Coming To America

On May 10, 1996, in a cavernous hall at the U.S. District Court in Hartford, Connecticut, in the presence of a judge and a flag of the United States of America, I raised my right hand and, with solemnity, declared on oath my renunciation and abjuration of "all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen," and other words along the same lines, and when I ended with the phrase, "So help me God," the judge smiled expansively and welcomed me and many other oath takers as brand new citizens of the American republic. The event was deeply moving, in part because it was, for me, colored by paradox, some pain, even ambiguity. Its emotional glow enabled me to travel back in memory to the thoughts and sensations that marked my first encounter with America.(continues here)