Fresno, CA - Oath Ceremony

[Creel 0]

My husband is a citizen and we are so happy, but the ceremony in Fresno is a joke! It was a 100 degree day and there was no air conditioning in the building. When the lady announced the different countries that were represented she mispronounced several countries, including my husband's, and then laughed about it. We were given 5 minutes to go up and take pictures and 3 minutes into it she started yelling it wasn't social hour and we would see them later so go back to our seats. The actual ceremony took 10 minutes after 1 1/2 hours of waiting in the heat. The judge wasn't much better. She told them to raise their hand for the pledge of allegiance instead of putting their hand on their heart and when she said the oath for them to repeat she would string together 10 or so hard words, but when it came to the easy part she'd stop after 3 or 4 words.

Overall, I am embarrassed that the new citizens of this country had to experience that and I hope other ceremonies are better and that this was just a fluke.

[milimelo 4,202]

My husband is a citizen and we are so happy, but the ceremony in Fresno is a joke! It was a 100 degree day and there was no air conditioning in the building. When the lady announced the different countries that were represented she mispronounced several countries, including my husband's, and then laughed about it. We were given 5 minutes to go up and take pictures and 3 minutes into it she started yelling it wasn't social hour and we would see them later so go back to our seats. The actual ceremony took 10 minutes after 1 1/2 hours of waiting in the heat. The judge wasn't much better. She told them to raise their hand for the pledge of allegiance instead of putting their hand on their heart and when she said the oath for them to repeat she would string together 10 or so hard words, but when it came to the easy part she'd stop after 3 or 4 words.

Overall, I am embarrassed that the new citizens of this country had to experience that and I hope other ceremonies are better and that this was just a fluke.

We raised hand too at my oath ceremony - has to do with swearing in, not oath of allegiance.

[v333k 59]

Congratulations!!! thanks for sharing. It probably was an off and hot day for everyone so all had trouble with their temper....

milimelo is correct - many members reported that they raised their hands when taking the oath.

[Creel 0]

No, they said the pledge of allegiance to the flag like we all did in school, but they didn't cover their hearts she told them to raise their hand. Later they said the oath to become a citizen and then of course they raised their hand to swear in.

[sunshine78 0]

congrats!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ELW 5]

Thanks for posting! We are in Fresno too. Now I have to look up your Citizenship interview experience to see how that will go, we just gave our application. There is another VJ member in Fresno, merijan, they will be applying also in 2-3 months.

I remember how our AOS interview was a joke, the guy didn't seem interested at all and didn't ask a single question, just absentmindedly looked at our papers and said we passed.