56 take oath of allegiance at ceremony > Program is first at Fort Kent

FORT KENT — Fifty-six people from five countries took the oath of allegiance to the United States and became citizens Wednesday in the first naturalization ceremony by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service at Fort Kent.

Julia Jordan of the Daughters of the American Revolution received honors at the ceremony for her participation in all naturalization ceremonies in Aroostook County since the ceremonies went public in 1990. “It may be her last,” said Eugene Fitzpatrick, district director of the INS, and “we should thank her for her efforts.”

All but four of the new citizens were natives of Canada. The others were from England, China, Korea and Vietnam.

Jean R. Ouellette, deputy district director of the INS for Maine and Vermont, said Wednesday’s ceremony was a “fitting completion to a process” each of the new citizens took after leaving birth nations to live in the United States. “You are now full participants in the process of American government,” he told the group and some 600 friends and relatives.

Fitzpatrick said the ceremony is one of many since the INS decided to make the ceremonies a public forum in 1990. Quoting Hillary Williams, a Yarmouth sixth-grader who won an INS contest on “Being an American,” Fitzpatrick said, “I’m free, yet I belong. I’m one of a kind … a leader and a follower… with rights and opportunities.”

He asked the 56 new citizens to “not be content with this. Participate in the government and your nation. Become involved, exercise your right to vote. Take pride in becoming a citizen of the greatest nation in the world.”

Rep. Douglas Ahearn, D-Madawaska, the guest speaker, told the new citizens that the many privileges they have acquired “also demand many responsibilities … Each of us has a duty and an obligation to give something back to the nation and society that has given us so much.”

“I encourage you to influence government affairs by exercising your right to vote. Always keep in mind that your vote can and will make a difference,” said Ahearne.

“I challenge each of you, during the years to come, to try to leave this country in a little better condition than the way you found it,” he said.

Also participating in the ceremonies were a 25-member chorus from Community High School at Fort Kent, George Jalbert of Fort Kent who sang “America, the Beautiful,” and CHS student Kelly Gagnon who recited and signed the Pledge of Allegiance.