DL— Stories about immigration and citizenship form the backbone of our great American story as much today as in past times.  My ancestors were among the millions who came here in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Here is an excerpt about becoming an American from We Were Not Spoiled, the memoir of my mother Lucille Verreault Ledoux as told to me. For many more excerpts of my mother’s life, click here.

Joseph Verreault

My father had not come to the US to stay, but that’s what happened. After working here for a number of years first to support himself and then his growing family and eventually buying an apartment building that was his family’s home, it must have seemed obvious to him that this is where he would spend the rest of his life. So, why not give in to becoming an American citizen? Thinking this way, he was able to make the decision be an easy one. He was a practical man with a lot of responsibilities.

Becoming An American

Sometime in the mid-1920s, he did just that. Now, he could not be deported and put his family at risk. My mother did not join him in becoming a citizen, but remained here as a resident alien. My father could make himself understood in English, but my mother did not know much beyond what she had learned in her waitressing days in Thetford. She felt this lack of English would stop her from passing the examinations for citizenship. My father was a now citizen, and so they perhaps felt that would save her from deportation, Besides, she did not work outside the home and so was not taking a job away from a citizen.

Never feeling at home in some way

Yvonne Lessard Verreault

Although he was now naturalized, my father didn’t understand that he had the same privileges as native-born people—except he could not become President! He was still afraid that the process could be reversed and he could be sent back to Canada. Living in Thetford again with its asbestos dust was out of the question and, if he settled some place else, there would be no one to help him there. No job, no home, no family or friends. Both of my parents, believing they could be sent away (which was true for my mother as she was not a citizen), kept telling us to stay out of trouble. Some part of them never felt at home here. Becoming an American citizen had not settled the issue for my father.

My father tended to be a worrier, and generally my mother let the worrying be his! Being deported was one of his worries not hers. She herself had a practical nature and spent her energy thinking about more pressing issues—like what to cook for supper for her growing children. Becoming an American was not one of them.