How can I ever find the right words to describe what has happened this past week? Friday, my husband, Frank and I became American Citizens. I am still in awe about how emotional this whole process was. After immigrating from Germany 15 years ago, we had our appointment with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in downtown Detroit for our Interview and Civics Test on Tuesday. We waited with many other people, some accompanied by family, some by lawyers and some by translators. We were all anxious. I was called in first by the nicest immigration officer I could ask for. I …

We have finally received an appointment date for the interview and test part of our application for U.S. Citizenship - at the end of January, we will know if we’ve got what it takes to become Americans!  Until then, we will continue to learn more. We repeat our 100 questions for the Civics Test over and over and prepare for the interview part as best as we can.  It’s the end of the year. As we say good-bye to 2011 and prepare to greet 2012, many different memories come to mind. We came to Michigan in the Spring of 1997, Frank just graduated from The Fachhochschule Hamburg - yeah, I know it's …

In order to become a U.S. citizen, one must be fingerprinted. Our fingerprinting appointment was truly unspectacular. It took less than five minutes. Now that that's done, we must prepare to take the civics test, to prove our knowledge of U.S. History. We've been learning a lot along the way. For example, I didn't know that there were two Roosevelts that served as U.S. Presidents. This is just one interesting fact we have learned while preparing for our Civics Test to become Americans. As we anxiously await finally calling America home, we still love the though of our old home coming to us. …

World famous actress Kirsten Dunst is currently making headlines because she has obtained German Citizenship. We, Germany natives, are going the other way around: we want to become Americans. There are few benefits that Green Card holders don't have. But we can’t vote, are not allowed to sign petitions or contact “our” legislators. Those are the few that are most important to us. As parents of a child with autism, we wish we could voice our concerns or support in several instances regarding passing the Autism Insurance Legislation in Michigan.  But we are one step closer to obtaining the …

Each year, 50,000 green cards are entered into the Diversity Lottery, and millions of people from all over the world participate. In 1996, 4,400 Green Cards went to Germany and my husband Frank and I got two of them. We immigrated to the US in the spring of 1997, after we both won the diversity lottery (which is better known as the green card Lottery). Winning this lottery does not mean that the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) will immediately send you the green card (the official name now is Resident Alien Card and it is not green, all your information is printed on a delightful…