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One new citizen’s journey: Norma Garza Montemayor
Posted on Apr 21 2017
Life is a series of journeys, especially for immigrants. Norma Garza Montemayor began a long journey in 1989, when her parents took their children from the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon and traveled to Minnesota. In June 2016, Norma started a nine-month journey toward citizenship with help from the Moorhead office of the Immigrant Law Center.
Like many immigrants across time and geography, she and her family lived in a place that lacked enough opportunities to sustain them. Her parents needed to find work to support the family. Relatives and friends who already lived in Minnesota’s Red River Valley, told them about jobs as seasonal farm workers. Migrant farm workers already had been working in the Red River Valley for more than half a century. That immigrant community helped them find jobs as seasonal farm workers and settle in.
Although Norma’s parents eventually returned to Mexico, she and her siblings stayed in Minnesota. She received legal residency under Reagan-era legislation. She met her husband in Minnesota, and they now have two teen-aged children. Both Norma and her husband work for a potato processing company. Both wanted to become citizens, and Norma started the process. She reached out to the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota’s Moorhead office, which represented her in filing her application to naturalize.
Norma worried about failing the citizenship exam but, with the help of Martha Castañon in ILCM’s Moorhead office, she mastered the required material. Because of her limited knowledge of written and spoken English, Norma qualified for the language waiver and took her test in Spanish. “With ILCM’s help, I passed,” she said.
In March 2017, she went to Concordia College, Moorhead, raised her hand and took her oath of allegiance to the United States, proud to be a citizen. “For me,” Norma said, “it is a dream come true.”