I recently saw In The Heights, the 2021 movie adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony Award-winning stage musical that follows the lives of individuals in the Latino community of Washington Heights in the Manhattan borough of New York City. Those interested can check out all of the In the Heights materials in the Aurora Public Library District (APLD) catalog!
Many of the characters are immigrants. One of the characters in the film is an undocumented immigrant who faces additional hardships, including the possibility of being barred from attending college.
Here at the APLD, all are welcome to the Library, regardless of citizenship status.
What can be done to help those such as the immigrant characters of In the Heights, such as the immigrants of our own Aurora community? Navigating the citizenship process alone can be daunting. But as part of our 2021 Vision & Strategic Plan, APLD is committed to welcoming new Americans by offering training, information, and programs for those interested in pursuing citizenship.
The Aurora Public Library District (APLD) will be host to Naturalization 101: Becoming a U.S. Citizen, a virtual information and Q&A session on naturalization components such as eligibility requirements and English and civics tests at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, June 24.
Participants will receive digital informational materials along with the presentation. Although the program will be presented in English, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officer conducting the session can translate into Spanish. Please note that registration is required.
APLD Adult Services Library assistant Fabiola Duensing shared a success story of a customer who attended a previous APLD Naturalization 101 event:
“At the end of the program, she approached me to ask if there were any more preparation classes for citizenship because she had her test coming in a couple of weeks. At that time, we were offering citizenship one-on-one help and a preparation group. She was very happy, took a citizenship kit, and attended the one-on-one help program. After a month, I contacted this customer to see how her test went. She said that she successfully passed all the citizenship testing and was grateful to the Library for offering citizenship materials and programs when she most needed them.”
It’s stories like these that drive APLD to passionately support the immigrant community in Aurora.
“The Library plays a very critical role in being able to support this diverse community,” Duensing emphasized. “With this program, we seek to support and empower our diverse immigrant community who have already fully established themselves in the Aurora area and are determined to take this very important step of being American citizens.”
Be sure to visit our Citizenship Resources, Events page and social media pages [English Facebook, Spanish Facebook] for more resources and programs on U.S. citizenship.