On Nov. 29, I was privileged to address a group of new citizens as they took the oath of citizenship. Following closely after Thanksgiving, it was an especially moving ceremony. The following is an excerpt from my remarks.
Everyone who lives in the United States, anyone who ever lived here, came from somewhere else. Christopher Columbus, an Italian explorer sailing under the Spanish flag, discovered America in ships that carried an Englishman, an Irishman, a Jew, and an African. The name “America” was coined by a German mapmaker in honor of the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci.
Even our first citizens, long before the settlement of the colonies, crossed a land bridge from Asia to North America. Much later, Spanish and French explorers traveled across vast expanses of the American wilderness from Florida to California and up the Mississippi River. So we are all immigrants; we share a common inheritance, and together will mold a common destiny.
It is fitting in this season of Thanksgiving to remember the Pilgrims who arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in November 1620 after spending 64 days at sea in a small wooden ship. They could have remained safely in Europe, but chose to come anyway, preferring to risk personal safety than to live under oppression. A year later, less than half survived, most having succumbed to disease and the harsh environment. Yet they gave thanks to God for the fruits of their new land, but mostly for the new freedoms they enjoyed.
During the first decade after the American Revolution, about 5,000 immigrants arrived here each year. By the dawn of the 1800s, the number of immigrants drawn to America increased rapidly: 150,000 during the 1820s, 1.7 million in the 1840s, and to 2.5 million in the 1850s.
Many nationalities are represented here today. It is often said that America is a great land because of its diversity. I rather think the opposite is true, that we have been drawn here from the four corners of the world because of America’s greatness. But what makes America great? I suggest that it is freedom that makes America great.
Freedom has many expressions, such as religious freedom and self-government. These and many more are embodied in our Constitution and laws. But they can all be summarized as one central freedom: freedom from unreasonable governmental interference in our personal lives. This, I think, is the freedom that has allowed America to flourish, that has preserved our nation as the longest enduring society of self-governing people without interference from kings or dictators in the history of the world.
A few years ago I had the privilege of attending a naturalization ceremony in which then United States Attorney (now 11th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge) Charles Wilson spoke. He looked across the courtroom filled with people from around the world, and urged them from that point forward not to think of themselves as Asian-Americans, or European-Americans, or African-Americans, or hyphenated Americans of any ilk whatsoever, but simply as Americans. Purely and simply Americans. Individual and distinct, proud and free, with a clear eye to the future untethered by the past.
I have been fortunate enough to travel throughout much of this country. It may sound strange, but America strikes me as still a great underdeveloped country with vast, untapped potential. New opportunities appear here every day. You will all find opportunity if you seek it, as I’m sure you will. Many famous examples of immigrants to America who turned opportunity into success easily come to mind. Irving Berlin from Russia, Father Edward Flanagan from Ireland, Justice Felix Frankfurter from Austria, Bob Hope from England, Hakeem Olajuwon from Nigeria, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright from Czechoslovakia and countless more.
You have all worked hard to get to where you are today. Many have learned new job skills, or a new language. The oath you will take today declares that you “will support and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Since Sept. 11, we have been starkly reminded that freedom is not free, and of what it will take to preserve this nation built on ideas of personal freedom and self-government for our children and grandchildren.
America is a unique nation, bound together by a set of ideas rather than ethnic kinship. Through your oath today and your commitment to the set of ideas we call freedom, America is a stronger nation. We in this courtroom welcome you. America welcomes you. We wish you much success.