Centennial, Colo. — Revere Way winds into Weaver Place. A dead end. Cul-de-sacs make for good destinations; give you a sense of arrival. This one would have been a fine location for a ranch house. Above, the all-seeing sun; below, only you. It’s a bad spot for a business park. Even worse for a featureless government compound that looks like a business park. But we have serious business here. Check in: the price of admission is your green card. Thank you, I’ll take that — did I pronounce your name correctly? Aha, stress on the second syllable. Okay. Step right this way, please. Yes, just down the hall. From Cyprus to campus to the capital to Colorado: this is the last stop. The end of the road.
Today I take the oath of naturalization. Shimmy down the rows of stackable sled-leg chairs, find your assigned seat (no. 47: thumbs-up from the president). There’s a sign by the double doors: maximum occupancy 350. We’re nowhere near — it just sounds like it. Before the half-hour ceremony is an hour of babel. Arabic, Amharic, Afrikaans work at cross-purposes. There’s phase separation between Pashto and Thai and Turkish and Tajik and Tamil. Tinker, tailor, brother, stranger: hear the burbling of the pot. And other, alien dialects — jumpy cellphones trill and blip-ting, blip-ting; children sound off pinch harmonics. You can’t even rely on an official body language. In which direction goes your greeting nod? Up: you’re probably Southern or Eastern European, maybe Latin American or Middle Eastern. Down: you might be North American or Western European, or South or East Asian. Best stick with a slight twitch of the eyebrows: good morning.
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