Independence Day

As the day nears to my departure for Germany, I am learning to use a technology that has been around for a while ... blogging. This morning I am learning to upload photographs in preparation for my blogging overseas.

Today is Independence Day 2008 and family will be visiting this weekend. It is wet and dreary outside, but pride in this country's birthday swells, even in the heart of this Croatian. I am thankful that my parents came to this country many years ago when I was just a child ready to enter first grade. I didn't speak English at that time, but by the end of first grade I was speaking three languages: Croatian, Italian, as well as English. Once we arrived in America, my parents were eager to become U.S. citizens. But according to U.S. law they had to wait five years before they could apply for U.S. citizenship. They used those first five years to go to school to learn to speak English and were schooled on the history and laws of this great country. Given that my younger sister and I were of school age and had attended school in the United States since first grade, we, along with our parents, became naturalized citizens five years after we had arrived in America. On the contrary, my older brother and sister who were teens when we had arrived, were required to go through the same process as our parents. Today is a great day to be an American ... native born or naturalized!