Many roads to US citizenship reach a common destination for Juneau immigrants
- Mark Sabbatini
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
About 25 people taking citizenship oaths during three days of ceremonies, according to Homeland Security officials
Detlef Buettner, 66, has been a resident of the United States since immigrating from Germany at the age of 22. On Tuesday he became a U.S. citizen.
Buettner and six other Juneau residents took citizenship oaths during a ceremony Tuesday evening at the Mendenhall Valley Public Library. It was the first of three ceremonies on consecutive days expected to naturalize about 25 people, according to U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials.
He said he’s had a permanent green card all these years, but decided it was time to finally seek citizenship because it was easier than renewing his card again and dealing with cross-border travel difficulties that have increased lately.
"I got a little emotional when I handed over my green card," Buettner said after the roughly 30-minute ceremony. "It's been with me since 1981 (and) I will never see it again. It's unfortunate. I really like my green card, but I got something maybe better."
Among the people observing the ceremony was his wife of 32 years, Jacqueline Fowler, an England-born immigrant who took her U.S. citizenship oath at the age of 17 — back when the Vietnam War was happening. She said taking the necessary steps and the ceremony have changed little over those decades.
"We both got tripped up on the same question that we would be asked to bear arms," she said, with both of them saying they sought to have their oaths modified to include a pledge of civil service instead.
Buettner, a native of Hamburg in Germany, said he moved to New York for a year before coming to Juneau "exactly 43 years ago" as of Monday.
"I wanted to shoot a moose with an English long bow," he said. "I was practicing archery, I was 22, and I wanted to get to a place that was wild and that was heavily into fishing."
He went to college and then worked for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game for 30 years until retiring.
Fowler said she arrived in the U.S. via Canada, originally living in Connecticut before moving to Alaska.
"I went to Cordova to commercial fish and then, after the (Exxon Valdez) oil spill, I knew that if I moved anywhere I'd move to Juneau because it was very similar," she said.
Fowler said she worked for the Juneau School District after attending college, where she met Buettner’s son who was a student at the time and that led to meeting her future husband.
In a celebratory social media post on Tuesday evening, Fowler wrote of her husband becoming a U.S. citizen: "So very happy. No more hassles at the border. And he can VOTE!"
Part of Tuesday’s ceremony included a videotaped congratulations from President Donald Trump, who has made immigration crackdowns and restrictions a cornerstone of his agenda. Fowler, after the ceremony, said Buettner usually gets extra cross-border screening due to his green card, but there were concerns what might happen during future trips with Trump’s return to the White House.
"We got hassled way more this year coming back this year from Mexico than we ever have," she said.
At Tuesday’s ceremony an opening greeting by Ludmila Postolachi, a Homeland Security immigration services officer, was followed by asking participants "What are the privileges of becoming a U.S. citizen?"
For Darrien Bulauan, a state Fish and Game employee who moved to the U.S. from the Philippines nine years ago, it’s largely about the opportunities now available within the country’s borders.
"The main thing is you can vote in elections, but then I think it just opens more possibilities, like I can apply for a federal job," she said in an interview before the ceremony.
Her mother, Eflinda Zaprzala, who’s been a citizen since moving to the U.S. in 2015, said the ability for the entire family to be able to travel with less difficulty to and from their homeland is the biggest plus for her of Tuesday’s ceremony.
Postolachi, after declaring as the swearing-in host of the ceremony that "each candidate was examined today by a (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officer) and they have been found to be eligible for an authorization," asked them to stand for the singing of the National Anthem. Leading audience in the singing — spontaneously after those being naturalized demurred on being front-and-center — was Debra Ore, among the roughly 15 people observing the ceremony.
Those being naturalized then took their oaths — perhaps with approved modifications in some instances — and then were presented with their citizenship certificates they were asked to look over carefully. Finally, Postolachi asked everyone to stand to recite the Pledge of Allegiance before offering some practical advice — such as being careful about posting images of certificates online that might reveal sensitive private information — and farewell wishes to the roomful of U.S. citizens new and old.
After hugs and pictures, Buettner sat down at a table outside the library where his first formal action as a U.S. citizen was registering to vote with assistance from local League of Women Voters officials. Beyond that his celebratory plans for the evening seemed fitting for his German roots.
"I’ll probably just have a beer," he said.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
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