You never know what you’ll see at a Boys State talent show. We’ve seen Elvis impersonation, Rubix cube solving demonstrations, piano, comedy, guitars, singing, and other interesting talents. The 2022 edition featured some piano, trumpeter, singing guitarist, comedy skit, and vocalists.
By: Hunter Parks, Jake Inthavongsa, Christian Eckhardt, Wallace Wilkins III, William Mahr, Edward Olander
Early Life
Santiago Giraldo is currently a Boy Stater for the year of 2019 and is a citizen of the town of Valley Forge, recently obtained his Citizenship on June 4th, 2019. Santiago was originally born in Medellin, Columbia. He moved to America in 2011 when he was ten years old with his family in order to pursue a new life. He ended up moving to Cambridge, Nebraska. His family moved to Cambridge because it was a smaller town and they wanted a more peaceful life. He had to adjust to the smaller town since his old town Medellin has a population of over a million while his new town has a lesser population of 2000.
Road to Citizenship
Santiago had to be in the United States for 5 years and be eighteen years old in order to be able to formally begin the process of becoming a citizen of the United States. On February 4th, 2019 he officially began his journey to citizenship. The process first began by sending in an application (with a lot of paperwork) with nine-hundred dollars. He then had to wait for his application to either be approved or denied. Thankfully his application was accepted and he moved to the next step to citizenship. He had to be scheduled for an appointment in order for his biometrics to be recorded and checked. He then waited until he got a reminder for his citizenship test, which would occur on June 4th, 2019. Santiago was nervous at first, thinking about his test since his hometown of Cambridge is four hours away from the Embassy in Omaha, where he had to take the citizenship test. Luckily he had plans to go to Boys’ state which would move him to Lincoln during the week of the test. He was able to go to the citizenship test during Boys’ state. The citizenship test includes a written portion which is a 10 question test. To pass you only need to get 6 questions right along with a written and oral exam to test how much you understand the english language. Santiago passed the test with flying colors and only had one step left in order to become a citizen. The Ceremony.
Citizenship and Boys’ state
A ceremony for citizenship typically is held a different day than the citizenship test but Santiago was lucky and the ceremony was held on the same day of the test. The ceremony started with the pledge of allegiance. Santiago had to wait in a line that was slowly called up in order to gain his documents of citizenship. He felt anxious but was very excited. When he got called up he was ecstatic. Once he received his documents he was extremely overjoyed that he was now officially considered a citizen of the United States of America. Once he returned to Boys’ state he was congratulated and welcomed back by many Boy Staters and counselors with open arms, seen as a fellow citizen of the greatest country in the world.