{"id":14109,"date":"2019-07-05T10:25:44","date_gmt":"2019-07-05T15:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/?p=14109"},"modified":"2019-07-05T10:38:59","modified_gmt":"2019-07-05T15:38:59","slug":"mark-krikorians-keynote-speech-at-mount-vernon-naturalization-ceremony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/2019\/07\/05\/mark-krikorians-keynote-speech-at-mount-vernon-naturalization-ceremony\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Krikorian’s Keynote Speech at Mount Vernon Naturalization Ceremony"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Image: MtVernon.org<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/h3>\n

Keynote Speech at Mount Vernon Naturalization Ceremony<\/h3>\n

Mark\u00a0Krikorian spoke at the annual July 4 ceremony in George Washington’s historic home<\/strong><\/h3>\n

By Mark Krikorian on July 4, 2019<\/h3>\n

Congratulations, Americans!<\/h3>\n

You\u2019ve come a long way since you first got here. Whether you came on foot or by bus, or a ship or by airplane, you arrived here as strangers \u2014 many of you didn\u2019t know the language, some didn\u2019t have any friends or family here, and all of you were at least a little bit nervous about starting a new life in a new country.<\/p>\n

Back in the 1600s, when George Washington\u2019s great-grandfather John Washington crossed the ocean, newcomers who didn\u2019t die of disease or insects or what have you in the first year \u2014 were considered \u201cseasoned,\u201d and so they were thought likely to survive and build a new life for themselves.<\/p>\n

Although dangerous disease isn\u2019t the problem here it once was (though Lord knows the insects are still bad), new immigrants still have a lot to learn, and can have some awkward and embarrassing experiences along the way. My grandfather, for instance, came to this country as a teenager before World War I. He arrived in Boston, and a relative outside the city told him to go to the train station and take the first \u201ccar\u201d \u2014 meaning the streetcar \u2014 to their town. But his relative, like many of you, was already using English words in his Armenian, and used the English word \u201ccar,\u201d meaning train car. Unfortunately, my grandfather didn\u2019t know any English, and thought his relative had meant the Armenian word pronounced \u201ccar,\u201d which means rock or stone. My grandfather somehow got to his relative\u2019s house, knocked on the door, and said \u201cHi, here\u2019s the rock \u2014 what\u2019s it for?\u201d<\/p>\n

Those kinds of problems are behind you now \u2014 you\u2019ve learned how to find an apartment, file a tax return, and open a bank account. But as comfortable as you\u2019ve been living in America, until a few minutes ago you weren\u2019t Americans. When you had breakfast this morning, you were Polish or Vietnamese or Burkinabe or Peruvian \u2014 but you\u2019ll have lunch as Americans. Not many countries in the world allow that kind of thing; an Irishman, after all, can\u2019t move to China and become a Chinese; a Mexican become a Nigerian. And yet each of you, from whatever country, has now become an American, as good as any other.<\/p>\n

This matter of taking American citizenship, becoming part of the American people, is not like changing your clothes or buying a new car. Instead, this is a permanent and very serious thing you do, more like getting married or starting a family.<\/p>\n

In the Jewish faith, a person who converts is considered to have been present in spirit when Moses came down with the Ten Commandments 4,000 years ago, even though that person\u2019s ancestors were not physically there. In a non-religious version of this idea, once you took your oath of citizenship, you become present in spirit, along with all other Americans, at the defining events of your new nation\u2019s history:<\/p>\n

The Indian immigrant who became an American this morning was present in spirit when GeorgeWashington signed the Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787, even though that immigrant\u2019s ancestors weren\u2019t in the room and weren\u2019t even in the country;<\/p>\n

The Salvadoran immigrant who became an American today was present in spirit at the Battle of Gettysburg, where our Union was saved 156 years ago yesterday, even though her own ancestors, like my own, were not among the soldiers;<\/p>\n

And the Danish immigrant who became an American today was present in spirit at Martin Luther King Junior\u2019s \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech in 1963, even though his ancestors weren\u2019t there either.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve now been adopted into America\u2019s family. This family isn\u2019t tied just by blood relations, but also by common ideals, a common language, a common history, and common culture of many parts \u2014 what President Lincoln called the \u201cmystic chords of memory.\u201d That history is now your history, as well.<\/p>\n

We welcome you as our newest countrymen. We entrust part of our nation\u2019s future to you. We ask only that you love America, cherish America, honor her, protect her, embrace her, salute her, hold her dear. God bless you, and God bless America. \u00a0 Here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Keynote Speech at Mount Vernon Naturalization Ceremony Mark\u00a0Krikorian spoke at the annual July 4 ceremony in George Washington’s historic home By Mark Krikorian on July 4, 2019 Congratulations, Americans! You\u2019ve come a long way since you first got here. Whether you came on foot or by bus, or a ship or by airplane, you arrived […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14109"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14109"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14116,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14109\/revisions\/14116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}