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THE story of my path to American Citizenship begins today, Wednesday, May 12, 2010. I am still waiting for a substantial tax return – well, substantial in my world, and I am planning to use part of that payment to apply for American Citizenship.
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THE story of my path to American Citizenship begins today, Wednesday, May 12, 2010. I am still waiting for a substantial tax return – well, substantial in my world, and I am planning to use part of that payment to apply for American Citizenship. According to the information I found the last time I looked into the process the application will cost me roughly $700. They – the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, in short USCIS – don’t accept credit cards, only money orders. That’s where the tax return comes in handy.
Since the year 2002 I am a permanent, legal resident with an official alien registration number. As such I was hoping to fall under the responsibility of the Men in Black, but no such luck. In layman’s terms I own a so-called “Green Card,” even though the card is not green at all. In turn, living in the United States of America and owning a permanent resident status for more than three years while married to a green-eyed Irish-American Red-Head entitles me to apply for citizenship.
As a matter of fact, there is no rational explanation why I want to become an American Citizen. Theoretically, I can remain a legal alien for the rest of my natural life, but there are a number of not so rational reasons, and I will detail them in another chapter. For now let’s just say that I owe it to my family, my American-born wife and my American-born son. Add to that a profound love I feel for this country, and that includes the good, the bad, and the ugly. I believe, American Citizenship is a privilege. I also believe that the American spirit is like a virus – in the best sense of the word – that brings out the best in every decent human being.
I was born and raised in Germany. Let me explain what that means by distorting a Mark Twain quote: A German (Originally, an Englishman; same difference, though) is a person who does things because they have been done before. An American is a person who does things because they haven’t been done before.
Note: This is a work in progress. More info will be added soon.
Yes, I am an immigrant as well, but I am still on my path to American citizenship. This is what this website is about. I use it to describe the naturalization process, and I also share my research. The following represents a loose list of articles on immigration issues and topics found in online newspapers, mainly the New York Times and Washington Post.
I am more 100 percent American than some of the born Americans. I resent some losses of freedom more quickly. I mean I want to be proud of my country, I think more than a born American does. That way I feel I am an immigrant. Otherwise I have never felt like one.
- Rachel Goldman – Jewish, from Russia. Arrived 1946.
Back to The Fellow Utopian
The above quote by a Jewish Russian immigrant from 1946 puts in very few words what would have taken me several pages to describe. The quote has not lost its meaning, especially after the dark eight years of George 43. It was disturbing to see how quickly many people, born with the privilege of American citizenship, were willing to give up the principles of the founding fathers.
Yes, I am an immigrant as well, but I am still on my path to American citizenship. This is what this website is about. I use it to describe the naturalization process, and I also share my research. The following represents a loose list of articles on immigration issues and topics found in online newspapers, mainly the New York Times and Washington Post.
Judge Blocks Arizona’s Immigration Law
New York Times
July 28, 2010
A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona’s immigration enforcement law from going into effect, a ruling that at least temporarily squashed a state policy that had inflamed the national debate over immigration. Judge Susan Bolton of Federal District Court issued a preliminary injunction against sections of the law, scheduled to take effect on Thursday, that called for police officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws and required immigrants to prove that they were authorized to be in the country or risk state charges. She issued the injunction in response to a legal challenge brought against the law by the Obama administration. Read the full article…
Arizona immigration battle turns bitter
guardian.co.uk
July 18, 2010
At the heart of the debate are the 12 million or so illegal immigrants, most of them Mexican, who already live and work in the US, about 500,000 of them in Arizona. Over the past few decades they have become a fixture of American life, building homes and families and carrying out the low-paid farm work that few US citizens are prepared to do. They have been largely tolerated, existing just below the surface of American life, sending their children to school, paying taxes and only coming into contact with police if they committed serious crimes. Immigration violations were generally treated as a civilian, rather than a criminal matter. Read the full article…
Obama Gains Evangelical Allies on Immigration
New York Times
July 18, 2010
At a time when the prospects for immigration overhaul seem most dim, supporters have unleashed a secret weapon: a group of influential evangelical Christian leaders. Normally on the opposite side of political issues backed by the Obama White House, these leaders are aligning with the president to support an overhaul that would include some path to legalization for illegal immigrants already here. They are preaching from pulpits, conducting conference calls with pastors and testifying in Washington — as they did last Wednesday. Read the full article…
Justice Dept. Sues Arizona Over Its Immigration Law
New York Times
July 6, 2010
The Justice Department filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Arizona to challenge a new state law intended to combat illegal immigration, arguing that it would undermine the federal government’s pursuit of terrorists, gang members and other criminal immigrants. The suit, filed in federal court in Phoenix, had been expected since mid-June, when Obama administration officials first disclosed they would contest the Arizona law, adding to several other suits seeking to have courts strike it down. Read the full article…
In speech, Obama to argue for immigration overhaul
Associated Press
July 1, 2010
Obama was laying out his rationale in a speech Thursday, his first as president on the issue. Obama wasn’t expected to announce any new proposals or policy changes. But feeling pressure from a range of supporters, he was aiming to jump-start the effort he had promised to make a priority in his first year and which advocates had hoped would be completed by now. The speech follows up on back-to-back meetings Obama had with advocates and lawmakers at the White House this week. Read the full article…
Colbert, Immigrant Farm Workers Challenge Pundits And Unemployed To ‘Take Our Jobs’
HuffingtonPost.com
June 24, 2010
In a tongue-in-cheek call for immigration reform, farm workers are teaming up with comedian Stephen Colbert to challenge unemployed Americans: Come on, take our jobs. Farm workers are tired of being blamed by politicians and anti-immigrant activists for taking work that should go to Americans and dragging down the economy, said Arturo Rodriguez, the president of the United Farm Workers of America. So the group is encouraging the unemployed – and any Washington pundits or anti-immigrant activists who want to join them – to apply for the some of thousands of agricultural jobs being posted with state agencies as harvest season begins. Read the full article.
Nebraska town bars illegal immigrants from jobs and renting property
guardian.co.uk
June 22, 2010
A small town in the pig-farming and cattle rearing great plains of Nebraska has opened the latest frontline in the battle over immigration by voting effectively to banish all illegal immigrants. Under ordinance 5165, which passed in a special election yesterday, undocumented immigrants in Fremont will lose the right to rent homes and take up jobs. A new system of licences for property and business will be introduced to catch out those without proper resident status. The measure was passed on a turn-out of 45% of the population, with 3,906 in favour and 2,908 against.
Surprising Immigration Crackdown Advances
New York Times
June 10, 2010
BOSTON — Lawmakers were tangled in budget talks inside the Massachusetts Statehouse this week, but a 19-year-old college student spent even more time at the gold-domed building on Beacon Hill. Andres Del Castillo, who just finished his freshman year at Suffolk University in Boston, is holding a vigil on the Statehouse steps to protest what could be the state’s harshest crackdown on illegal immigrants in decades. The plan, already approved by the Senate, must survive budget negotiations with the House to become law. And while Arizona’s tough new immigration policy seemed largely irrelevant here when it passed in April — both legislative chambers are controlled by Democrats who typically pay scant attention to the issue, and Bill O’Reilly of Fox News has derided Massachusetts as a “sanctuary state” for illegal immigrants — ripple effects hit almost immediately. Read the full article.
Md. second-grader gives first lady pop quiz on immigration
Washington Post
May 20, 2010
As much as they might want to defer the conversation, the politically charged issue of illegal immigration continues to dog members of the Obama administration. On Wednesday, with TV cameras rolling during an event to promote healthy eating, a second-grader at a Silver Spring elementary school asked first lady Michelle Obama why the president was “taking everybody away that doesn’t have papers.” Read the full article.
Palin joins Arizona gov. to defend immigration law
HuffingtonPost.Com
May 15, 2010
As calls spread for an economic boycott of Arizona, the state’s governor enlisted the help of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Saturday to defend a new law cracking down on illegal immigration. Jan Brewer and Palin blamed President Barack Obama for the state law, saying the measure is Arizona’s attempt to enforce immigration laws because the federal government won’t do it. Read the full article.
Small New York Town Makes English the Law
New York Times
May 12, 2010
It’s about 2,500 miles from this green, rural town in the rolling hills near Vermont to the Mexican border at Nogales, but that hasn’t stopped Jackson from making a bid to be New York’s small version of Arizona in the immigration wars. Or that’s how it is beginning to feel two months after Jackson — which has 1,700 people, no village, no grocery store or place to buy gasoline, no church, no school, two restaurants and maybe a few Spanish-speaking farm workers — decided it needed a law requiring that all town business be conducted in English. Read the full article.
Arizona tourism loses more business in wake of immigration law vote
The Washington Post
May 12, 2010
Arizona took another hit Wednesday as Republicans cast a vote for the home of their 2012 convention. Phoenix made the short list but lost out to Tampa. It was little surprise to tourism officials in Arizona. Since the state passed the nation’s toughest immigration law three weeks ago, its meeting and events business has fallen drastically. Hispanic civil rights groups are boycotting Arizonaand urging others to do the same. Officials at the National Council of La Raza, one of the groups driving the boycott, had privately asked the RNC not to meet in Phoenix. Read the full article.
Arizona Enacts Stringent Law on Immigration
New York Times
April 23, 2010
Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona signed the nation’s toughest bill on illegal immigration into law on Friday. Its aim is to identify, prosecute and deport illegal immigrants. The move unleashed immediate protests and reignited the divisive battle over immigration reform nationally. Even before she signed the bill at an afternoon news conference here, President Obama strongly criticized it. Speaking at a naturalization ceremony for 24 active-duty service members in the Rose Garden, he called for a federal overhaul of immigration laws, which Congressional leaders signaled they were preparing to take up soon, to avoid “irresponsibility by others.” Read the full article.
The Fellow Utopian tells the life story of Anthony M. Shoemaker, who immigrated from Germany to the United States in the mid 1930s. The reason to leave Germany is the current political situation. Shoemaker is a convinced communist, which made him a prime target for Hitler’s henchmen.
Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery.
- Jack Paar
The Fellow Utopian - A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss
At this moment I am sitting at the Panera Bread branch in Hadley, Massachusetts. I haven’t been here for several weeks, but I need to get back into the usual routine of taking a day per week to write. However, I feel like a lame duck in the water. I have been separated from my previous novel The Bleeding Hills and I am attempting to establish a mental connection to my next work. It isn’t as easy as I thought.
Let me try by elaborating on my ideas for my next work. The title will be “The Fellow Utopian”. That’s how I work: I develop the idea in my mind, I come up with a title, and the cover is already in the works. I had the idea for The Fellow Utopian long before I started writing The Bleeding Hills and I have already been through several titles and covers.
The Fellow Utopian tells the life story of Anthony M. Shoemaker, who immigrated from Germany to the United States in the mid 1930s. The reason to leave Germany is the current political situation. Shoemaker is a convinced communist, which made him a prime target for Hitler’s henchmen.
Doesn’t sound very original so far? Okay, here we go: Through written communication with an uncle in Wisconsin he is convinced that America provides the perfect feeding ground for a new, communist society. After all, the Declaration of Independence, just like the Communist Manifesto, calls for equal rights for everybody. In addition, there is the new President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and his “New Deal”, a policy designed to even the differences between poor and rich. The story describes his transition from his communist ideas into a dedicated love for the United States of America. Add to this a good portion of Charlie Chaplin and Ephraim Kishon and you get the picture.
The story will not only explore immigration policies in the 1930s and life as a German in 1930s/1940s New York; it will also address the great love that the vast majority of immigrants feel for this country. American citizenship, the way I see it, is still a privilege and too many Americans were willing to jeopardize the foundation that provides this privilege. This foundation, as provided by the founding fathers, is the constitution of the United States of America. I am referring here especially to the dark years of the Bush administration, during which a majority of Americans were too willing to give up constitutional rights. There is a difference in view between people who were born as an American citizen and those people who had to apply for citizenship. It seems that the average applicant is more sensitive to changes in constitutional rights than the average born American.
Every few years immigration issues pop up in the political landscape and, being an immigrant myself, I always had the feeling that too many politicians conveniently forget that the vast majority of American people descent from immigrants. My two year old son, born in Greenfield, Massachusetts, is an American citizen, and he will learn from his parents to appreciate that privilege.
Anyway, this is what the new book is about, and I will continue posting updates on this blog.
