The Latest in a Long Tradition

Mostly non-white, mostly non-xian, 100 percent Real Americans.

The Courier:

The 371 people came from 70 countries on six continents, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.

They were diverse in looks, dress, customs, speech and background. But on this Friday afternoon they shared the commonality of acquiring United States citizenship at the Kentucky Center.

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Mayor Jerry Abramson welcomed the new citizens, saying “We all came from somewhere…(but we all) chose to be Americans.” Diversity, he said, is what makes Louisville special. He urged the new Americans to get involved in their communities.

Among the new citizens was Carlos Mola, who now lives in Louisville and works at UPS. He arrived from Cuba 12 years ago. “I love this country,” he said of the United States. “I love the people. I have waited a long time” to become a citizen. “Now is the time.”

“I am excited. I will be able to vote,” said Helen Kindred, who was born in the Czech Republic and has been in the United States14 years. She is a housewife who lives in Elizabethtown and came to the center with her American husband, Richard, and children, Conner, 13, and Anika, 6.

Joy Uwimbabali, a five-year U.S. resident studying public health at the University of Louisville, noted that her native Rwanda, where she still has family, has a long history of tribal warfare. “It’s nice to belong to this country,” she said of her new nation.

Read the whole thing.