I picked a fine time to become an American.

It was a grey overcast morning in Oakland, California.

I was one of a thousand and 94 people of every colour and creed from 85 nations, beginning

with Afghanistan and ending with Yemen.

We had gathered anxiously clutching the requisite documents outside the rather antique Paramount

cinema.

I wasn't the only new citizen of European origin, but we were a distinct minority.

Rather to my surprise, the Chinese were the most numerous group, accounting for close

to a fifth of the new Americans.

How many Americans became Chinese citizens that week?

Next were the Mexicans, more than 150 of them, then the Filipinos, closely followed

by the Indians.

Yet it was the sheer range of countries represented that was most marvellous.

The young man to my right, immaculately dressed in white, was from Eritrea.

He had studied computer science in Wales and had initially come to California to work for

NASA.

I approached any encounter with US bureaucracy weighed down by dread.

So I wondered, would this be like the Department of Motor Vehicles famed for its Soviet

style antagonism to the public?

Or would it be more like the implacable, pitiless, internal revenue service?

In fact, the officials of the US citizenship and immigration services could hardly have

been more affable.

...