Sleeping Bear Dunes naturalization ceremony canceled
Sleeping Bear Dunes last held a naturalization ceremony for U.S. immigrants on on July 21, 2016. Today’s ceremony has been canceled by USCIS due to the coronavirus pandemic.
From staff reports
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was scheduled to host a naturalization ceremony today, June 11, for new United States citizens. The ceremony was canceled by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), along with all routine in-person services, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The National Lakeshore last hosted a naturalization ceremony on July 21, 2016, when 20 new United States citizens were inducted at a celebratory and educational ceremony at the Sleeping Bear Dunes Visitors Center in Empire.
As the Glen Arbor Sun reported in 2016, those 20 new Americans hailed from 15 different countries including Mexico, Cuba, Russia, Vietnam, India and the Philippines. Many of the new Americans brought spouses, parents and young children with them to the ceremony. They were white, black and brown; their names and native country religions were Protestant, Catholic and Muslim. Like American immigrants throughout our nation’s history, they were hardworking, creative and devoted to their new nation.
By reciting the pledge of allegiance to the Stars and Stripes (held by a Marine Corps color guard from Traverse City), these naturalized citizens listened as U.S. Magistrate Judge Phillip J. Green read the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, whose words remain as radical and subversive as they were in 1776.
Green used the allegory of the Ojibwe “Legend of Sleeping Bear” about the mother bear and baby bears who escape a forest fire across Lake Michigan and become the Sleeping Bear sand dunes and the Manitou Islands, making their eternal mark on their new home.
“You are the future of America. You are the promise of America,” Green said.
Mick Dedvukaj, the District Director of the Detroit District of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services explained how U.S. citizenship is unique in that this right is not based on bloodline or ancestry, but “requires only loyalty to her”. Conceding that the topic of immigration is currently a political football, Dedvukaj added, “this swearing in of new citizens is not controversial, it is the most American thing we do.”
“You are now part of the story of Sleeping Bear,” the National Lakeshore’s new superintendent Scott Tucker told the new Americans, most of whom were visiting this park for the first time. “Two hundred years from now your family can come here and know that right here is where their journey as Americans officially began.”
Tucker offered each new American a complimentary one-year pass to visit the Sleeping Bear Dunes as well as a commemorative “passport” to the nation’s 142 national parks — what he called “America’s best idea” referring to the Ken Burns documentary on our national parks.
