After taking oath, they're ready to vote: More than 1,000 new U.S. citizens

This article is very interesting because it shows that there is a bigger push to get people naturalized around the election of the president. One thing that I found to particularly interesting was that the man in the interview referred to his new country as “this country” instead of his country. In our book from class, we talked about how immigrants do not feel as if the U.S. is their country. Hopefully, after being naturalized, they will be able to see that their opinion matters. Voting does not always equal power, but it is a giant step in the direction of achieving it. Their usually is not a huge push to get immigrants involved into politics, because they cannot vote. With citizenship on their side, they can make an impact on their everyday lives.




Armando Rivera reached two civic milestones in one day Friday: He became a U.S. citizen, and he registered to vote.

"In my country, I was used to voting. I want to be able to vote in this country. I think it's an important right," said Rivera, who is from Mexico.

Right after the oath-taking ceremony, freshly sworn-in citizens swarmed a voting registration table set up by the League of United Latin American Citizens in the lobby of the El Paso convention center.

Elvia Hernandez, a district director at LULAC, was one of many volunteers manning the table.

"We almost always have a table, but usually people don't stop by," she said. "I think we're making people more aware of their right to vote. It was emphasized during the ceremony, and they see the (presidential) campaign on TV and they get excited."

Hernandez handed out "I registered to vote" stickers to at least 50 people, she estimated, including a 75-year-old woman.

More than 1,000 immigrants from 37 countries were naturalized in El Paso on Friday, including three U.S. soldiers originally from Mexico, Laos and Australia.

Veronica Montes, who became a citizen Friday, said she wanted to vote to make health care more affordable.

"I would like a lot of things to change," she said, "and this (voting) is the best way to change things."

http://origin.elpasotimes.com/ci_8817244