A weekend conference promoting engaged citizenship also hosted a naturalization ceremony on Friday, welcoming 30 new citizens at Seattle Center.
by Lark Turner, Seattle Times
Article continued at: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...tizens11m.html
by Lark Turner, Seattle Times
When Anne Derieux moved to Seattle from France in 1992 to dance in the Pacific Northwest Ballet, she wasn't planning to stick around.
"I said I would be here for two years," said Derieux, 45. On Friday — two kids and two decades later — she became a U.S. citizen.
Derieux, who is now director of advancement for the French American School of Puget Sound, was one of 30 people from 17 countries naturalized in a public ceremony at Seattle Center's Fisher Pavilion on Friday afternoon. The event was hosted by The Guiding Lights Network, an organization promoting active citizenship, which held its annual conference Thursday through Saturday.
The conference, called The Guiding Lights Weekend, has been held at Seattle Center for seven years, said its founder, Eric Liu.
That's because Seattle is a model for civic engagement, said Liu, who's lived here since 2000.
"We're so proud of doing it here," he said. "Seattle exemplifies this spirit of engaged citizenship, and I want to show off Seattle to the rest of the country, what we've got in the air and the water here."
Also naturalized were six people from China, three from Ethiopia and two each from Bulgaria, Iran, New Zealand, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and Vietnam. Some brought friends, relatives or children, who merrily waved American flags while their parents took the oath of citizenship.
They were welcomed by keynote speaker Gerda Weissmann Klein, a Holocaust survivor and recipient of the 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom.
When Klein was liberated in 1945, she told the audience, she was 21 and had been, since age 15, living in hiding, and later in slave-labor and concentration camps. She had barely survived a death march and lost everyone in her family and all of her friends.
Klein told the country's 30 newest citizens about the moment she knew she wanted to become a United States citizen: the day she was liberated by an American soldier who would become her husband.
"He asked me to come with him," she remembered. "And then he did something I did not understand: He simply held the door open for me and let me precede him. And in that gesture he restored me to humanity."
"I said I would be here for two years," said Derieux, 45. On Friday — two kids and two decades later — she became a U.S. citizen.
Derieux, who is now director of advancement for the French American School of Puget Sound, was one of 30 people from 17 countries naturalized in a public ceremony at Seattle Center's Fisher Pavilion on Friday afternoon. The event was hosted by The Guiding Lights Network, an organization promoting active citizenship, which held its annual conference Thursday through Saturday.
The conference, called The Guiding Lights Weekend, has been held at Seattle Center for seven years, said its founder, Eric Liu.
That's because Seattle is a model for civic engagement, said Liu, who's lived here since 2000.
"We're so proud of doing it here," he said. "Seattle exemplifies this spirit of engaged citizenship, and I want to show off Seattle to the rest of the country, what we've got in the air and the water here."
Also naturalized were six people from China, three from Ethiopia and two each from Bulgaria, Iran, New Zealand, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and Vietnam. Some brought friends, relatives or children, who merrily waved American flags while their parents took the oath of citizenship.
They were welcomed by keynote speaker Gerda Weissmann Klein, a Holocaust survivor and recipient of the 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom.
When Klein was liberated in 1945, she told the audience, she was 21 and had been, since age 15, living in hiding, and later in slave-labor and concentration camps. She had barely survived a death march and lost everyone in her family and all of her friends.
Klein told the country's 30 newest citizens about the moment she knew she wanted to become a United States citizen: the day she was liberated by an American soldier who would become her husband.
"He asked me to come with him," she remembered. "And then he did something I did not understand: He simply held the door open for me and let me precede him. And in that gesture he restored me to humanity."