Mai Liis Now A Citizen Of The United States
4/5/56

The naturalization of Mai Liis Weckram Burgess was a simple, almost a casual thing.

She stood with 16 others in the federal courtroom this afternoon, lifted her hand and repeated after Immigration Examiner Byron C. McAdoo:

"I hereby declare on oath that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince . . . "

In her 18 years, Mai Liis has never seen a prince. She spoke her oath without a trace of accent.

"It seems strange for me to take it,” she said. "I feel as I were born here. This is home.”

It wasn't always. Home, once was anywhere the Weckrams could find a roof - in Tartu, Riga, Danzig, Berlin - at the invading Russian armies of 1941 drove Elmar and Akulina Weckram and their daughters Mai and Lia, farther and farther west from their native Estonia.

But now, that was over. Mai Liis was not thinking about the Russians - or the months after the war in the Displaced Persons camp at Ludebeck - as she repeated the words:

"That I will support and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America against all enemies foreign and domestic, and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same . . . "She was thinking about Central High School, where she is a senior and a member of the Honor Society. She was thinking of the American sailor she married last June, and of her trip to Guard to be with him this summer.

"Mother and Daddy are going to get their citizenship papers soon,” she said. "Daddy's having a little trouble with the language, but it won't be long.”

It didn't take Mai Liis long. She and her parents arrived in Charlotte in 1950, under auspices of the United Lutheran Church. They couldn't speak a word of English.

There were problems: "And some were really funny - like confusing ‘pedestrian' and ‘Presbyterian,' " Mai said.

But the problems were overcome. Lia arrived in 1951. The family was together again.

And now, Mai was taking the last step:

"That I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by law, and that I take this obligation freely, without mental reservation or purpose of evasion, so help me God.”

Mai Liis dropped her hand and smiled at her mother. She had been an American for six years - or for six seconds - depending on how you compute Americanism.

Charles Kuralt's People (Kenilworth Media, copyright 2002)
ISBN 0-9679096-1-9 | Hard cover | 384 pages with photos | $25.95

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