“We’re doing it as part of our court’s civic outreach to bring the court to the public, if you will, and to teach young people in this case, and high school students here at Oakwood about the Constitution,” Newman said. “They got to see the Constitution in action today, which is a really wonderful thing from my point of view.”
Most often, the naturalization ceremonies are held at the U.S. courthouse, but U.S. magistrate judge Peter B. Silvain, Jr., said the court has been holding ceremonies outside of the courthouse. He said the Dayton branch of the court has been going to Dayton Dragons games, Sinclair Community College and other places to do the citizenship ceremonies.
“We feel it’s important to have the community be part of this ceremony,” Silvian said. “I think it makes it special for the new citizens.”
Neil Gupta, Oakwood’s superintendent, said the opportunity to have the ceremony at Oakwood came about over break. He and the high school’s principal, Paul Waller, worked with the high school social studies department to host the ceremony.
Credit: JIM NOELKER
Credit: JIM NOELKER
“Our thought was, this is their first day as U.S. citizens, so we want to make sure it’s special,” Waller said. “Also for us, to be part of that, for our students to see how excited people are to become U.S. citizens, I think that was really meaningful for our students.”
Gupta said the ceremony was important to him as the son of two parents who immigrated in the 1970s from India and became U.S. citizens in 1992.
“I don’t think at the time that we realized how much of an important ceremony this was, how monumental of a time it was for them to celebrate, and what it actually meant for them for their future and for ours as well,” Gupta said.
Sarah Mutoni, a Congo native who became a U.S. citizen on Thursday as part of the ceremony, said the process to become a citizen took her seven years. She works as a home health aide but is going back to school.
She told those who are still trying to become citizens “to keep working hard.”
“It takes time and a lot of work,” she said.
Oliver Spaulding, an Oakwood High School junior, said he was excited to see the ceremony.
“Being able to see this process, having it in real time happening to these real people, was I think something that’s helped us really connect our learning to real life and to the effect that it’s going to have on the real world,” Spaulding said.
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