Today could be one of the last Fourth of July holidays Gon Carley spends as simply a legal U.S. resident. Soon, she hopes to be a citizen.
But when she first arrived in Columbus 14 years ago, she felt like she was on a different planet, rather than just in a different country.
There were some similarities to her home province of Tak, Thailand — open green spaces, plenty of trees and a warm climate — but it was the way people spoke that really caught her off guard, she said.
“I thought my English was good, but in the South, there’s a whole other language,” she said. “There are all these phrases that I didn’t know what they meant. I wouldn’t understand things, so it took me a long time to speak English with anyone except my husband.”
Her husband, Scott Carley, with whom she co-owns and operates Thai by Thai in downtown Columbus, was the reason she immigrated to the United States in the first place, she said. They first met more than 17 years ago when Scott was performing with a band at a club in Bangkok. Gon described their meeting as “love at first sight.”
“It sounds silly, but it was an instant connection,” she said. “So we stayed in touch and we knew, OK, he has to come (to Thailand) or I have to go there so we can get married. So I decided to come here.”
It took almost 18 months between the day she began the process to obtain a green card and the moment she landed on Columbus soil. Gon had to prove her fiance had gainful employment. She also had to provide “pretty much everything” about her family history and her own background.
“I had to give them a list of all my family so they could make sure I wasn’t connected to terrorists,” she said, ticking off on her fingers. “I had to prove I didn’t have a criminal record in Tak, that I was single, since I said I was going to get married in America. … Then I had to wait and wait and wait.”
After the application and the waiting came a green card interview with the United States State Department. Gon’s immigration lawyer told her she would have a better chance of entering the country if she spoke English instead of Thai.
“My English wasn’t as good as it is now, but the interview was short,” she said. “They asked me why I wanted to come to the country, asked some of the questions I answered on the forms. I had to buy my ticket before the interview so they knew I was actually going to come to America. I told them I wanted to marry (Scott) and that was it.”
Naturalization
Now, Gon is undertaking the naturalization process, which can stretch out months, if not years. It involves providing much of the same information she provided on her green card application in the form of a 60-page document, as well as submitting to a written and oral test on United States history and English proficiency. She will also be required to give up her Thai citizenship.
Since Gon will be taking the citizenship of her husband, Thai law will not allow her to be a dual citizen.
“I’m not worried about giving up citizenship and I want to finish that process (of naturalization),” she said. “I’ll be able to vote, have Social Security and benefits. I could keep renewing my green card, but I think citizenship is better for me.”
Gon’s family, who still live in Thailand, see the United States as “a paradise,” Gon said. She often tries to make her family understand that people in Columbus aren’t so different: they own businesses, go to school and attend church in much the same way her family does.
“There’s a lot of Western influence now there (in Thailand),” Gon said. “Especially on social media. But back home, there isn’t always the same freedom of speech there is here. Here, I learned to stand up for myself. It’s taught me a lot. … It’s not easy to come into and stay in this country. But I have a beautiful family here.”
‘I want to be able to contribute’
Ross Whitwam, a professor of biology at the Mississippi University for Women, has lived and worked in the United States since 1990 when he immigrated from Ottawa, Canada. He had a very different experience obtaining his green card from Gon Carley’s.
Thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement International Mobility Program, he obtained a one-year visa that could be renewed indefinitely that allowed him to study and teach in the United States. When a position at MUW opened up in 1999, Whitwam relocated without much of a thought, in contrast to Gon, who would have to inform United States Citizenship and Immigration Services before she relocated.
Also different from Gon, Whitwam can hold dual citizenship.
“I thought I’d have to give up my Canadian citizenship if I became a naturalized citizen (in the United States) but I don’t,” Whitwam said. “So that kind of made the decision real easy.”
Whitwam’s primary motivation for becoming a United States citizen is to obtain voting rights, he said.
“You can’t vote unless you’re a citizen,” Whitwam said. “And I live here, so I want to be able to contribute.”
Whitwam, who has lived in Pennsylvania, New York and Mississippi, said there is a cultural difference between how residents of Canada and the United States view their countries, especially in the American South, where “everyone is kind of holding onto tradition and their ways of doing things,” he said.
“America is a melting pot where people are expected to kind of conform to what an American is supposed to be,” he said. “In Canada, it’s a cultural mosaic. They will find a place for you and you don’t have to change.
“America is much more individualistic,” he added. “People are more passionate about their positions, and that has its drawbacks, but it also has its positives. People can debate things freely here, and I always appreciate that.”
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