My Other Class

Last evening I had a particularly well-attended ESL class. Attendance at the program classes is always very erratic, since so many students get caught up with work and family.

Our chapter this week was on the rights and obligations of citizenship. We finished the chapter, had some discussion on the election and the Iraq War, then did some extra reading that I brought in from news website printouts. I'd found a really great news story to read through with the class, since it covered both war and citizenship issues... plus adoption!

Granting a Wish To a Slain Marine: Citizenship Conferred on Vietnam Native

To summarize the story, Binh Le was a young Marine killed in action and granted posthumous citizenship. The students were quite surprised to learn of our practice of posthumous citizenship. I told them beforehand I did not recommend it as a path to their own. Anyway, it's now become such a standard practice to grant posthumous citizenship that the newspapers don't report the cases as much anymore. But this case was different, because Binh Le was adopted in Vietnam. His parents gave him to his aunt and uncle to adopt and take to America. The adoption complicates the immigration issue. He himself automatically got citizenship, but now who in his family gets citizenship rights? His Congressman has promised to do whatever it takes to make sure that both his birth parents get full rights.

The article was challenging, especially with all the motion verbs like "careen" and the military vocabulary (Corps = "Core"). The students were fascinated by the story and all thought it was very sad. I wonder if both his birth parents got their residencies; I haven't found news of a resolution yet.