Page 65 of The Warmth of Our Closest Star

How long is a U.S. Senator elected for?

What group of people was taken to America and sold as slaves?

What is the “rule of law”?

Name your U.S. Representative.

Who is the Governor of your state now?

There are 128 civics questions that could potentially be chosen for the oral U.S. Citizenship test. The USCIS officer asks those applying for citizenship 20 questions chosen at random. Every person who takes the test must answer sixty percent of the questions correctly, or twelve out of twenty. When I answered the first twelve questions correctly, the USCIS officer stopped. He said there was no need to continue. I had passed already.

Not to say that I wasn’t relieved, but I was disappointed. For some reason, I desperately wanted to know which questions comprised the remaining eight. However, I didn’t ask if he would tell me which were the remaining questions. I didn’t want to do anything that seemed odd or suspicious in front of a USCIS officer, especially one who was so amenable.

So, within an hour of arriving at their offices, I was informed by the USCIS that I had proven my eligibility to be a United States citizen. All that was left was to take The Naturalization Oath of Allegiance to the United States. That would happen sometime in the following 2 to 6 weeks. Otherwise, I was free to go home and wait for the letter with a date and time.

Technically, I was a U.S. citizen. We simply hadn’t gone through the formalities yet. Although, I suppose, no immigrant is officially a citizen until they take the oath that had one of the most ominous names I’d ever heard before.

Unsure of what else to do, I rose from the chair across from the officer, intending to find Peter where he was waiting out in the lobby. He had taken the afternoon off from work to accompany me to my final test. We’d already gone through all of the interviews and interrogations about our marriage. His presence for my test was merely for moral support.

As my hand touched the knob of the office door, the USCIS officer spoke up.

One last question, if you don’t mind?

I turned to him.

When you think of the U.S., what comes to mind?

That’s what he asked me.

Without having to think, I knew my answer: possibility.

The officer smiled at me.

That’s the best answer anyone has ever given me. Congratulations on becoming a U.S. citizen, Mr. Barbier. Glad to have you.

He pronounced my last name wrong; I didn’t care. He hadn’t been intentionally mispronouncing it anyway. And I was a U.S. citizen. That was all that mattered.

“I’m done,” I said, coming to a stop in front of the chair where Peter was sitting, reading a book in one of the uncomfortable, utilitarian-looking chairs in the lobby. “We can go home.”

Peter started, looked up, and chuckled.

“What’s the verdict?” he asked nervously. “What did they say?”

“I’m a U.S. citizen,” I said with a smile.

I had to have been experiencing some type of shock. After being told that my three-plus-years quest to become a U.S. citizen had come to the preferred conclusion, I should have been bouncing around like a rabbit. Maybe it was the exhaustion. Or the fact that becoming a citizen of the United States was met with such little fanfare. Not that I’d expected a parade and confetti upon passing my oral citizenship exam, but…maybe a certificate? Some music to play from a speaker? A chime to indicate that I had passed? Something. The reason for my disposition could have been a combination of things, but I wanted to go home.

After a little more than three years, I was a United States citizen. Peter and I were considered the same legally by the federal government. I’d been told by Mr. Barton that I would be given an interpreter position at Source Language, Inc. once I had taken my oath. My salary would be more than enough to make me feel as though I could contribute meaningfully to our household.

But I felt empty.

Something no one had ever explained to me—and I’m certain no one has ever had it explained to them—is that there are many arbitrary labels and characteristics that are used to define a person. Not for their good, but for others. Nationality. Race. Ethnicity. Sexual identity. Gender. Religion. Socio-economic class. Intelligence. Education. They inform other people who a person is, and, maybe, in some ways, they help us understand ourselves better, help us build a foundation of understanding of where we came from, where we’re going, and who we will become.

But if one of those labels can be changed by the laws of a land and a pile of paperwork, did it ever really mean anything? Wouldn’t changing something that, at one time, was so significant to someone’s identity, feel like…something? I was French. I was Canadian. Then I was American. It meant nothing. It only informed a government that I was legally allowed to permanently live and work in the country for whose laws they enacted and oversaw.

Even if I’d failed my test—or if the USCIS officer hadn’t approved my citizenship for other reasons—it wouldn’t have changed my marriage. It wouldn’t have changed that Mr. Barton was willing to give me a better job as an interpreter. It didn’t change any of my other identities. My new citizenship was merely another box that was checked in my journey of life that moved me from one point to another.

No more; no less. I’d spent three years finding that out.