It’s three hours from Chillicothe, Missouri to Omaha. Not long compared to the time that it has taken Ming Chen to get to this day. Most of his friends are back at school sitting in class - a place he would normally be. But not today. Today he is going to Omaha with his mother in his brother’s car to become a U.S. citizen.

Chen was born in a small town in China, one that, unless you have a passion for Chinese geography, you have probably never heard of. He lived a normal life, with his two brothers, Bao and Kevin, and their two parents.

But when Chen was five the unthinkable happened -- his father lost his battle with cancer.

Chen’s mother owned a fabric store where she made clothes. She could decide when she worked, and sometimes people would come to the Chen house and special order clothing from her. But the first couple of years after Chen’s father died were hard. The family ran out of money and had to ask relatives to help. Around the same time, Chen’s mother decided that it was time to make a change: the family would be immigrating to the United States.

“I don’t really know why we came,” Chen says sighting a number of possible reasons. “My mom wanted us to get a good education, but my dad dying might have had something to do with it.”

When he was seven, the family flew to a city in China to get visas. Three years later they were getting on the plane to America. After the long plane ride to Denver, with a short connecting flight to Kansas City, the Chen family was in a new country, starting a new life, with only one member, Chen’s brother Kevin, speaking English.

“I couldn’t communicate with anyone,” Chen says. “I spoke no English.”

Starting over

During that time, Chen’s mother worked as a waitress, making just enough money to make ends meet, saving the rest.

At school, Chen excelled at spelling and math. He still didn’t speak a lot of English, but he was beginning to remember some of the words.

Family, he says, was very important at the time. It was the only two years that the entire family would be together in America. After he finished fifth grade, his mother decided it was time to move. She had plans of opening a Chinese restaurant in a town in Nebraska called Hastings. Chen and his brother Bao went with her, but Kevin, his oldest brother stayed behind in Kansas.

“My whole family kind of fell apart,” Chen says. “Kevin wanted to stay in Kansas.”

Kevin was sixteen or seventeen at the time Chen remembers. He went onto work part time while going finishing up high school. Then he moved to California to go to college.

Chen continued to pick up more English, and make friends. He did well in school, excelling especially in math and science classes. But his mother decided to relocate again, this time to Chillicothe, Missouri, where she would open yet another restaurant. Chen and Bao decided to stay in Hastings.

Becoming a citizen

It was at that point that he decided to apply for citizenship.

He applied through his mom, filling out the N-600 form and a $460 check. Four months later, he and his mother are sitting in the lobby of a large one story building in Omaha. Soon he will watch an educational film about being an American citizen. He will say the pledge of allegiance, and sing the national anthem. He will be handed a single sheet of paper, with a signature and his picture. Then he will finally be an American Citizen.