Citizen soldiers
Immigrants' sacrifices honored posthumously;
Some families are pained by calls for border crackdowns as loved ones are dying for their adopted country
Michael Riley
The Denver Post
May 30, 2005
When Spec. Justin Onwordi was killed by an improvised bomb that blew up his Humvee in Iraq last August, he died for a country on whose shores he had arrived only five years before.
To honor that service, the U.S. government granted the 28-year-old Nigerian posthumous citizenship, converting Onwordi and other immigrants like him into full-fledged Americans only after their deaths.
For lawmakers and veterans groups, posthumous citizenship is a way to recognize the sacrifices of a growing number of immigrant soldiers fighting - and dying - in Afghanistan and Iraq. Fifty-nine fallen soldiers - Mexicans, Koreans, Filipinos and others - have been granted citizenship since the beginning of the global war on terrorism.
But for families of the dead, their feelings toward the honor are often complex - caught up in grief, divided identities or a disillusionment at the treatment of immigrants in post-9/11 America.
Onwordi's mother, Virginia, said the idea of granting citizenship to her fallen son seemed strange, a gesture that can't help the dead and means little to her.
"To me, he's gone. It's like knocking on the door of a dead person," Virginia Onwordi said from her home in Chandler, Ariz. "I wish that citizenship were given to those still alive."
To be in the U.S. military, immigrants must be legal residents and have a green card.
There are some 37,000 immigrant soldiers serving in the U.S. armed forces, up from 28,000 five years ago. Experts say their increasing importance reflects partly the growing number of foreign-born in the U.S., partly the opportunities many newcomers see in a military career.
Some arrived here young, growing up in American culture and attending U.S. schools. They enlist for many of the same reasons citizen soldiers do - to expand limited horizons, fund an education or protect a country they already see as theirs.
That's a unique form of patriotism, authorities say, less birthright than appreciation of the opportunities America has to offer.
"Those lawful permanent residents who have died, died fighting for liberties and freedoms they had yet to secure for themselves," said Christopher Bentley, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security.
Posthumous citizenship, he said, "is a fitting tribute to that sacrifice."
When Jesus Fonseca told his parents at 17 that he wanted to join the Army, it caught them by surprise. He had always been so gentle, never violent, said his mother, Gloria.
Fonseca was killed Jan. 17 in Ramadi, Iraq. His parents were first told it was from a bomb, then a sniper. Finally, they learned that the boy who came to the U.S. from Mexico when he was 2 was killed while trying to help a wounded comrade.
"Even when he died, he was being a humanitarian," said Gloria Fonseca, who lives in Marietta, Ga.
Although Jesus Fonseca had told his family he wanted to be a U.S. citizen someday, his parents didn't want him to lose his roots. They buried him in Jalisco, Mexico, in a funeral that respected both traditions, accompanied by mariachi music and a U.S. military honor guard.
But to his family, Fonseca's new citizenship has an uncertain meaning.
Citizenship "is something that he deserves. But to us, his family, it's a certificate hanging on the wall," said his sister, Patricia, 25.
"Don't get me wrong; we're proud of him. But it's too early to tell how we'll feel about it," she said.
Nestor Rodriguez, a sociologist at the University of Houston, said it shouldn't come as a surprise that the emotions accompanying posthumous citizenship for the families of immigrant soldiers are mixed.
Few honors can entirely erase grief or make up for the loss of a son or daughter, he said.
But in a country where the attitude toward immigrants has become more negative since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, granting posthumous citizenship also has a bittersweet quality.
"Some immigrants may view this with irony or resentment," Rodriguez said. "It took a death to recognize this person could be a valuable citizen. It's not malice, but it's painful.
"It's like, 'You're not good enough to be a full member of this society until you die.' But that's the irony. By that time, they're gone."
For Simona Garibay, whose son, Jose Angel, died in Nasiriyah, Iraq on March 23, 2003, it's strange that as politicians call for a crackdown on the borders, there are Mexicans dying in Iraq for their adopted country.
"On one side, they're sending them to war. On the other, they want higher fences on the border so Mexicans don't come," she said.
"It makes me angry, and it makes me sad," said Garibay, 53.
Posthumous citizenship has been granted to immigrant soldiers at least as far back as World War II, but until 2003 it conveyed no substantive benefit on family members. In part at the urging of veterans groups, Congress passed a law that now allows posthumous citizenship to be used by immediate relatives to apply for citizenship of their own.
Ramona Joyce, a spokeswoman for the American Legion, said that apart from that benefit, the gesture reflects the symbolic value Americans place on the status of citizenship. Medals can be given to foreigners. But only citizenship makes someone truly American.
"As Americans growing up in a free country, we often feel our citizenship is very important. We constantly talk about our citizenship. Even when we move to another country, we're reluctant to give up our passport," Joyce said.
For some, at least, that's not enough.
"I understand it's a way to thank him," Simona Garibay said. "But to me, what does that matter when he's not here?"