Ceremony shows broad tapestry

Editor’s note: This is the first half of a two-part column. The second half will run March 1.

The line is longer than expected.

It’s about 9:10 a.m. Friday, and we’re standing just inside the main entry to the U.S. District Courthouse in Pittsburgh. More than a dozen people are still ahead of us, waiting to make it through the security check-point.

It’s an unusual place to be on a Friday morning, but something special has brought us to Pittsburgh.

A friend is about to become a U.S. citizen, and Connie and I want to be there to witness the occasion.

I first met Svetlana Kulikova in 2002 in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. She had worked as an interpreter and as a journalist and had received her master’s degree in journalism from the University of Kansas under a U.S.-sponsored program.

When we met, she was a professor at the American University of Central Asia. Half a dozen years later, weary of the corruption and politics in Bishkek, she returned to the U.S., putting herself through the doctorate program at Louisiana State University. Once she had her doctorate, she found a teaching position at Georgia State University.

Today she teaches as a visiting professor at a university in western Pennsylvania, where she and her 14-year-old son Ilia now live.

She completed most of the steps to become a naturalized U.S. citizen while she was in Atlanta. Only the oath itself remains, and Pittsburgh is the closest venue.

The line moves forward more quickly now. We know the ceremony won’t start until 10 a.m., but we really have no idea what to expect.

All we know is that we want to be there. Ilia is there, of course. But Svetlana’s mother and sister live in Russia, and aside from some distant cousins in California there is no other family.

We are it; that’s the role we have chosen for the day.

Signs at security are full of “no.” No cellphones, no cameras, no laptops, no contraband and on and on. We’ve left our cellphones back at our hotel room, but we seem to be the only ones. And there are plenty of cameras in evidence.

Somehow, we didn’t get the memo.

We clear security by about 9:30 a.m., and after a bit of confusion find our way to the correct courtroom.

Those who are to take the oath of citizenship are seated on the left. Those who are here as family and friends to witness the occasion are seated on the right. We end up on folding chairs right at the front beside a family from Mali.

The father, who is about 6 feet, 9 inches tall, came to this country to play college basketball, we learn later. He’s there with a daughter of about 11, a son about 10, and another daughter who is 2 or 3 years old. Mom is the one who will take the oath, and the little one would rather sit with her than with her siblings.

Connie, who is always prepared for any eventuality, reaches in her purse and brings out one of several small American flags she has brought along. She gives it to the little girl and peace reigns for a while.

Another little flag goes to a girl about the same age who also has a mother waiting to take the oath. Her mother is Indian. But the entire group of 51 comes from all over the globe. They are European, they are Asian, they are African and they are Latin American.

There are couples becoming citizens together. There are siblings. There are young people, and there are people older than the two of us. The very scope of the mix brings a tear to the eye.