Saturday, June 25, 2016
On a mild summer morning, in view of the Rappahannock River that once stood as a final obstacle to freedom for hundreds of enslaved Virginians, 50 people from 33 countries took in their first moments of American citizenship.
For some, like Hannah Yema Olu-Nylander who grew up under colonial rule in Sierra Leone, the journey was decades in the making. She came to the U.S. for school and ended up building a life here—a 38-year career in banking, a son who now has two children of his own.
“I was always going to,” she said of U.S. citizenship. “But I waited until I retired.”
