We were honored to host a naturalization ceremony on June 20th for World Refugee Day! 15 people from 9 countries are now US citizens. You can view photos from this event on our Flickr here!
A poem by Kim Stafford that was read out by OJMCHE Director Judy Margles:
In the Children
20 June 2019
In the children we will make our home With food, and songs, and stories. Many treasures we have left behind, Always loyal to the future.
With food, and songs, and stories,
With hands, with feet, with listening, Always loyal to the future—
Sometimes with words others do not know.
With hands, with feet, with listening, Under sun, and moon, and stars— Sometimes with words others do not know, Now as many we are one.
Under sun, and moon, and stars,
Many treasures we have left behind. Now as many we are one.
In the children we will make our home.
Sometimes with words others do not know, With food, and songs, and stories— Always loyal to the future,
Now as many we are one.
念 — Kim Stafford
Oregon Poet Laureate
Remarks from OJMCHE Director Judy Margles
What a great pleasure to welcome everyone here today. I’m Judy Margles, the Executive Director of OJMCHE. On behalf of our board and staff, many of whom are with us this morning I extend a warm welcome to all of you and to our new citizens in particular. This is our third year hosting the event and I want you to know how honored we are to be able to offer our space for such an important and inspiring event.
Today, June 20, is World Refugee Day. It’s a day established in 2000 by the United Nations General Assembly as a day when the United Nations, the United Nations Refugee Agency and numerous civic groups around the world host events to draw attention to the millions of refugees and displaced persons worldwide who have been forced to flee their homes due to war, conflict and persecution. Today there are more displaced people around the world than at any time in recorded history. Think about that for a moment, that despite all the advances in medicine, technology, education, there are more displaced people around the world than at any time in recorded history. This is something that needs to change.
The day also brings an opportunity for our community to show support for families forced to flee and to reflect on the words inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty that call upon us to protect “the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
There are particular reasons why we at the OJMCHE are grateful to host this event. American Jews are composed of a community deeply connected to the immigrant story. This history encourages us to shed light on the path that brought us here, for those who come after us. Central European Jews, the first Jewish arrivals in the mid-nineteenth century, fled an economic depression and restriction on their abilities to earn a living, marry, and feed their families. A wave of eastern European Jews followed at the turn of the 20th century and they too fled the hardship of persecution and pogroms that made their lives untenable. In the 1930s with the threat of war, some European Jews were able to get out. And after Second World War and the Holocaust, survivors – and there weren’t that many of them – took refuge in Portland where they were able to rebuild their lives and start anew. All have become Oregonians, sharing new American’s exciting firsts: finding work and a place to live, learning the language, and forging a community.
We know too in today’s fraught political environment, the subject of immigration is highly charged. At this museum we seek stories that humanize the collective themes of assimilation and acculturation; citizenship and belonging; values and social differences; social justice; and the varied reinventions of individual, national, and cultural identity. The lessons are universal: the experiences of assimilation, cultural retention and transmission faced by 21st century immigrants to Oregon mirror the experiences that immigrants faced 100 years ago, just as they parallel such experiences around the globe today. We have many stories in our oral history collection that speaks to this universality. Leon Feldman moved from Romania when he was seven years old. He reflects how his parents were in a “free country in a place where they could not fear to talk Yiddish . . . in a place where they could go to a synagogue and walk down the street, with their heads held high, standing upright.” A Talmudic rabbi taught: “It is not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world, but you are not free to desist from it either.” Here in the United States we hear the word “cultural mosaic” to describe the mix of ethnicities and richly diverse cultures. Our diversity is universally American too. Indeed there is much work we must accomplish. I welcome you as participating citizens of the United States with open arms. To repeat as I began with the words of Kim Stafford, our Oregon Poet Laureate, Now as Many We Are One.
Remarks from Amy Herzfeld-Copple, Deputy Director of Programs and Strategic Initiatives, Western States Center
Good morning and congratulations for being here as you complete the final step towards obtaining your American citizenship. Please give yourself another hand for making it here today! You’ve earned it.
I’m honored to have the opportunity to share a few words with you all and I want to thank the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education for making this possible.
Today, we gather to celebrate you, your journey, your families, and your accomplishments as you begin a new chapter of your lives as naturalized American citizens, with all the political and economic rights it entails.
Successfully obtaining citizenship is no easy task. All too often, naturalization is a long, challenging, and expensive process — one which can weigh heavily on applicants and their families, loved ones, and friends. Many of you, I’m sure, have put up with months, perhaps even years, of waiting and uncertainty and spent countless hours collecting documentation of your contributions to the communities you live in. I’m both relieved and excited that this part of your journey is coming to a close, and I imagine many of you feel similarly.
I’m deeply grateful that you’ve persevered all this way and thrilled that, later today, you’ll leave this room with the civil rights and official recognition you’ve worked so hard to obtain. Thank you for being my neighbors — for your patience, your resilience, your courage, and your willingness to complete a process which so many of us have never had to go through. Anyone who is prepared to endure as many obstacles as you no doubt have to give your family the opportunity to thrive is exactly who I want to be in community with. From the bottom of my heart, I hope this new chapter of your lives brings you and your families the dignity, peace of mind, and safety you deserve.
Today, June 20, is also World Refugee Day — a reminder for all of us to reckon with the long and ongoing struggle of individuals and families forced to travel far from home in search of a better life, free from famine, violence, and persecution. To those of you who have come here in those painful and difficult circumstances, I hope the United States makes good on its promise to you and your families, that you can find the safety and opportunity you seek, and that as a society we live up to our nation’s highest ideals and the values of inclusion and prosperity that we pride ourselves on holding.
A brief look at our country’s history makes clear that these values haven’t always animated our policies. Just eighty years ago, as the rise of Nazism left millions without homes, the United States government shamefully turned its back on thousands of refugees, in large part Jews, Slavs, Roma, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people with disabilities — all of them rightfully fearing for their lives. Among millions of others, a fifteen-year-old Jewish girl named Anne Frank perished in a Nazi concentration camp because of our government’s willingness to ignore her humanity. At the time, insurmountable bureaucratic roadblocks, U.S. immigration rules and anti-refugee sentiment made it impossible for Anne’s family to secure a visa for safe passage to the U.S., away from deadly antisemitism and authoritarianism in Europe. Tragically, this is far from the only time our country has neglected its commitment to those who simply wished, for countless reasons, to call themselves our neighbors and survive with their families.
To create a future where all people are welcome, safe, and free, we must never forget these shameful chapters of our history. We must never forget the racist and xenophobic policies which targeted all new Chinese immigrants with deportation, forced Japanese-Americans to leave their homes for internment camps, institutionalized chattel slavery and encouraged the global trade of enslaved people, and the countless other laws and policies promoting the idea that the United States belongs to one group of people at the expense of all others. Only with this knowledge can we build an inclusive, multicultural and multiracial, democratic society where all people are free to live, love, play, work, and worship free from fear and bigotry, with equal protection under the law, and justice for all.
Together, we must fight for a vision of inclusive democracy, for a country which every newcomer and refugee can call their home, and government policies that reflect our solidarity with refugees and immigrants, no matter what language you speak, what religion you practice, and what corner of the world you came from. Today, we must renew our commitment to building a country that pledges allegiance to you — not just the other way around.
As I’m sure many of you are aware, we’re not quite there yet. We have a long way to go, and many of us are working hard towards creating a more fair and equitable society. I, myself, have dedicated the last 20 years to organizing for human rights in the Pacific Northwest. I have no doubt that each of you, in your own individual ways, will continue to be a part of this story, and I hope that your new political and economic rights provide you with ample opportunities to help write the next chapters of our country’s history.
With your new status as American citizens comes the recognition of your rights as human beings — as political beings. You will soon have the chance to welcome your family members into the United States, to vote in local, state, and federal elections, to receive financial support in your higher education, to travel the world without fear of losing residency, to reap the benefits of your contributions to Social Security, to become an employee of the federal government, and to influence it directly by running for elected office. These rights belong to you, rightfully so, and I’m cheering you on as you participate in our democracy as naturalized citizens.
I’m deeply grateful to be able to join you today to celebrate this long-overdue development as you obtain the rights and recognition you deserve as our neighbors. Together, we’ll keep up the fight to ensure you and your loved ones have as bright a future in the United States as anyone else, that your humanity is acknowledged and protected by our institutions, and that our society embraces your family.
Thank you for being my neighbors, and congratulations on obtaining your citizenships!