Coincidence or Consequence?

It's been a while. It's officially the 5th week of the internship so after this week it'll be the halfway point. So, what I've been up to so far? We started our first week of the citizenship ceremonies last week. We went to the Immigration building at 31 Hopkins Plaza in Baltimore, clad in our bright red CASA t-shirts and educated and registered newly naturalized citizens to vote.

It pretty much consisted of us getting there, going through security, and walking around with voter registration forms talking to people who were waiting for their ceremonies and trying to convince them to register to vote even though they would not "technically" be citizens until after their swearing.

This task is harder than it sounds because of our arduous naturalization process. About 90% of the people we talk to are people of color and most of them have gone through some much shit to become citizens of this great country that they aren't trying to get roped into anything that's going to jeopardize all that time, effort, and money. I actually don't blame them. But, I have to keep on chugging w/ the job...

Some people take the forms, fill them out, and promise to give them to us after their ceremony. Most, take it home to complete. And, some outright deny us to our faces. My question is...why else become a citizen? I guess it's the power that comes along with having an American passport but they only main difference in terms of rights is voting. Alas, I won't ever understand...it may be timing though, like, I stated before. They may just be scared. They aren't even citizens yet...ya dig?

We did really well Wednesday last week. We registered and collected about 40 forms. That's not bad for about an hour and a half. What people don't realize is that this is really an untapped constituency. I can't imagine the number of newly naturalized citizens who just never register to vote.

So, I do that on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays and on Mondays and Fridays I try to compile every one's information so that we can follow up with them and hopefully get them engaged in the movement. Things are moving along finally. There was a huge rally yesterday outside the immigration building concerning some raids that occurred at a panting factory in Annapolis. Not a good look for our voter registration. We were in the paper and our name was said numerous times...

go figure they moved the citizenship ceremony up to 2 p.m. and its usually at 3 p.m. We registered a grand total of 3 people yesterday at the INS building. Coincidence on Consequence?

Power!