Emancipation Proclamation

We had a great Holiday Season, with lots of  food, too much if you ask me! Tons of time spent with immediate and extended family and friends and just lots of fun in general. I was personally excited for the year to be over and to get started with 2009. I've been very anxious to get my personal "emancipation proclamation", which is my US citizenship. I've been a resident of the US for several years but had no rights to vote or carry a US passport. We had the Citizenship ceremony on January 14th and it felt awesome to be free! Free from bureaucracy, free to finally claim a nation! Most of you know that I was born in Chile but raised in Brazil. I've always felt brazilian but never felt completely disconnected from Chile because of my parents and the way we were raised. We always "kind" of celebrated both independence days, we grew up eating both brazilian and chilean dishes, speaking portuñol (portuguese mixed with spanish) at home and so we were not Brazilian because of the things mentioned above but we weren't fully chilean either. I remember visiting Chile and not feeling like one of them because I had an accent when I spoke Spanish and because people would immediately ask me where we were from. I am proud to finally claim a nation, the US as my own, I am living the American Dream and so is my family and I love this country!  I know I'll still get the "where are you from" question but at least I feel completely part of the United Sates of America!

Above there's a not very good picture taken by Dan of the ceremony , I'm the last person with the white belly sticking out on the row before last, really you can only see my belly!! Unfortunately that's the only picture he took that you can kind of see something during the ceremony!