This whole road trip started because Daniel had his fourteenth birthday in China. You see, when we adopted Esther, she became an American citizen upon going through immigration at our port of entry to the U.S., and some while later we got her certificate of citizenship in the mail. Easy. Daniel also became a U.S. citizen upon arrival, but instead of getting his C of C in the mail, we got a letter from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services informing us that because our child was over fourteen at the time of immigration, he had to come in person to swear an oath of renunciation and loyalty to the United States and to sign his name on his C of C. And apparently the closest place we could do this at was Pittsburgh! I knew from another mother-of-teens' blog that there was no way around this, so we didn't bother fighting it. However, it would have made an incredibly loooong and stressful (what if we got stuck behind an accident and missed our appointment?) trip to get there and back in one day. So we picked a time when Tim had a couple of free days and just pulled Daniel out of school. The deal was somewhat sweetened by knowing that Daniel's former orphanage roommate, adopted four and a half years earlier, lived near Pittsburgh. So we planned to drive up on Thursday, get the boys together Thursday after school, and have Daniel's citizenship appointment on Friday morning. At first we thought we might go on to DC before coming home, then we got in our car accident and weren't sure if we were going at all, and then we bought a long-talked-of second vehicle while we waited for our car to be fixed, and resurrected the DC trip at the very last minute.
We bought our car on a Wednesday morning. On Wednesday afternoon, Daniel helped put gas in it and it overflowed. On Wednesday evening, the "check engine" light went on. So on Thursday morning, instead of helping pack for the trip, Tim took the car back to the place we had bought it from and got their help in checking out the "check engine" light. Everyone concluded it was probably a gas sensor reacting to the previous day's overflow, and we could drive the car on a long trip without (too much) fear of being left stranded by the side of the highway. So Tim came home and we finally got started a couple of hours later than planned. About two and a half hours into the trip, already running late for our rendevous with Daniel's old roommate, I realized that I had not brought the printout of our appointment letter that I had so carefully set aside several days earlier...nor the original letter telling us to report to Pittsburgh...nor Daniel's Chinese passport with the immigrant visa in it that proved he was supposed to be getting his certificate of citizenship and--oh yeah--is the only form of government-issued ID that we have for him. I thought I could reprint the appointment letter if I could just get a hold of Daniel's A-number (the number which identified him as an immigrant). That still left several reasons that the USCIS officer could decline to process us, if they were feeling picky. But if we turned around and went back for the documents that would not leave any time for Daniel to get together with his friend, besides adding five hours of driving to our day. So we decided to push on to Pittsburgh and hope for the best.
We arrived at our hotel and I started getting on the internet while Tim and company unloaded the car. A phone call to our (always helpful!) adoption agency (WACAP) yielded Daniel's A-number, though not the photocopy of his immigrant visa that I had been hoping I had sent them. (I remember copying it, but apparently it was for something else.) So I re-generated our appointment letter and left it up on the computer until such a time as we could print it, the hotel not having facilities for printing. Meanwhile T and his dad arrived. T has forgotten much of his Chinese, and at first did not seem inclined to talk at all. Since the plan was for him to hang out with us for the evening while his parents took siblings to their activities, I was not quite sure how we were going to manage with two silent boys! However, I had had Daniel bring some pictures from the orphanage to show his friend, and they connected over those while I finished up a few things on the computer. Then we headed out to a hamburger place, finding out only after we had started to order that T is a vegetarian! Oops. At first conversation was a little awkward. Part of the time the boys tried to talk to each other, periodically asking me for translation help, and when they weren't talking, Tim or I tried to engage T in conversation. But as the evening went on, T and Daniel started talking more and more independently. (I think a good bit of T's Chinese must have returned to him, since they were getting along just fine in conversation by the last hour of our time together.) After dinner we headed out to a store to print our appointment letter, only to have T offer that we could go back to his house and print it on his computer. So we did that. After a while, Tim took Esther back to the hotel to sleep. Daniel and T and I continued hanging out at T's house for another hour or so, and then T's dad drove us back to the hotel. I found it really interesting to talk with his dad, and find out that some of Daniel's quirky habits are ones that T also had when first adopted. Daniel found it really interesting to compare notes with T on allowances (T's is bigger) and household technology (T has a laptop and an ipod!). Daniel said to me (while trying to suppress an ornery little grin), "T's household is so xinfu. I wish our household was this xinfu." (I'm using the Chinese word here because xinfu doesn't seem to have an exact English equivalent. I've read/heard it variously translated as "warm," "happy," and "authentic.") Seeing the grin, I asked him what made T's family so xinfu. Turns out that if you really want an authentic, warm, happy home, you need a laptop and an ipod! Ha.
So, the next morning we got up super early, gave ourselves three times as much time as the driving directions recommended to get to our appointment, breezed through the first few miles and thought we were going to be early, crawled along in rush-hour traffic for the next few miles and thought we were going to be late, and finally arrived at the office just in time. In order to get in we had to show adult IDs but not Daniel's (phew!). When our name was called for the appointment, I explained the situation. The officer asked if he could see the letter instructing us to make this appointment. Umm, oops, forgot to bring it. Well, then could he see Daniel's green card? Daniel doesn't have a green card, as he is actually a citizen already, but I could have shown you his immigrant visa...except, oops, I forgot to bring that too. I offered Daniel's A-number (or maybe the officer asked), and he thought he could find Daniel's file with that. (Thank you, God, and kind officer!) So after only a little delay, Daniel got to sign his certificate of citizenship (good thing he knows how to write his name in English!). Then it was time for him to take the oath. Although we were the only people in the large room, our officer had Daniel come up to the front podium and stand by the flag. He had to solemnly promise: (1) to support the Constitution of the United States; (2) to renounce and abjure absolutely and entirely all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which the applicant was before a subject or citizen; (3) to support and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; (4) to bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and (5) (A) to bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law, or (B) to perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law, or (C) to perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law. The oath, of course, was in English. But there are some words in there (abjure? potentate?) that I'm quite confident Daniel does not know in Chinese, nor would most 14-year-old native speakers of English know them in English. The officer asked me to translate. Woo-hoo! My translation went something like this: "I will help the rules of the United States. If I was the citizen of another country in the past, I am not a citizen of that country anymore, only a citizen of the United States. I will always help the United States and not other countries. [I had explained to Daniel before the oath that as long as there was not a conflict of loyalties, he could help other countries as well, but the United States now had to come first.] I will always be loyal to the United States. If the rules of the United States tell me to be in the United States army, I will be in the United States army. If the rules of the United States tell me to help the United States army, I will help the United States army. If the rules of the United States tell me to do work to help the United States, I will do work to help the United States." Thankfully, Daniel was not asked to repeat the words in English, just to raise his right hand, listen to the officer reading the English and to my mangled translation, and then at the end say "I do." Then the officer gave Daniel a mini U.S. flag and congratulations. (It did not seem that there was any standard procedure for administering the oath to a non-English-speaking adoptee, but that it was up to the officer's discretion.) Daniel had been a little nonplussed about renouncing his loyalty to China when I first explained it to him, but he seemed to be fine with taking the oath. (And I pray he will not run into a conflict of loyalty between his two countries!) Esther was quite envious of his flag, so the officer found one for her too. And after another wait for (I assume) paperwork to be completed, we were handed Daniel's certificate of citizenship and we were on our way!
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