Such is the case with Dallas-based CBS reporter Hari Sreenivasan, who shared his thoughts on the "Couric & Co." blog after coming back from taking the oath to become an American citizen. Sreenivasan shared that it was in being a journalist that he saw the heart of America (emphasis mine):
The most I've learned about this country and what it means to be an American has been through this craft I've been fortunate enough to practice for a dozen years or so. For work, I've lived in Washington, North Carolina, California, New York, and now Texas. According to the map on my Facebook page, there are probably a half-dozen or so states that I have yet to visit. In the past year and a half or so for CBS, I've been hurled into one disaster aftermath after another, and though it might sound like a political cliché, that is really the easiest place to see the best of America. You don't see it when politicians swoop in for a photo-opportunity; it happens quietly.
The American spirit is in the pastor I met near Damascus, Ark., who, when he saw a tornado, instead of hunkering down, rushed out to warn the construction workers building his church who he knew had no radio. They huddled together inside a cement cellar as the twister tore through in seconds what that community had taken so long to build. Like the entire town of Greensburg, Kansas, the community in Arkansas, will pick itself up, dust itself off and build again. It is in the optimism of the teachers throughout New Orleans who are putting their money where the rest of the country's idealistic mouths are. They are on the front lines working brutally long days for relatively little pay, and often times are part of the only stability in the lives of so many children who have been failed by our education system.
While some of his reasons for becoming a citizen seem to me to hint at a liberal political outlook, Sreenivasan never explicitly laid out his political views, and it's hard to not admire his conclusion:
One thing that I noticed in my fellow immigrants this morning, from the Albanian to the Zimbabwean, from the Kosovar to the Kenyan, was a sense of potential. Even though the act itself is no more than raising your right hand and making a pledge to a new country, there is the sense of hope that comes with turning over a new leaf. I've always believed that either you are part of the solution or you are a part of the problem. There are enough solutions to work on in America, and I'm willing, as they say during Texas Hold'em poker, to go all-in.
Sreenivasan's profile pic by CBS photographer John Filo.
