Citizen Ale

On Tuesday, September 25, 2012, Ale participated in a naturalization ceremony. The previous week she had her naturalization interview where she was also administered the citizenship test.  She had to answer 6 questions orally including:
How many justices are on the Supreme Court?
What was the purpose of the Declaration of Independence?
What is the rule of law?

If you're interested, go here to take a practice test.  

The officer then gave Ale the option to participate in a ceremony in Austin on the 25th or to wait until the end of October for a ceremony to take place in San Antonio.  Ale opted to participate in the ceremony on the 25th as she would be able to make the voter registration deadline to be able to vote in November.

So, on Tuesday we drove up to Austin.  My Mom drove down from Flower Mound and met us there. I had heard that in previous years the ceremonies in Austin would take place at the State Capitol or at the Texas State Museum.  We were a little disappointed when this ceremony ended up taking place at a school gym.  But I suppose the venue isn't really what matters.

Ale waiting in line to turn in her permanent resident card

There were around 970 people taking the oath that day.  Apparently, The key is to arrive late because the last people to get there got to sit in padded chairs with back support.  They also didn't have to wait in line to check in.

We have a Mickey for every occasion - graduation, birthday, naturalization, you name it...

In addition to my disappointment with the venue, I can't say I was terribly excited about the color guard.  I appreciate the Sons of the Revolution's willingness to help out, but I just think getting one of the local military reserve units to do the color guard would have been way cooler.

However it was nice of them to pose for pictures

The Judge from the Federal District Court administering the oath.  That's a court reporter sitting at the table, since it technically is court.

Despite the venue and the color guard, it was a nice ceremony.  The director of USCIS for the region gave a good speech on what it means to be American and the Texas Land Commissioner spoke about the importance of immigrants in U.S. history.  A local high school a capella group sang patriotic songs - they were quite good.

In case you're wondering, this is what naturalized citizens swear to in the ceremony:

"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

It's been a long journey.  Ale has been through many obstacles and hurdles and she was happy for this day to finally arrive.  We appreciate all the help and support from our family and friends that made this special day possible.  

P.S. Ale was also happy about this day for another reason.  Since a judge administers the oath, you can also request a name change.  Her legal name is now Alejandra Rios Hyer.  That's a 40% reduction in names!

Technology Nostalgia

By Dave:


So there is a lot of hype about the iphone 5 right now.  People all across the country are placing preorders and posting on Facebook to show off about it.  I confess that I only recently bought a smartphone for the first time about 2 weeks ago.  Probably because of the impending Iphone 5 release, prices were dropping for other models.  So I went and got an Iphone 4 for only $49 with contract extension.  After I bought it I started thinking about technology and reflecting on my youth.

I grew up in a house that had major issues with technology.  My parents refused to buy a new TV for essentially my entire childhood.  We had the same TV from the 80s up until about 2000 or 2001 when they finally relented and purchased a mid-grade Sharp (at least it was new).  That was the ONLY TV in the entire house.  We had to get a special analog box in order to get cable connected to the TV.  I can't imagine what the cable guy must of thought of us when he came to set it up.  It may not seem like a big deal, but you have to see it in context; we lived in a posh bay area suburb in California and had a pool in our backyard for crying out loud!

It wasn't a case of my parents simply being anti-technology though.  Our family always seemed to stay up to speed in computers.  I recall vivid memories of our old Tandy with games like King's Quest and blue-screened word processors and a dot matrix printer.  I remember what a big deal it was to upgrade from a 28k modem to a 56k modem.  We even had a second phone line installed just for the computer.  We were one of the first families in the neighborhood to get DSL when it came out.  I remember becoming (briefly) popular among my peers as I was one of the only kids in my class that had this wonderful combination: DSL, Napster, and a CD-burner.  Needless to say there was a big disconnect between our computer in the den and the TV in our living room.  And I struggled to understand it.

One year, for Christmas, I got a nice 16-channel Mackie soundboard.  I got involved in sound production at my school and church.  In middle school, my friends and I learned basic HTML and created some pretty decent geocities websites. I certainly considered myself a techie - I kept up on the latest and greatest in music production, computers, and yes, even cellphones. But throughout it all, there was that old TV.

I think this whole smartphone experience has helped me come to better understand my parent's reluctance or more appropriately, apathy,  towards purchasing a new TV.   My dad would readily buy a nice computer because he could see the value in it.  He started practicing law in an era of dictation and typewriters.  He was able to experience firsthand how powerful tools like WordPerfect and PCs changed the way businesses and professionals did their work.  He can readily recall how he and his colleagues would use AOL email to send important documents and contracts to each other for review, as the idea of corporate domains and servers had yet to become widespread.  My dad didn't use a TV at his job - so he simply saw no value in having a nice one.

I guess I felt the same way about smartphones.  Sure, they were exciting and could do all sorts of neat things - but I could never really see that they would be particularly valuable to me.  I could never justify the large (relative to other cellphones) upfront cost in addition to expensive monthly data plans.  Prices have dropped as new models have flooded the market and new shared data plans have made the monthly payments more affordable.  But another reason for caving in and buying a smartphone may be rooted in my summer in Bolivia.  I recall riding in one of the collective buses one day and looking around to see many people texting and browsing the web.  There, in the poorest country in South America (by some measures), on a public bus - everybody had a nicer phone than me!  So the question is, was my purchase of a smartphone a result of a carefully analyzed, rational economic decision or was it just good old insecurity?

p.s. My parents still have that Sharp they bought in 2000.  I would estimate that around 2020 they'll upgrade.