3,032 Immigrants Score Citizenship Home Run at Fenway Park

MAPS volunteer Julia Evora chats with a newly sworn-in citizen at Fenway Park about registering to vote. (photos: Massachusetts Alliance for Portuguese Speakers)

New US citizens sworn in at Fenway Park on Sept. 17, 2008, came from 139 countries. These countries include:

Dominican Republic: 290 new citizens
China: 234
Haiti: 233
Vietnam: 198
Brazil: 156
Portugal: 144
India: 142
Cape Verde: 107
Cambodia: 103
El Salvador: 83.

Source: US Citizenship and Immigration Services

 
The citizenship ceremony at Boston's Fenway Park on Wednesday, Sep. 17, 2008, was surrounded by historical references. It fell in the middle of Constitution Week, which honors the importance of civic participation and recognizes the signing of the US Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787.

For the 3,032 immigrants at the famous baseball stadium, they too were making history -- they were sworn in as new US citizens.

Many of the new citizens, who hail from 139 nations, will go on to vote and help decide this country's future course.

That's why volunteers from an array of nonprofit organizations were on hand at the citizenship ceremony, to boost a voting registration program.

According to an analysis of US Census data by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, naturalized citizens vote less often than the native population. Half of foreign-born citizens cast ballots in the past two presidential elections, compared to 63 percent for native-born citizens.

"It is extremely important to notice that Brazil, Portugal and Cape Verde are all on the top-10 list of countries with the most immigrants becoming US citizens today," said Paulo Pinto, executive director of Massachusetts Alliance for Portuguese Speakers (MAPS).

At the swearing-in ceremony at Fenway Park, 407 Portuguese speakers "realized their dream of becoming US citizens," Pinto said.

Two MAPS volunteers, Donna Landry Rodrigues and Julia Evora, registered 24 new citizens who will be able to vote in November. Twelve volunteers from the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA) registered about 500 new voters. At least 400 others received forms to take home and fill out themselves.

"This coming presidential election can boil down to voter turnout," said Marcony Almeida, policy associate at MIRA and co-publisher of Brazilian Journal, a media partner of NEWZ.

Immigrants face language barriers and uncertainty on how to navigate the US political system, which prevents them from becoming registered to vote.

"I believe only 30 percent of the people we serve here, who are naturalized, vote in the local elections," said Vong Saranak, executive director of Cambodian Mutual Assistance Center, in Lowell, Mass.

"Many are still afraid to raise their voices against the government," he said.

More than 100 Cambodian immigrants were sworn at Fenway this week.

Just like with the overall American population, the Northeastern study found, immigrants with formal education vote at higher rates than those with less than a high school diploma.

Still, more-educated immigrants lag behind their native-born peers in voter turnout. Fifty-two percent of the state's immigrants with a bachelor's degree voted in the 2004 and 2006 elections, compared with 73 percent of native-born citizens with the same level of education.

Those numbers were more than enough reason to keep the voter-registration volunteers going at Fenway Park.

MAPS will host a Voter Registration and Information Day on Saturday, Sept. 27, 2008, from 12:00-3:00 pm at its offices in Cambridge, Dorchester and Lowell.

For information about MAPS, please call:

in Cambridge: (617) 864-7600
in Dorchester: (617) 825-5897
in Lowell: (978) 970-1250.

source: EthnicNEWz.org

Copyright 2008 New England Ethnic News, EthnicNEWz.org. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the permission of New England Ethnic News. Contact EthnicNews {at} yahoo {dot} com for more information.

More than 3,000 immigrants were sworn in as new US citizens at Fenway Park in Boston on Sept. 17, 2008. (photo: Massachusetts Alliance for Portuguese Speakers)