150 new citizens sworn in during Fourth of July-themed ceremony

SEASIDE >> Fernando Cruz and his wife fell in love with the United States during a visit in 2003. So they decided to do everything it would take to immigrate from their native Philippines. They studied to become nurses, and eventually got jobs on the Monterey Peninsula.

"It took us half a decade before coming here," said Cruz, 53. "Our papers were already there but so many immigrants applied" it took longer for the process to go through.

On Monday, Cruz was among 150 immigrants who took the oath of citizenship at CSU Monterey Bay as part of an Independence Day-themed celebration. Immigration officials usually choose patriotic events to swear in newly minted citizens.

The creation of the United States "was something unique in the history of the world," San Jose Field Office Director for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services James Wyrough told the crowd. "Here's a group of people who decided they were going to form a community based on the idea that everybody was created equal. No wonder people keep coming here. And no wonder you all have come here."

Becoming a U.S. citizen is a long and often arduous, bureaucratic process. First, immigrants must become permanent legal residents, a process that's only available to people who have access to existing visa quotas through family or work. After about between three to five years of being a resident, immigrants with no criminal record can obtain citizenship with a $725 fee and after passing a civics exam.

After administering the oath, Wyrough made a roll call for all the 19 countries represented in Monday's group, including Ireland, Vietnam, China, the Philippines, and Mexico ­— the country with the largest representation.

Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel Valley, told his family's story of immigration, how his grandfather left from Naples to sail across the Atlantic and arrived in Ellis Island in 1921. Eventually he made it to Monterey, where he ran a cafe that allowed him to purchase the land in Carmel Valley where his parents now live.

"On Sunday dinners my dad would ask him, ‘Why did you take that risk? Why did you leave your family and friends to come to the unknown?' His response was ‘because I wanted to give my children and grandchildren a better life.' My grandfather fulfilled the dream."

And those qualities that Panetta's grandfather brought to this land are the same qualities new immigrants have, including a willingness to take risks, he said.

"We're a nation of immigrants, but we're also a nation of risk-takers and I believe that's what makes us exceptional," he said. "You bring with you the best qualities of spirit of where you come from, but it's that quality of willingness to take that risk, which is a quality that fills your history, that fills the history of this country and most importantly, determines the future."

Maria Keeling, 48, was brought to the United States from Mexico when she was 2. She's lived practically her entire life in Salinas, and finally decided to become a citizen at the urging of her father, a man who came to the United States through the Bracero Program for temporary field workers back in the 1950s.

"He's too old to go through the whole process," she said, although the 79-year-old man still works in agriculture. "He's the one convinced me to become a citizen. It was all my dad."

Gustavo Cortez, 42, has lived in the United States for 20 years, he said. A native of Michoacán, Mexico, his wife and children are already U.S. citizens and he said they inspired him to apply.

"Things are getting complicated with the new administration," he said. "You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, so it's better to be prepared."