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Simple Guide to Serving Your New Country: The United States of
America Congratulations and welcome all of you to the U.S.A.! You all looked very good when you came in, and I think you are even better looking as you are sworn in as Americans. My name is Sunny Park. I have lived right here in Atlanta for the last 25 years. Originally I was from South Korea. About 20 years ago, just like you, I was sworn in as an American citizen ? right here in this very courtroom. I am honored to speak to all of you this morning because of how meaningful this day is for you. For me personally, the speech that I heard at my own citizenship ceremony affected me greatly as an individual and as a new American. I still remember the big smiles of a lady volunteer who approached me in her size double-extra-large red sweater as I was walking out of this courtroom and said, ¡°Welcome to America!¡± I realized that I became a partial owner in the greatest country on earth. What a feeling! I want to share with you the experiences I have had as I worked on building my own American dream. Why should I want to help you? Because you are no longer foreigners; you are now my fellow American citizens. You are no longer ¡°aliens¡± but my neighbors. You and I are on the same team, and I feel that my obligation is to help you to become successful as Americans. As I see it, we are now playing on the same team. When you and your families win, my family and I also win, which means a lot to all of us! America hurts whenever any Americans abandon their duty as citizens. Today I feel that my duty is to share with you my experiences and opinions about living as a new American. May I assume that many of you have similar goals to what I had as I was becoming an American citizen? Here were my goals: Make a lot of money and have good time. Build a nice house. Provide a good education for my children. Eat Hershey bars, southern fried chicken and juicy hamburgers, and watch a lot of baseball games. And of course, drive a nice two-door sports car, hopefully a convertible! I want you to keep all those goals. I also want you to keep your faith in those goals, even expand and enlarge upon them! You can want more, as long as you are willing to work more to get it. You can make it just like I made it. One day, maybe in 10 years, some of you can be right where I am, speaking to the new citizens of your country and bragging about what you were able to do in this nation. When people say, ¡°Only in America,¡± they¡¯re not kidding. No other nation in the world will welcome you as the United States does today and encourage you to be the best you can be and to succeed as much as you want ? for your benefit, for the benefit of your children and grandchildren, and for the benefit of your fellow citizens in this great country. I came to America in 1974 with about $200 in my pocket. I worked very hard at two, sometimes three jobs, running my life at maximum capacity. Sound familiar? But the American dream I planned still seemed out of reach. I didn¡¯t have the sports car, but I had plenty of credit card debt. I still could have a lot of juicy hamburgers though, thank God! I would send 100 to 200 dollars to my sick mom in Korea every once in a while. I needed to pay my rent here every month, not just once in a while. Another thing you hear in America is that there is no free lunch in this country. Do you know yet what that means? You can fulfill your dreams here, but you must work hard to do so. The hard work is what we must put in to receive the greatest benefit of all, which is not money, but freedom! Many Americans have died before you to make sure that you still enjoy the freedoms you will come to know and love as American citizens. You and I are free to talk, free to move around, free to worship our God or no god, free to earn and live our lives as we wish within the laws of our great country. These freedoms are far more valuable than anything else, perhaps even equal in importance to our health. When I became an American 20 years ago, everything changed for me. I stop chasing for money but just concentrated on work. There were jobs and opportunity everywhere, but the money still seemed too far away to see. I needed to change my attitude away from chasing something I could not see. What did I do? I made work itself my companion and my hobby. Hard work provided me with my American dream, my Hershey bars and juicy hamburgers and two-door sports car. My rewards came when I focused on work, not money. Talking about money, I have noticed that some new immigrants are here so they can send the money they earn to their former home country. In doing so, if your goal is to bring more of your family members here to share in your American dream, I don¡¯t see any problem with that. However, we all have to remember and obey one very important rule: America owes us nothing. You want to use your American citizenship for your own personal gain? Fine, but don¡¯t forget that we all must contribute first before we start taking. Think of your American experience like a bank account: You must first make deposits before you can make a withdrawal. We should all think first of what we can contribute to this country, not necessarily monetarily, but in our spirit and our enthusiasm and our hard work and our love for our new nation. This following statement may sound like an odd thing to say at a swearing-in ceremony, but hear me out. If anyone has it in mind to hurt our country economically or culturally or in any other fashion, please help us all by leaving our country at once. Any criminal activity coming from immigrant communities damages your new country and damages the image of immigrants overall, which can prevent our children from being able to stand proudly as Americans. Furthermore, your duty as citizens and as protectors of your family is to call police or other authorities if you notice any suspicious activities in your particular community. By keeping a close eye on your communities, you can help America restore the peace as we continue to recover from the heinous attack of terrorists on Americans here and abroad. America can be better off tomorrow because of your contributions and vigilance today. From now on, your obligation is to put America first. Becoming a citizen of the United States means that you¡¯ve switched sides. In sports terms, you¡¯ve now left your old soccer team and you¡¯re playing for a new one. America deserves to be at the top of your list. America is a democratic country. You¡¯ve learned by now that America is a nation of the people, by the people, and for the people. You just became one of the American people. New immigrants typically hesitate to involve themselves in neighborhood and public activities. I think that is a loss both for you and your new country. You now have every right to involve yourselves in and to lead your community and the nation as you perform all your duties as citizens, including paying taxes. Six years
ago, I started a civic movement called the Good Neighboring Campaign. Many of today¡¯s Americans ? both immigrants and people whose families have been here for hundreds of years ? cannot see the value or the worth of our great country. Our job as immigrants and new citizens is to demonstrate for the rest of America the starry-eyed dream that we still have for the freedoms that this great nation provides us. As Americans, we all fail if our neighbors and our fellow citizens fail. That is why we need to help our neighbors ? why we all need to help each other. Some people, I know, disagree with my view and valuation of America. Some complain about discrimination in this country. You know what? America isn¡¯t home to every jerk on the planet. They¡¯re everywhere. I wasn¡¯t upset when people called me ¡°gook¡± or ¡°chink.¡± ¡°Gook¡± means ¡°soup¡± in Korean, and I always thought ¡°chink¡± meant a chunk of opportunity. Discrimination in America is nothing now compared to the years before the civil rights movement, before the efforts of people like Martin Luther King Jr. We new arrivals are indebted to the leaders of this country who preceded us. America is a better country than others today because its leaders contributed sweat equity into the land. I ask you to join me in thanks to the people who made today¡¯s America. As you go about your lives in this country, remember those names from American history that you learned as you studied for the citizenship test. Remember what they did for this country and ultimately for you today. If we don¡¯t remember, America will cease to be good. Your responsibility now is to make the nation even better. What¡¯s more, you are the best people to do it because you still recognize the value in this nation that many Americans have forgotten. How do you plan to serve your new country, America? Let me give you some ideas. Show up at the polling place and vote. Participate in town hall meetings and in community and political affairs. Laugh loud and celebrate when your new country succeeds, and cry when your new country suffers. Pick up trash in your neighborhood and encourage your community members to do the same. Be proud, and show your pride to the rest of the neighbors. Invite your neighbors ? especially the ones who don¡¯t look like you ? to try your tasty foods. While patriotism is a very serious matter, we can also make patriotism fun. Finally, I want to offer two sets of congratulations. Congratulations to all of you, my fellow Americans. And congratulations to America as she receives her new citizens! You can make each other happy! God bless
all of you and your families, and God bless America!!
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