Citizen Uyen

My wife, in the very last participatory event she conducted in this life, voted absentee ballot for our local school trustees and levy. After becoming a proud citizen of this country in 1986, Uyen never failed to vote in any local, state, or national election.

Uyen worked very hard at all things, including attaining her citizenship. She intensely studied American history and civics before the requisite interview with the judge charged with conducting her naturalization process. She was dutifully nervous about her meeting with the judge. Upon her return form that interview, I asked her: “Well, how did that go?”
“He didn’t ask me anything—nothing about all the presidents, or laws, or anything.”
“What did you talk about?”
“He asked who represented Montana in Congress, who was the first president of the United States, and then we talked about Hennessey’s. He buys his cloths there. I’ve altered his suits. He remembered me.”
“Well, honey…I guess you’re in!”

In a way, she felt a bit disappointed that the judge never provided her with an opportunity to prove her knowledge. The Morrisons (her sponsors), Helen (her daughter, and citizen by birth), and I attended the swearing-in ceremony at the courthouse in Butte. We encountered a July snowstorm at Elk Park on our way there. The young couple sitting next to me in the courtroom was dazzled by Helen’s chatter as she sat waiting to watch her mother become a citizen. Helen was ten at the time. “Your little girl is so well-spoken,” the woman gushed when I spoke with her out in the hallway following the swearing-in ceremony.
“She reads constantly. She taught herself to read when she was four,” I told the woman.
“I could sit and listen to her talk all day,” she remarked.
“Sometimes I am forced to do just that,” I said.

A couple days after her naturalization, we held a 4th of July party for Uyen at the lake property—again with unseasonable snow. We ended up wrapping the open lakefront patio with some plastic sheeting I found and started a fire in the fireplace. As the rain, and sometimes snow, snare-drummed against the plastic, driven hard by northwinds glancing up off the lake, a dozen people huddled together drinking beer and singing any songs we could remember. We sang into the night, sounding awful, but feeling, as Uyen put it, “like a million buck!”

When the first November elections rolled around, Uyen grew increasingly excited. She read through the local newspaper and watched all the television news so she might gather valuable information about the candidates and issues. We spoke often about current events. So long as I live, I will never forget the drive to our polling place in East Helena. Uyen asked me a series of questions. How long does it take to vote? How do the polling machines work? What if she wanted to change a vote partway through? And on. By the time we parked the car and bundled-up for the walk inside the school where we voted, Uyen grew positively giddy. She looked over at me. “I can vote for anyone I want?” she said guardedly.
“Yes. Anyone.”
She fully brightened with one of those profound, all encompassing smiles only she could manage. “Anyone…” she repeated.

And we soon entered the overly-lighted gymnasium filled with warmth and American citizens.

--Mitchell Hegman