BOSTON: On Monday, July 21, U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy will address 96 new Americans at a naturalization ceremony hosted by the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum and sponsored by the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. The ceremony will take place from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
The Honorable Mark Wolf, U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Massachusetts, will preside. Eduardo Aguirre, Jr., Director of the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, will also participate in the ceremony. Massachusetts State Police Officer Dan Clark will sing the national anthem.
The 96 new Americans range in age from 20 to 83 years and hail from Albania (2 people), Bosnia-Herzegovina (1), Bulgaria (1), Canada (1), Cape Verde (2), the Peoples Republic of China (2), Dominican Republic (17), Egypt (1), Eritrea (1), France (1), Guatemala (1), Haiti (5), Honduras (1), India (4), Dominica (1), Ireland (1), Italy (1), Ivory Coast (1), Jamaica (5), Jordan (1), Kampuchea (1), Korea (1), Lebanon (2), Mexico (1), Morocco (4), Nigeria (1), Norway (1), Pakistan (1), Poland (6), Portugal (4), Romania (1), Russia (2), Sudan (1), Taiwan (1), Trinidad and Tobago (1), United Kingdom (5), Ukraine (1), USSR (2), Venezuela (2), Vietnam (7), and Zimbabwe (1).
The Kennedy Library and Museum extends complimentary admission to the Museum for the day to the new Americans and provides them with a small American flag and commemorative edition of President Kennedy's inaugural address in which the 35th president called upon all Americans to "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."
The nation's first Irish Catholic president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy took the oath of office as President of the United States on his great-grandparents family bible on January 20, 1961. The Fitzgerald family bible is on display in the Museum. One of the Museums exhibits highlights the Irish heritage of the Fitzgerald and Kennedy families and shows video footage and artifacts from President Kennedy's June 1963 trip to Ireland.
The Fitzgerald family was from western Ireland in the rural County Limerick village of Bruff. Between 1846 and 1855 during the potato famine, members of the Fitzgerald family migrated to America. During that same period of time, Patrick Kennedy left his ancestral home in Dunganstown, County Wexford, for the United States. In 1849, Patrick Kennedy married Bridget Murphy in East Boston. Nine years later, she was a widow with four small children, the youngest of whom, Patrick, would become John F. Kennedy's grandfather.
Eduardo Aguirre, Jr. has served as the Director of the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services since being appointed by President Bush in February 2003.
A nationally recognized soloist, Massachusetts State Trooper Sergeant Dan Clark has performed at major sporting, civil, and musical events.
The John F. Kennedy Library and Museum is a presidential library administered by the National Archives and Records Administration and supported, in part, by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, a non-profit organization.