“It’s now more important than ever to have some kind of documentation that can give you peace,” Maricela Alvarez, 48, said of recently becoming a naturalized citizen.
Alvarez was one of 14,000 San Francisco residents who have achieved naturalized citizenship through city-backed civic workshops since 2013. On Wednesday, Mayor Daniel Lurie and supervisors Rafael Mandelman and Bilal Mahmood honored them during a ceremony at City Hall. A crowd of some 200 new citizens and their families and friends gathered for the event, which marked National Citizenship Day. Officials highlighted city programs that can help the city’s immigrants apply for naturalization, such as offering 50% matching to defray the legal costs involved.
The irony of the celebration was not lost on participants or onlookers. The celebration took place just a mile from San Francisco’s Immigration Court, where a few days ago, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers made the largest number of arrests outside a single courtroom.
As the fight for legal immigration status reaches a boiling point even in the strongest liberal bastions, The Standard asked San Franciscans in attendance to share their stories. Five women, from vastly different cultures, offered to tell their immigration tales. They wanted U.S. citizenship for various reasons: to work, to speak freely, for closure. But all have at least one thing in common: They love the U.S.
These interviews have been edited for clarity and length.
Name: Susan Lee
Age: 93
Place of origin: Guangzhou, China
Profession: Retired
At 92, Susan Lee decided last year that it was time to apply for citizenship.
She immigrated to Vancouver from Guangzhou in 1950, when she was 18, and has spent the last 66 years as a green-card holder in San Francisco. That is, until May 2024, when she became a naturalized citizen.
“You are never too old to take these big steps,” she told the crowd Wednesday on the steps of City Hall, flanked by her two daughters.
“One day I saw an ad in the Chinese Sing Tao newspaper about a workshop that helps people build up their citizenship application. At the workshop, I met a lawyer who spoke Cantonese who patiently helped me complete the entire application. I want to thank her.”
Name: Aurelia Ramirez
Age: 52
Place of origin: Yucatan, Mexico
Profession: Community Ambassador
A longtime Mission resident, Ramirez got her citizenship May 1, after 25 years in San Francisco. She has since helped six friends and family members get theirs, too.
“I wanted to work and be part of my community, so I just said, ‘It’s time to do it.’ So I did, and it was so easy. San Francisco Pathways [to Citizenship Initiative] helped me through the whole [long] process. [Once I finally got my interview] I had the ceremony that day.
“I can say I was lucky in this country, because I never thought I’d get my permit for work. But I passed by with that, and after 10 years, I applied for a visa and got my residency. Now that I’m a citizen, I have more opportunities to be more professional and help my Latino community.
“A lot of people are afraid. But I say, ‘Don’t be afraid. I will help you.’ What happens in politics — it does not matter.”
Name: Zhaoyan Pan
Age: 63
Place of origin: Kaiping, China
Profession: University cafeteria worker
Pan came to the United States in 2016. When she arrived, she didn’t speak a word of English. She stood on the steps of City Hall on Wednesday in a red suit jacket, waving a U.S. flag, and speaking off-script to the crowd, through a wide smile, about her life as a naturalized citizen.
“In 2021, a friend introduced me to Self-Help for the Elderly and City College. They helped me learn English, and I felt more confident. Then I got a good job at a university cafeteria. In April of this year, I passed my citizen test, and I became a new U.S. citizen.
“I’m really happy to tell my story. I will be a good citizen. I will vote to help all the people.”
Name: Ci Ci
Age: 74
Place of origin: Myanmar (Burma)
Job: Student
Cici became a citizen in May. Not everything about San Francisco is easy, she says. Life is expensive, the public transit isn’t reliable, and the cold and the fog — so different from her tropical home country of Myanmar — sometimes gets her down.
But now she can “enjoy freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of assembly. I like freedom.”
Naturalization, Cici said, “is important for everyone. People from all around the world come to the United States. They have dreams to live in America and to become U.S. citizens. Everyone in the United States has rights, but U.S. citizens have more rights. Now that I am a U.S. citizen, I have the right to vote, I have the security of living here permanently, I can travel around the world with a U.S. passport, I can apply for government jobs, and I can bring my family faster through family-based immigration.”
Name: Maricela Alvarez
Age: 48
Place of origin: Guanajuato, Mexico
Job: Programs coordinator at the City of San Francisco
Alvarez was a teenager when she immigrated from Guanajuato with her brother. They didn’t speak English, and the culture shock made adjusting very hard.
“I’m a mom of three boys who have birthright citizenship, and when Trump was elected in 2016, I felt like it was important for them not to be afraid of the possibility of family separation,” she said.
“I think it was really important to participate. But I feel like the process is getting harder, and the prices are getting higher. There’s a lot of fear around the process, and there is less assistance when it comes to immigration attorneys. But the fear is real out there, and people that look like me and speak any other language can never be safe, because you never know if you’re going to come back home safe to your loved ones. It’s now more important than ever to have some kind of documentation that can give you peace.”
San Francisco Pathways will host two free citizenship workshops in October and November. To learn more, go to https://sfcitizenship.org/free-citizenship-workshops