I was born in Canada but have lived in this country for the last 13 years with work visas and eventually a green card, which I obtained when I married my husband, Alex. I decided to become a US citizen when our attorney suggested that doing so would make things easier for estate planning purposes.

My appointment to take the oath to become a US citizen was set for Friday November 30^th at 9 am at the United States Immigration Service (USIS) office in downtown Chicago. When I arrived I was ushered through through metal detectors by security officers who didn’t seem the least bit interested in being friendly, attentive, or polite. After I reached the second floor I was told to sit in a very specific area of the waiting room (“Between these lines here, not those lines there“) with the mass of other immigrants. A government officer began getting us up row-by-row to enter the auditorium. (They were exceptionally concerned that we did this row-by-row and at a certain, controllable speed.) It annoyed me that they were moving us into the auditorium in such an inefficient way rather than simply having everyone walk into the room and sit down. …