Lydia Lood grew up in the Philippines of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, who robbed their country blind. And that’s why Lood, who became an American citizen Thursday, has a hard time getting worked up about the problems of her new leader, President Clinton.
“I think he’s doing a good job,” said Lood, moments before swearing allegiance to the Constitution along with 200 other immigrants at a downtown ceremony. “I say ignore it. I just care about the economy, and it is doing well right now.”
Newly minted citizens like Lood, 46, of Palos Hills, tend to be far more respectful of their political duties and far less cynical about their government than native-born Americans. Indeed, a new survey released Thursday by a local immigrant rights group found that the top reason immigrants say they become citizens is to earn the right to vote.
Most who took the oath Thursday said the pride they felt in their new status was hardly dampened by the growing scandal in their nation’s capital.
“You guys don’t know what problems are,” said 29-year-old Sara Sorouri, a native Iranian who just weeks ago returned from a trip back home to visit relatives. “This is nothing.”
Clinton controversy or not, Colombian native Edward Colmenares said he definitely will show up at his voting booth in Bolingbrook on Election Day to exercise his newfound franchise. “It should not affect my decision to vote for whomever I choose,” said Colmenares, 61, a stock portfolio manager.
Despite the turmoil in Washington, Colmenares said the government of his adopted land seems tranquil compared with the kidnappings, assassinations and drug trafficking that have plagued his native land for decades.
“In Colombia, you cannot live in peace,” he said. “I think my life would be in danger if I went back.”
As a devout Hindu, 67-year-old Hiroubhat Shah said he found the allegations of adultery against Clinton unsettling. “This is a free country, sometimes I feel a little too free–free gambling, free liquor, free sex,” said Shah, who lives in Niles after emigrating from India in 1982.
Yet Shah thinks it more important that Clinton has worked hard to improve the economy. “I believe the people should forgive and forget,” he said.
Besides the economy, many of the new citizens said bettering the quality of life for their family and improving the nations’ schools were issues of greater importance to them than the president’s escapades.
“I care about the welfare of the country and education,” said Catherine Byrne, 60, who emigrated from Ireland 31 years ago and became a citizen Thursday.
The Lake County resident said the president should be punished if it is proven he committed perjury. But she is offended by the media’s constant badgering of Clinton in front of other heads of state.
“They just want their trivial trash,” Byrne said. “It’s embarrassing. It’s tacky as could be.”
Byrne and the others who joined her during the ceremony in a basement auditorium at the headquarters of First Chicago NBD Bank were just a handful of those whose wait for citizenship has finally ended.
Outside the bank on Dearborn Street, dozens of immigrants and advocates for immigrants’ rights protested a massive backlog of citizenship applications at the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Nationwide, the waiting lists has grown to 1.9 million, including 86,000 in the agency’s Chicago district.
“Do you want to vote? Yes,” the protesters chanted. “Do you want to wait? No.”
Roch Soon Huong, 70, of Korea, who has been waiting three years for her application to be processed, said she is not concerned with the president’s private life.
“I just want to vote,” said the Uptown resident. “I just want to be treated as equal.”
Indeed, the new survey of 279 immigrants released Thursday by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights found almost 90 percent of immigrants said they wanted to become a citizen so they could vote.
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“They want to move from economic and cultural participation to political participation,” said Fred Tsao, immigration and citizenship coordinator with ICIRR.
New Hispanic citizens are more likely to vote than native-born Americans, according to the National Association of Latino and Elected and Appointed Officials. In 1996, 52 percent of Hispanics who were naturalized citizens voted compared with 42 percent of the native born, NALEO found.
In the literature handed to new citizens at the ceremony, there was information on how to register to vote and how to become an election judge.
Most new Latino citizens are likely to affiliate with the Democratic Party, but a quarter of those surveyed before the 1996 presidential election said they had not affiliated with a political party, NALEO found.
“The general perception is immigrants will vote more Democratic, but I personally disagree with that. Both my parents are immigrants and they’re Republicans,” said Tsao, whose parents fled the Communist government in China. “It really does vary according to nationality, generation and economic status.”
Another new citizen, 42-year-old Japanese native Mayumi Fukui, said she considered herself a political independent. Fukui, who lives in Hyde Park, said nothing she has heard about the Clinton scandal would serve to tip her toward either Democrats or Republicans.
“I really don’t think all of this scandal is going to have an impact on the local elections,” Fukui said.
Like Fukui, 69-year-old Pablo Calundria was unfazed by the Clinton scandal. Still, Calundria, a native Filipino, said he could see a silver lining in the controversy that speaks volumes about why he likes being an American.
“In other countries they cover these things up,” said Calundria, a clerk. “Here it’s better because nobody is above the law.”