Southeastern Synod E-News Weekly

In May of 2010, personnel from the Bayou La Batre, AL Lutheran Ministries of Alabama office accompanied 2 people to the Federal Courthouse in Mobile, AL and witnessed their being sworn in as the 49th and 50th clients Lutheran Ministries of Alabama has helped to become U.S. citizens.

The Lutheran Ministries of Alabama office in Bayou La Batre, AL represents a population south of Interstate 10 that can best be described as "underserved." This is particularly true of the Asian population that began coming to America following the Vietnam Conflict in the 1970's. Largely composed of unskilled seafood industry workers, this group has been "invisible" socially, and because of language barriers, falls far below the federal poverty level. These factors historically prevented these residents from obtaining U.S citizenship.

During the Lutheran Disaster Relief/Lutheran Ministries of Alabama post-Katrina rebuilding and recovery efforts, it became apparent that citizenship services were desperately needed for this group. As the recovery effort was winding down in 2008, the Asian translators working in the Bayou office began to provide informal assistance to clients who wanted to become citizens.

With language skills in Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian, Lutheran Ministries of Alabama was able to offer assistance, at no cost, and on a volunteer basis, to these clients, by translating naturalization forms, helping them to obtain waivers of the fees normally charged by the U.S. for testing and, often, by providing transportation to the testing site in Atlanta, GA.

In January of 2010, a small grant from Mobile Community Action, a large Mobile social services agency, allowed the assistance program to kick into high gear. Civics and government classroom sessions were organized to be presented weekly with English instruction being simultaneously translated to all three language groups. These 2 hour sessions reviewed all of the questions that would appear on the citizenship test, supplemented by instruction on American history, the constitution and key people in the historical and current American mosaic.

As word spread in the community about our service capability, 30-40 immigrants per week began attending these classes and, in March and April 2010, 15 new citizens per month were being sworn in following testing in Atlanta. Mrs. Jackie Dortch, the case manager for this program, attended the Mobile ceremonies on May 7th. "When our clients were sworn in, their eyes and their smiles told the whole story," she said. "It made every classroom hour more than worth the effort," she added.

The Bayou office is currently planning to seek Dept. of Justice certification as a registered and recognized citizenship service agency. This will permit the agency to work with volunteer attorneys to provide legal assistance and, in some difficult cases, courtroom representation to those clients needing this level of assistance.

Said Mrs. Dortch, "We have come a long way in a short time, but this community and communities all along the Gulf Coast, desperately need this kind of help. These good people have been left out of full participation in the American dream for far too long."