Sample Special-Occasion Speech

600

SWEARING-IN CEREMONY FOR NEW U.S. CITIZENS

Joseph Tuman

San Francisco State University

In addition to being one of the authors of this book, Joseph S. Tuman has worked in broadcast news media as a political analyst for various news services, including ABC News and CBS News. In 2009, Tuman—who was born in Texas to parents who immigrated to the United States—was invited by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to give the keynote address at a swearing-in ceremony in San Francisco for people from around the world who were about to become new citizens of this country. What follows is the text of his speech to this large and diverse audience.

The call and response with the audience is an attention-getting device that focuses everyone and generates excitement for what is to come.

Good morning! I didn’t quite hear you. Let’s try that again: good morning! I still can’t quite hear you. Don’t be polite! This is a special day. This is your day! Come on, say it like you mean it. Scream it. One more time: good morning!

That’s better.

Tuman is using his mother as a visual aid because she was sworn in as a citizen fifty years earlier. Her experience allows Tuman to share common ground with his audience.

This is a special day. And I want to tell you how honored I am to be here to share it with you. I’m not going to say congratulations just yet because I have a few words I would like to share with you first. You may have noticed that I have someone sitting up here with me on the stage as I’m speaking. This is my mother. Her name is Turan. Turan Tuman! When the people putting on the ceremony asked the folks I work with at CBS5 if I would be willing to speak today, I immediately thought about my mom and this particular year.

Tuman invokes the memory of his father, who also was an immigrant to America, to find more common ground.

It’s a significant year for her, because fifty years ago the woman you see sitting with me up on the stage was out in the audience with you. In that year she was being sworn in as a new citizen of the United States of America, just like all of you. And so I asked their permission for her to join me today as I speak. Mostly because I wanted her to be more proud of me—than my brothers. . . . But also because some of what I’m going to say for you also hopefully will have some meaning for her. So I’m looking at her now, and she’s blushing. Either that means I’ve embarrassed her, or she’s annoyed with me. Well, we’ll see. The person who is not up on the stage with me today, sadly, is my father. We lost him two years ago. But he’s with me here today in spirit.

601

My father’s name was Vladimir. Vladimir S. Tuman. In this country, it was a hard name for people to pronounce, so his colleagues and friends just called him “Bill.” As an accommodation, my mom called him “Villa.” He was born, like some of you, on the other side of the world, in a country called Iran and in a place called Kermanshah. At a young age, because he was gifted at math and science, my father won a scholarship. The scholarship allowed him to travel to England, where he earned degrees in engineering and physics and geology. After many years, he returned to the place where he had grown up. And there he faced the dilemma that many people who become immigrants face.

He had developed a worldview outside of the Iran. A larger worldview. He was Westernized. He wore different clothes, and he spoke more and different languages. He had seen other parts of the world. And, sadly, he realized it would be difficult for him to fit in, back in the place he had once called home. He worked for a time in the petroleum industry as an engineer. At some point, his boss took him aside and said to him: “Tuman, you’re a good man, and a good employee. But this is a Muslim country, and you are a Christian. You will never go further in this company than you already have.” My father was somewhat devastated at this news. “What should I do?” he asked. The man said with a straight face: “You should go to America!”

“America?” my father asked. “Why?”

This anecdote injects some humor into a serious subject. The audience laughed, which means they understood the joke even if English was not their first language.

And the man responded: “Because in America they don’t mind if you are a Christian!”

Yes, my father thought that was funny later too. Little did he realize, how close to correct the man was.

When my father came to this country, he landed in Texas, and my mother and my older brother soon joined him. Texas is where I was born and where I entered the picture. My father eventually became a professor. We moved from Texas to Illinois and eventually to California. He was at Stanford University for a time, before moving our family to Turlock, a place that seemed very different from Palo Alto.

602

I spent my younger years there, up through high school. My brothers—I have two of them—always wondered why my father moved us there. It wasn’t until he died a few years ago and I went to speak at his funeral that it occurred to me why he moved us to Turlock. Turlock was a small agricultural town, with the anomaly of having a new liberal arts college in its midst. My father started the first physics department there. But he would’ve been just as happy to stay at Palo Alto at Stanford. For years we wondered: why had he left Palo Alto for Turlock? That day as I spoke at his funeral, it finally occurred to me.

The description of his father’s funeral and the many people from his father’s hometown is dramatic and poignant. It also provides some ethos for the advice to come, which Tuman borrowed from his father.

As I stared out into the hundreds of people who had come to the tiny Assyrian church for his funeral, I realized that most of them also came from the town he grew up in, in Iran. You see, all his life, my father wanted to go back to the place he called home. But he realized when he went home, he no longer belonged there. America became his new home—but he never stopped missing the place of his birth. And so at a later stage in life, he decided he would bring home to him here. With my father’s assistance, many of those people in the church that day had already become citizens like you . . . and like my father.

As a new citizen of this country, my father immediately embraced the culture here, especially the politics of this place. He loved it. Most of all, he loved the fact that he could express himself openly without fear of retaliation or punishment. He adored this country. It is in his memory today that I offer you these three small pieces of advice that my father often shared with others who wanted to become citizens here.

First, he always said that everyone who came to this country should be educated. If they were uneducated when they came, he insisted that they become educated once they were here. And more important, he always insisted that they made sure that their children and their grandchildren would not only finish high school but go to college and graduate. In our family, all of my brothers and myself earned not only undergraduate degrees but graduate degrees as well. And all of us, incidentally, became professors and teachers. My mother, who sits up here with me, was in the PhD program at UC Berkeley as well and taught for many years in Turlock.

603

This message about education is bolstered by and reinforces Tuman’s ethos as a professor.

My father understood that education was not just an end unto itself, but really for all immigrants to this country it was the great equalizer. It is not a cliché to say that America is the land of opportunity. And what all of us get when we come here is a chance to do better. The thing that equalizes everything for everyone in the end is education. That’s what makes the American dream possible. So to paraphrase my father, make sure you are educated. Make sure that your children go to college. And if you really want to follow his advice, make sure they go to graduate school after college, too!

The second thing my father would always say to people who wanted to become citizens of this country was this: once you are a citizen, make sure that you always exercise your right to vote. Our country graciously allows all citizens the right to vote, but sadly in America today, too many of the people who could vote, don’t vote. I can’t tell you how important it is that you not only register to vote but also become what is known as a likely voter—meaning that you establish a pattern and history of voting regularly in elections.

The point about voting is bolstered by and reinforces Tuman’s other ethos as a television political analyst.

In this country, voters choose our leaders. Voters provide input about policy and decision making by exercising their choices in the ballot box. If you never vote, you shouldn’t complain about things you don’t like. Also, by not voting you are ignoring your responsibility as a citizen. Take this responsibility seriously. Make sure that you vote. Make sure that everyone in your family votes. And make sure that your children are ingrained with the same sense of responsibility. It is an awesome responsibility and also one of the greatest gifts of this country.

I’m getting near the end of my speech now. And I want to share one last piece of wisdom with you. This was something I once heard my father say in slightly different words to a man who was very timid about becoming a citizen here. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be a citizen but rather that he feared people would still see him as a foreigner. So let me say to you in my words the equivalent of what my father said that day. Now that you have been sworn in and you are citizens of this country, don’t ever let someone tell you that you aren’t a real American. Let me repeat that: don’t ever let someone tell you that because you came from somewhere else and you had to get sworn in as a citizen here, somehow that makes you less of an American. Or not a real American at all. Nothing could be further from the truth.

604

Tuman’s advice is an inspirational call to action.

Anyone can be born here. And when you’re born here, it’s not as if you had to exercise your choice to be born in America. That was a decision that your parents made for you. But when you are a person who has to fight to come to this country, who has to suffer, who has to work hard, who has to endure many hardships and challenges to get to this place—well, at that moment, the very moment you’re at today, you know exactly what it is to not only be a citizen of this country but also to be a real American. You weren’t born here. You chose this country. You took affirmative steps to become a citizen here. And you are as much, if not more, an American as any other citizen here today. Never, ever let someone speak down to you or tell you otherwise.

Another call and response, which brings the audience vocally back into the speech.

So now, say it with me: say it out loud! I am an American! Geez, this is as bad as when I said good morning. Come on, say it louder: I am an American! Again! I am an American!

Tuman gives another message to his mother, who has become an additional audience member. She now serves as an example of what people in the audience can become in time.

And this last part is also for you, Mom. This year you celebrate fifty years of citizenship in this country. And for nearly fifty years, I have listened to you make jokes about how you will always be seen as a foreigner. Well, Mom, you’re not a foreigner. You are a citizen of this country. And I guess I need to remind you that you’ve lived in this country longer than you lived anywhere else, by several times over. Mom, you are an American, too. And you are as much an American in this country as anyone.

Oh, she’s blushing again; I guess I am going to hear about this after the speech. So let me wrap this up by saying once again: my hearty congratulations to all of you. Welcome to your new country. Welcome, fellow Americans! Thank you and good day!