33 immigrants become U.S. citizens in first naturalization ceremony at Zion National Park
The first national park Brenda Corsi ever visited when she first came to the U.S. from her hometown of Huacho, Peru, was Zion National Park.
Six years later, now a resident of St. George with a husband and two daughters, 4 and 3 years old, by her side, Corsi stood amid the park's red-rock scenery on Tuesday and swore an oath affirming her status as an official U.S. citizen.
"I'm so grateful for this moment, for my family," Corsi said, squinting as she smiled under the morning sun. "I know that we have an amazing future."
Corsi was one of 33 immigrants who gathered beneath Zion's iconic 1,000-foot sandstone cliffs for the park's first-ever naturalization ceremony on Tuesday, coming together from more than a dozen other countries.
It was an unusual setting for a ceremony typically confined to courtrooms or office space run by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service in Salt Lake City. For residents of southwestern Utah like Corsi, the locale meant they could avoid the four-hour trip north.
The dramatic backdrop also added to the depth of the experience, said Hank Chou, another St. George resident.
Chou, a native of Taiwan who came to the U.S. 12 years ago as a 14-year-old, said he spent the ceremony thinking about his life and all the work it had taken to get to this point.
"I was just really reflecting and treasuring the moment," he said.
Each of the 33 came to the event with a personal story. The engineer from Mexico. The mother from Brazil. The woman from Russia whose son had recently fled the country over its war with Ukraine.
They all left as citizens of the same country and, hopefully, the same cooperative spirit that had moved many immigrants since they came to the U.S., said U.S. Magistrate Judge Dustin B. Pead, who issued the official oath.
In a brief speech before the swearing-in, Pead spoke about recent signs of division across the U.S., citing surveys that show many citizens have a poor grasp of how the country's systems of government work and noting that many people polled worry seriously about a civil war.
The 33 who were in Zion on Tuesday, all of whom had passed citizenship tests, would hopefully come and help make things better, Pead said.
"In my view, we're still building a nation together," he said.
Tuesday's was the first naturalization ceremony held in Zion, but the USCIS and National Park Service have partnered to encourage more ceremonies at parks across the country.
The settings lend a unique atmosphere to the proceedings and send a message of inclusion to new immigrants, according to organizers.
"While you have traveled to Zion as a visitor, today you will leave as an owner," Zion Superintendent Jeff Bradybaugh said during the ceremony.
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David DeMille writes about southwestern Utah for The Spectrum & Daily News, a USA TODAY Network newsroom based in St. George. Follow him at @SpectrumDeMille or contact him at ddemille@thespectrum.com. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on St. George Spectrum & Daily News: Zion National Park hosts naturalization ceremony as 33 become U.S. citizens
