When I received Jan. 21 as the date to take my oath for naturalization as an American citizen, a bone-chilling uncertainty flooded my entire being. I was afraid that the new president would stop all naturalization ceremonies in one fell swoop as he canceled all existing appointments on a border app called CBP One for new migrants.
I walked into the federal court in Chicago for the ceremonies still afraid that there might be a last-minute presidential executive order to stop all naturalization ceremonies. Happily, the ceremony took place.
The beauty and rich symbolism of that day will live in my memory forever. As I returned home on that chilly day, I reflected on why I became an American citizen and my hope for this country I now call my home in these uncertain times of President Donald Trump’s second coming.
I became an American citizen because I believe in the enduring ideals of freedom, human rights and equality of the United States of America. I am convinced that these ideals are the aspirations of all people and will outlive any president or party.
At our naturalization ceremony, I saw how these ideals could coalesce in a melting pot. There were 113 people from 40 countries and five continents, new Americans all — Africans and Arabs, Muslims and Jews; Black and white; young and old; Christians and Hindus; believers and atheists. We all came by different roads but were united in a common journey embracing the American Dream and the ideals of diversity, inclusivity and equity based on the motto of America, “E pluribus unum” — “Out of many, one.”
My love for America goes back to my roots in Nigeria. America remains to date the touchstone of all that is good and great in the West in the eyes of many Nigerians. According to a Rockefeller Foundation-Aspen Diaspora Program (RAD) analysis, of the 15 countries, Nigerians constitute about 0.6% of foreign-born citizens in the U.S. About half of these Nigerians arrived before 2000, while about the same number are naturalized as U.S citizens. The same report notes that Nigerian immigrants in the United States are among the most highly educated and make significant contributions to the economy through their high labor force participation and relatively high-income levels compared with the national average.
Many of my fellow new citizens came to America to pursue dreams that are not possible in their native lands. The 2019 demographic trends of the Pew Research Center show that the U.S is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse due to immigration and that by 2055, there will be no single ethnic or racial majority in the U.S. The anti-immigration sentiment and its time-worn justification came about in the U.S today through new forms of nativism and monoculturalism that have resurrected under Trump. But these are the result of a toxic ferment that has been brewed through the distortion of America’s history leading to the objectification of the nonwhite “other” as the enemy or a threat to America’s way of life and economy.
It is not surprising that the FBI’s hate crime statistics for 2023 showed an uptick in the number of single- and multi-bias hate crimes against minorities: 52.5% based on race/ethnicity and ancestry, 22.5% on religion and 18.4% on sexual orientation.
As a new citizen here, I believe that the future of America will be built by all Americans and not through any demagogue or grand narrative of cosmic and global conquest that turns America’s back on the world.
The American future will not be shaped by a totalizing “Make America Great Again” vision and ideology. The claim that there is only one correct approach to meeting the inevitable challenges that America will face is quite misleading. Indeed, the MAGA utopian praxis masks the true threats to America’s greatness and liberty — false messianism and oligarchy — with unpredictable long-term consequences.
In this alternate American universe, the president seeks loyalty in tow while undermining the Constitution and the ideals that no one is above the law and that the government exists to serve the people. Governance becomes a transactional patron-client exchange in which citizens are beholden to the diktat of presidential powers, punishment and pardons.
The truth is that many Americans are on edge. In a 2019 survey of what Americans think the United States would be in 2050, Pew Research found that only 56% of Americans were somewhat positive about the future. Most Americans, according to this survey, worry about the burgeoning national debt, wider gap between the rich and poor, the loss of jobs to automation, less affordable health care, a weak economy, environmental degradation and natural disasters.
This state of affairs explains why many Americans feel disconnected from the political process and civic culture and are searching for hope or belonging through fringe groups. Lies, deception and political utopia dominate the public space. In this desperate search for hope, many Americans believe the false narratives that a billionaire and his billionaire friends and special interests, who benefit from the systems and structures that have created so much inequality and intergenerational poverty in America, can lift the poor from poverty and create wealth for all in America.
The ideal of America as a melting pot is what I experienced on the day I took my oath as an American citizen. It is an ideal worth fighting for and worth celebrating. It is what defines America. Despite the current uncertainties about the future of America, even though Black men like me feel that being in America can sometimes be like an existential threat because of racism, I still believe in the founding ideals of this country. Fidelity to them will secure America as a land of promise where people from all the ends of the earth can realize the ideals of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Stan Chu Ilo is a research professor with the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University in Chicago.
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