Saturday, February 18, 2006

Citizenship ceremony a baptism of tears

Everyone who is born here should witness one of these. They will see how much these people value their new citizenship. DP

By Tina Griego
Rocky Mountain News: I really should have warned the people sitting around me at elementary school teacher Alberto Olivarez's citizenship ceremony to have some tissues handy.

As it was, the women around me soon were dabbing their eyes with their fingertips and then wiping their cheeks with their palms and, finally, using the sleeves of their sweaters to dry their faces.

This was my second ceremony and last year, after I staggered out of my first red-eyed and runny- nosed, I wrote that they all should be held in stadiums and school gymnasiums so that those of us born here could be reminded of what we take for granted.

Well, this one was held in a gymnasium at South Elementary School in Brighton last Friday. I assumed the people near me were moved by Olivarez's own emotion, this much-praised teacher who first came to Colorado on an exchange program in May 2000, a man from a family so poor, he once sold vegetables on the streets in his home state of Michoacan in Mexico.

Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.

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