Liverpool, 1951
There are two boats.
Where they’re going doesn’t matter much to the throng of immigrants crowding the wharf, longing to be in the belly of either one.
The proverbial huddled masses, they’re yearning to breathe free. Somewhere among them is my father.
Bogdan Njegovan and Tom Negovan
Father and son (Photo courtesy of Tom Negovan)
To Bogdan Njegovan and the hundreds of lost and dispossessed post-World War II immigrants crushed around him, both destinations — Ellis, Halifax — mean the same thing. Freedom, democracy, a long shot at prosperity. There’s a word for that in the language of the collective. The only word they share: America.
This is something the son of an immigrant learns early on. Even the proud Canadian son of an immigrant; that only America can be a country, noun, adjective and objective all at once. Standing on that pier in that dawn’s early light, it was my father’s. Wherever his boat landed would be America enough.
It was. His travel papers show he arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, aboard the RMS Georgic on March 30, 1951. Georgic was the last ship made for the White Star Line, by the same builder as Titanic at the same shipyard in Belfast. Like my father, she bore the scars of war.
His father, Tomica, for whom I am named, had made this crossing many years earlier, worked in a mine in Colorado and returned, bringing money to his poor family on the farm in Yugoslavia. Serbs living in a tiny pocket of Croatia, the farm would not be theirs for long.
Many years later, we’d walk together, my father, mother and I, along the cobblestone streets of my adopted home, Philadelphia. I’ve long considered those streets hallowed ground.
The term “ethnic cleansing” had real meaning for them. When war broke out, my father, a teenager, made his way to the mountains, joining his brothers and a group called the Chetniks fighting the Nazis, quickly learning how few friends they had in that fight. Even the Allies were not their allies, although the Chetniks rescued enough downed British and US airmen to be taken in by the Brits at the end of the war, lodged in internment camps, trained in the trades (my father became a mechanic) and eventually brought to England, where they learned to yearn for “America,” whatever that meant. It wasn’t yet a place, still a thing. Not a location, but an idea taking root in a young man’s mind, only beginning to germinate into the inevitable ideal. Branded “men without a country,” men like my father set out searching for one.
Many years later, that journey complete, we’d walk together, my father, mother and I, along the cobblestone streets of my adopted home, Philadelphia. The place where that very same idea was born in the minds of some other young men and began to grow. I’ve long considered those streets hallowed ground.
He loves Canada, my father. Had to renounce his homeland to become a citizen. Yugoslavia was a Communist country then. He renounced it gladly, tears streaming down his face. They could have fallen on either side of the border.
At various times, all of his children have lived in America. Half of them, one of my sisters and I, are still here, both near the end of the path to citizenship. The timing? It just worked out that way. Our reasons? Different, I think, but in their genesis, the same; that idea our father had.
Emmy-winning journalist Tom Negovan is co-anchor of WGN News at Noon in Chicago. He served formerly as weekend anchor and investigative reporter at CBS-owned KYW-TV in Philadelphia.
http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2011/09/in-the-name-of-the-father-a-personal-journey-to-citizenship/
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New citizen Tom Negovan at his naturalization ceremony
November 15, 2011.
(Photo courtesy of Tom Negovan)
I’ve sat down with other presidents, covered political conventions, George W. Bush’s inauguration, Ronald Reagan’s funeral, 9/11′s aftermath. I’ve been all over America, traveled with U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, been blacked-out (twice) by the Blue Angels.
It’s not lost on me how very fortunate I’ve been (except for maybe that last one), that not a lot of people get to do all this stuff. It’s quite an experience for an immigrant — to be handed a front-row seat to so many of a country’s historic moments, a chance to examine its politics from the inside out.
You can’t see all these things without being moved and inspired. I can’t cover a war and hide my compassion for the troops, their service, their families. It’s like being embedded in America and trying to cover up your growing love for her, your admiration for her people. You can’t help but want to be fully vested; all-in.
Then there’s my American wife … but that’s another blog. I took the Oath of Citizenship yesterday. I took it seriously.
I had HOURS to think about all this the other day.
“Welcome to the United States of Bureaucracy,” a friend messaged me, knowing I was waiting at the Homeland Security office on Congress Parkway in Chicago, about to be late for work.
It was a busy Monday. Everything was backed up, the waiting area packed with hundreds of people. Waiting. For interviews … paperwork .. to swear allegiance to America…. It’s quite a sight. I was drinking it in, waiting to snap a picture, not daring to; thinking of all those who long to be a part of the country I’ve called home for a dozen years. So many hold that dream dear their whole lives, yet never make it this far. Look at it that way and you don’t mind the wait.
I was there for my citizenship interview and civics test. After years spent covering U.S. politics, I studied. For questions like “The father of our country was… ” You get all these great opportunities to learn about this place, I figure you lose the right to be wrong. At least on your civics test.
They say to a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To a reporter, everything looks like a story — and in that room, I was surrounded by them. Great ones, too. People fleeing regimes, oppression, bumping up against me. Families seeking new lives, fresh starts, all around.
I remember how obvious their excitement was. I was excited for them. I hope they find half the America I’ve been lucky enough to see — and am now fully a part of.
Emmy-winning journalist Tom Negovan is co-anchor of WGN News at Noon in Chicago. He served formerly as weekend anchor and investigative reporter at CBS-owned KYW-TV in Philadelphia. He previously wrote for Constitution Daily about his father’s immigrant journey
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If you would like to get in touch with me, Aleksandra, please feel free to contact me at ravnagora@hotmail.com
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