Constitution Day movie and discussion

  • on 17 Sep 2012
  • duPont Library, room G026
citizen USA poster

All are invited to view Citizen U.S.A.: A 50 State Road Trip, a film that follows the filmmaker’s journey to all 50 states, where she talks with new citizens and learns why they chose to make America their home.

Each year, nearly one million people from more than 150 countries become American citizens. Who are these new Americans, and why do they want to live here?

Inspired by her husband's desire to become an American, Emmy®-winning filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi attends naturalization ceremonies across all 50 states and meets brand-new citizens to learn why they chose America as their home.  This uplifting, thought-provoking documentary reveals what she discovered.

On her 50-state road trip, Pelosi discovers who really makes up America's melting-pot society, including: New York City coffee cart guys; a Buddhist monk in Utah; a nuclear scientist at Los Alamos National Lab; a Kentucky Paralympian from Nigeria; young refugees from Iraq living in Nebraska; and a Muslim mother with a dream to take a cruise to Alaska. Whether these new Americans arrived here through political asylum, online dating, adoption, student and work visas, or by swimming across the Rio Grande River (and remained long enough to be granted amnesty), they all came here in search of the American Dream. And though they are no longer visitors, these newest citizens still look at the country with an outsider's perspective, holding up a mirror to show other Americans how they look as a nation—and how much they take for granted, such as running water, the right to bear arms, the freedom to hold hands in public and the right to vote.