July 3, 2002
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
Cover Story
New U.S. Citizen: Carlos Morales, a Spanish teacher at Willow Glen High School, will become a U.S. citizen in August. Morales, who immigrated from Guatemala 13 years ago, will maintain dual citizenship in both his native and his new country. Three local immigrants celebrate Independence Day New citizens observe the Fourth of July and talk about their own experiences of the American Dream. By I-chun Che Who wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner"? Who is the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court? What were the 13 original states? Many U.S.-born citizens may not know the answers to these questions. But Matthew Doar from England, Carlos Morales from Guatemala and Haile Terleab from Eritrea can tell you without hesitation that Francis Scott Key wrote the national anthem and that William Rehnquist is the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. They can also name the 13 original states - New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island - in one breath. Like all the other 17,121 immigrants who have passed the citizenship tests in the San Jose area since last October, they are required to learn American history and civics in order to become U.S. citizens. Nationwide, about 470,000 people have taken the oath of citizenship so far this year. While Morales and Terleab are waiting to take the oath, Doar was sworn in on April 24 and this year is going to celebrate his first Independence Day as a U.S. citizen. Matthew Doar Doar didn't come to the United States seeking religious freedom like the pilgrims who took the Mayflower to the new continent 200 years ago. He flew to America by way of British Airlines in 1993 to be with Katherine Baginski, a hazel-eyed Californian girl he had met in Africa in 1991. Baginski was then a Peace Corp volunteer, teaching math in an elementary school in Cape Town, while he was a Cambridge University graduate student who had gone to Africa to help his friend train English teachers who wanted to teach children in small African townships. "We met in a youth hostel in Cape Town," Doar says. "She needed to borrow a rucksack to carry a watermelon to a party, so I lent her mine. She didn't invite me to the party, though." Doar had to return to England to continue his studies, but Baginski and he knew that they wanted more than a short summer love affair. After Baginski finished her two-year service in the Peace Corps and Doar received his doctoral degree in computer science, Doar followed her back to the United States. "I came here to see whether a personal relationship worked," Doar says. "I wasn't thinking about a national relationship." Their two-year long-distance relationship culminated in a wedding in San Francisco. Since then, Doar has become a permanent resident of the United States, both legally and literally. Doar says he had traveled off and on around the world for 10 years and never missed his hometown of Doncaster, an industrial city with a high unemployment rate and gray weather. But he felt homesick the first month he came to the United States. "I was moving permanently," Doar says. "It was not an extended vacation. I can't stand back and say, 'How strangely these people do things.' I live here. I am one of them." The 36-year-old software engineer says that he is luckier than most immigrants because English is his native language and Americans are generally positive about England. Still, Doar had a lot to learn about American culture. For example, it took him a while to get used to Americans' direct styles of communication. Americans drive their cars on the right side of the road instead of the left, as they do in England. He is trying to adjust, however. Although he still has his British accent, he has begun to use more American terms. Over the years, while he has accustomed himself to the linguistic and cultural differences, he still insists on his English ways in certain things. Prohibiting his children from chewing gum is one of them. "Chewing gum is not considered nice in England," Doar says. "When I came to the United States, I found that my wife chewed gum. Even my mother-in-law chewed gum." Although Katherine explains that chewing gum is an important social skill, just as all children know the cartoon of Power Puff Girls, Doar has taught his 5-year-old daughter, Lizzie, and 3-year-old son, Jacob, that chewing gum makes them look like cows. "When the children ask me why they can't chew gum, I have to tell them that daddy is different because he is English," Katherine says. So on the day Doar told Lizzie that he had become an American citizen, the first question Lizzie asked was, "Does that mean I can chew gum?" The answer is still a firm "no," Doar reports. After almost 10 years of staying in the country, Doar decided to become a U.S. citizen because of the 2000 U.S. presidential election. "The election was too close," Doar says. "I realized that everyone counts." Doar says that one benefit to being a U.S. citizen is that he doesn't have to deal with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) anymore. In 1997, he went to the San Jose INS office at 3:30 a.m. and stood in the cold wind along with hundreds of other immigrants for hours until he could enter the building to renew his Alien Registration Card, or green card - a piece of identification for foreigners who legally enter the country. In 2001, the INS informed Doar that his case was closed because he had failed to make an appointment to get fingerprinted. The INS requires all naturalization applicants between the ages of 14 and 75 to be fingerprinted so that the FBI can run a criminal history check on them. Mathew says that he had never received a notice that he was required to be fingerprinted. After months of negotiations, his case was finally reopened. Despite these frustrations, Doar was finally sworn in as a naturalized citizen at San Jose's Civic Auditorium on April 24. The Englishman seems to have realized his American dream. He has a nice house on Pine Avenue with a white picket fence, a happy family of four, a promising job in a start-up company, and a fish called "Lucky" because it is not dead yet. Now he two passports. 
Nice Commodities: Matthew Doar now has dual citizenship in the United States and in the United Kingdom. Even so, Doar admits that he considers himself an Englishman rather than a U.S. citizen. "I still dream of Beatles songs, my classmates and friends back in England," Doar says. "After 10 years in the United States, I sometimes drive in the right lane, sometimes in the left lane and even on both, in my dreams." "I think the hardest thing for the first generation of immigrants is that you never really belong to one country or the other," Doar says. "You always belong to both." Haile Terleab About two miles across the beautiful neighborhood where the Doars live stands an affordable-housing complex. In one of the hundreds of pigeon-cell-like apartments near Almaden Expressway live Haile Terleab and his brother. Haile and his brother immigrated to the United States in 1996 through a program called diversity lottery (DV). Every year, the DV program issues 55,000 visas through a lottery to people who come from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. The State Department holds the lottery every year and randomly selects approximately 110,000 applicants from all qualified entries. A large number is chosen because history has shown that many will not complete the visa process. Terleab, who looks much older than his 34 years, says he didn't come to the United States with a dream. "I don't dream," Terleab says. "I don't know what to dream after seeing so many dead bodies in my country." Eritrea is a developing east African country that was colonized by several foreign powers before becoming an independent country following a 1993 referendum. As early as 2000 B.C., people from the interior of Africa settled in the piece of land bordering the Red Sea that is now Eritrea. Egypt, France and Italy all attempted to gain control of the country. Then British forces drove the Italians out of Africa in 1941 during World War II. But the British governance ended in 1952 when the United Nations gave Eritrea to Ethiopia as part of a federation. This decision sparked a 30-year struggle for independence that finally ended in 1991 with Eritrean rebels defeating Ethiopian armies. Among Terleab's 10 siblings, three brothers and two sisters were killed in the frequent clashes with Ethiopia; three brothers were put in jail, and he has since lost contact with them. Besides the brother who came to the United States, only one sister has survived, and she has changed her name to an Ethiopian name for safety purposes. Terleab believes that all the miseries he and his country have been through should be blamed on the American and British governments. "When people talk about the United Nations, they should ask who has power in the United Nations," Terleab says. Although Eritrea is recovering slowly from wars and drought, the battered country is still a paradise in Terleab's heart. His face shines with excitement when he talks about his former job as a telecommunications technician in the Eritrean military, his five-bedroom house in the capital, Asmara, afternoon coffees with his girlfriend in Italian restaurants, and his stepmother, who has treated him as well as his biological mother did. For him, life in the United States is an everlasting struggle. Now he shares a one-bedroom apartment with his brother. His telecommunications knowledge is useless because of his poor English. He works 16 hours a day for two rental car companies at the Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport. He saves every penny he earns because a round-way ticket from the United States to Eritrea costs about $2,200. Eating out is such a luxury on his $7.25-per-hour salary that he never steps into even a Denny's. "I am sometimes thinking why I came to the United States," Terleab says with pensive eyes. "I just don't know." Although he may be confused about his reason for coming to the United States, Terleab is certainly aware of the benefits of becoming a U.S. citizen. With U.S. citizenship, he doesn't need to worry about the INS taking away his green card if he stays abroad for more than a year. Having dual citizenship also gives him more flexibility and security if Eritrea engages in wars with Ethiopia again. He passed the citizenship test on May 17 and is waiting to be sworn in as a naturalized citizen. For him, Independence Day is May 24, the day when Eritrea declared independence from Ethiopia. The Fourth of July is no different from any other working day. "All I do every day now is work," Treleab says. "I want to save money to see my family in Eritrea as soon as possible." Carlos Morales Willow Glen High School teacher Carlos Morales started his teaching career when he was an elementary school student in Guatemala. His first students were his illiterate mother and his mother's friends in the neighborhood. "Motivation is everything," says the 71-year-old Spanish teacher. "My mother wanted to read the Bible, and she could read some when I graduated from elementary school." His desire to learn and teach brought him to the United States twice. Between 1961 and 1963, he studied at Pennsylvania State University and received his master's degree in educational research. Between 1971 and 1972, he studied at Florida State University and obtained his second master's degree in education. Although he enjoyed both stays, Morales didn't want to live in the United States permanently. He wanted to return to his country to train local Indians who would return to their native villages and work as teachers. But he changed his mind when he visited his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, in San Jose in 1990. That summer, San Jose State University (SJSU) was in a desperate search for a temporary Spanish teacher. After a short interview, the university hired him immediately. Although he only taught one semester at SJSU, he found the experience gratifying and wanted to continue teaching in the United States. So Elizabeth applied for naturalization for her father while Morales worked as a teacher's aide in elementary schools. Since then, his American life has been a series of tests. To be a teacher, Morales had to pass the California Basic Educational Skills Test. The test is composed of three parts: reading comprehension, writing composition and math. The timed test was a tough task for Morales because he could only read English slowly. He failed twice and finally passed in 1994. He also passed a required Spanish exam so that he could teach Spanish. And he went to SJSU at the age of 63 to obtain the teaching credentials he needed to become a regular teacher. His last exam was his U.S. citizenship test. He used free association techniques to remember the chief justice's last name. He memorized the 13 original states in alphabetic order. His INS examiner was impressed by his good memory. Now Morales is waiting for the notice to take the oath of citizenship. "The United States is like my second country," Morales says. "I know it has problems, but what country doesn't have problems? America is a big country of big problems. Guatemala is a small country of big problems." Morales says he especially appreciates the democracy of the United States. "I can sense democracy everywhere I go," Morales says. "It is wonderful that everyone has an opportunity to participate." For Doar, Treleab and Morales, California is the destination of their journeys. Doar followed the girl of his dreams and came with the hope of starting a family; the prosperity of the Silicon Valley drew Treleab away from Africa; and Morales has achieved his original goal of a teaching career, although his students are now mostly second-generation Mexican immigrants instead of native Indians. Some of their dreams came true, while some have failed. But as President Bush says in his congratulatory letter to new U.S. citizens, the grandest of American ideals is "an unfolding promise that everyone belongs, that everyone deserves a chance, and that no significant person was ever born." |
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