"Honey, you sure you don't want to change?" My husband yelled as he was jumping out of the shower. "You look gorgeous in that cheongsam!"
"I am 100% sure!"
My husband was baffled. Why would I wear jeans at a such solemn event? on this very day I became an American?
little did he know, I wore it to honour my aunt, who was killed by the Chinese communists over a pair of blue jeans.
My dad escaped the Chinese civil war and arrived in Hong Kong, left behind two other siblings who remained in communist controlled China. Dad worked few odd jobs so that every time we visited our relatives, we would be able to bring necessities, be flour, rice, clothes, radio or even salt and sugar.
I still remember my dad's loud cry when upon returning to China, he learned my aunt had committed suicide, over the very pair of jeans he brought her from Hong Kong.
Only when I grew up, I heard the story from my cousin that auntie Mui lost her life to the heydays of cultural revolution, when every single wrong doing could land you in jail and every little mistake earned you a good beating. Jeans in all the madness became a gesture of contradicting supreme leader Mao and a symbol of supporting American Imperialism.
So her very friend and comrade stripped her and did the unthinkable and unspeakable in public. My aunt couldn't take the humiliation and took her own life the same afternoon.
As years go by, all my families escaped communist China and landed in Hong Kong, Aunt Mui was gone, but she was never forgotten.
And that is why I wore jeans, a indisputable symbol of Americanism at my oath ceremony, and if aunt Mui is above there somewhere watching over me, she knew I did it for her honour.
Katya had her interview today in Detroit. We got there about 30 minutes early and she was called back about 10 minutes after her scheduled time. The very nice IO in Detroit also requested me to join them, and she covered the pending I751 first with both of us verifying that form and we updated our tax documents. That lasted about 10 minutes, then I was walked out and Katya continued with her N400 interview. She told me that it went very well, she answered the six questions (first president, where is the Statue of Liberty, what does the Oath of Allegiance mean, who is the governor of Michigan, name the three rights enumerated in the DoI, and name two National Holidays) and passed the reading and writing test. In the end, she was approved for naturalization with an oath to be scheduled later. The N400 part of the interview lasted about 15-20 minutes.
donedonedone got a reaction from CoffeeVegan in Detroit N400 filers