By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
From inside a lecture hall at historic Princeton University, Elena Grigoryeva stood Wednesday as one with the 45 other men and women ready to become U.S. citizens., In as many words as can fill a Twitter posting, they recited the oath of allegiance, flavored by the accents of the 28 countries they had hailed from. They originally came from places like China, Brazil and South Africa and had gathered for a naturalization ceremony on a college campus where the fight for liberty and freedom occurred 240 years ago., “It’s been a long journey to get to here,” said Ravi Kollu, originally from India, who became a citizen with his wife, Sudha Katta., The 46 new citizens included two university professors and one university student., During the ceremony, they all were challenged to be active citizens, told of their rights as Americans and lauded for the journey that had brought them to a country of immigrants., “Some of you have faced great difficulties in coming here,” Princeton Mayor Liz Lempert said. “Some of you may be fleeing violence. Many of you are hoping for a better life and each of you has a story to tell.”, “I feel admiration for what all of you have accomplished in your lives, gratitude for the perspective and talent that you will bring to our country and joy at welcoming you as fellow citizens,” Princeton President Christopher L. Eisgruber told them in recalling his parents had become naturalized citizens., The federal government said that in the fiscal year 2016, 752,772 people had become naturalized citizens, 40,517 of them in New Jersey. They had to take English and civics tests and meet other criteria culminating in a ceremony where they say the 140 words making them citizens., “The oath of allegiance to the United States is unique because it’s not to a person,” said John E. Thompson, Newark District Director for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. “What you’re taking an oath to (is) to support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States.”, Earlier in the ceremony, Eisgruber, a Constitutional scholar, shared how he, too, had to take an oath to support the Constitution upon becoming university president in 2013. He laid a challenge before his new fellow citizens., “If you and I are to fulfill our shared promise to support the Constitution, we must dedicate ourselves to the ideals that animate it,” he said. “Each of us must be willing to investigate the content and the meaning of those ideals. We must challenge ourselves and our fellow citizens to live up to them fully. And we must demand that our government strive always to achieve them more completely.”, Like students at a graduation, they came up, one at a time, to collect their certificate of citizenship at the end of the ceremony. On their way out to a reception, some posed by an American flag for pictures to record the moment., “It’s a great country,” said Grigoryeva, a Lawrenceville resident originally from Russia., Mayor Lempert recalled how America is a country of immigrants, a nation of diverse people bound by a “shared belief” in the “freedoms enshrined in the Constitution.”, “This ceremony is an affirmation of our best selves,” she said. “And, thankfully, you’ve become part of our country.”
