarkable statistics in your piece. You write that some 900,000 people became citizens in fiscal year 2023, which brings the total percentage of non-U.S. born citizens to 14.3%. The highest it's ever been, and this comes, you point out, as Gallup recently found that for the first time in two decades, a majority of Americans say that we should welcome fewer immigrants.
How much of this very politicized dynamic around immigration seemed to be on the minds of the naturalized citizens that you spoke to?
MONROE: It felt like it was below the surface of like nearly every interview that I did. Like one guy in particular who would come from Mexico as a young man was like, Reagan, you know, did immigration reform, and like, that's how I got my green card, and, you know, that's why it's, it's, path to citizenship is good. He like really, he like called me back and wanted to give Ronald Reagan credit. And I, I think, you know, as a way to sort of say like, we, we've done this before as a country. But even if we're, even if, you know, things seem very different right now.
DINGMAN: Speaking of, you know how long some of these folks have been here. Another thing that you point out in the piece is that for, for many of the naturalized citizens, the ceremony is the culmination of a very long, very arduous journey. There's one woman you spoke to who I believe had been moving through the system for 25 years.
MONROE: I mean, and it's so different for for every single person. It's a very complex system that those of us fortunate enough to have been born in the United States, like me, it's so easy to take for granted.
For that woman in particular, I remember her, she was from Turkey and, and had, I think, spent close to a decade applying for the green card lottery before her number came up, before she was selected, and then she came over to the U.S. And then once you have a green card, it's, it can be a very long process to kind of get in the line to become a naturalized citizen.
You know, there's a citizenship test that I think, you know, if you probably gave it to the average person on the street, I don't know if they would pass or not. I don't know if I would pass.
DINGMAN: Yeah, I had to look up the verb objure when I read your piece that we were just referencing earlier.
MONROE: Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's just, you know, these folks have to know their, you have to say who your senators and your representatives are and know a lot of facts about the Constitution and the founding fathers. And then, you know, you're getting in a very long line, even if you're willing to jump through all of those hoops, you know, there are a lot of people ahead of you. And this is, this is a slow bureaucratic process that in recent years has only gotten slower.
DINGMAN: Yeah. You mentioned the woman from Turkey, and one of the other important takeaways for me from your piece was the diversity of countries from which these folks originated. There was also a man from Ghana, and a couple from India, and we have just gone through this election cycle where immigration was such a major issue, and the conversation about it often gets kind of reduced to the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico and other Latin American countries. And I wondered if part of your goal here was to maybe remind people that folks from all over the world emigrate to this country and that the conversation is much more nuanced.
MONROE: Yeah, it was also important to me. I think one of the things that I kind of balk at in the way that immigration gets covered or gets particularly gets kind of thrown around in shorthand ways, there are many different categories of people all get lumped together. You know, asylum seekers, people who have green cards, people who are here under programs like, you know, temporary protected status, like there, there are many ways to be kind of on the path to citizenship in this country.
DINGMAN: Yeah, well, and it also struck me that that 900,000 number of naturalized citizens in, in fiscal year 2023. I guess it was much bigger than I thought it that it would be and you know, you were talking about all the hurdles that folks have to get over in order to become naturalized.
It seems to me that the, the conversation about immigration is always so fixated on people who come here illegally, but it seems also like it's worth talking about the, the very large number of people who are doing their damnedest to work their way through the, the proper channels.
MONROE: Totally. I mean, I think, you know, I, in my reporting, I talked to a lot of people with a lot of opinions about immigration and, and migrants and all of that. And, and one thing that you'll hear a lot from people who you wanna restrict immigration is they'll say, “you know, we'll just like, you know, come the legal way,” as if that's a simple or easy thing, you know, in a country that had meaningful immigration reform in in decades.
DINGMAN: Well, that makes me think I found the tone of your piece to be generally reflective of the optimism of the people that you spoke to in terms of what they hope American citizenship can offer them. And the, the title of your piece after all, is “The Joy of New Americans.”
What, if anything, do we know about how the naturalization process might change once Donald Trump takes office for the second time?
MONROE: I mean, I think there's a lot of uncertainty and that is causing a lot of fear, what, what the priorities will be. There's talk of revoking, at least threatening to revoke the citizenship of of naturalized citizens if they're flagged in some sort of way.
DINGMAN: Yeah.
MONROE: And that was part of the, the joy that, that I talk about in the piece, this sense of relief and that there's some real safety and security in crossing this line and becoming an American citizen. This idea that citizenship can be revoked, that it is conditional, that we are kind of increasingly, or some people among us are trying to draw a line between, you know, who is a “real” American and who is somebody who doesn't quite count, who is here provisionally. I think that's really out of keeping of how I guess how, how America likes to think of itself.
DINGMAN: Yeah, it's not not very apple pie.
MONROE: No.
