American citizenship is nothing Dafodel Archer takes for granted

As the wife of Franklin Archer, Dafodel Archer has called Gallatin home since 1995. She had two irresistible reasons for becoming an American citizen: Angela and Frankie.

“I can’t stand to be away from my children even for a day,” she said. “As an American citizen I know I can’t be parted from them. Nobody can take me away.”

Dafodel sent her application in for naturalization in April. She was expecting it to take a year to get processed. But Dafodel was set up for an interview only four months later.

“I’d been studying for my driving test,” said Dafodel. “Now I had to give that up and concentrate on the immigration test. I studied everything I could think of.”

After a fingerprint check in June, Dafodel went in for her citizenship test in July. She was nervous. “I just prayed: God help me get through this,” she said.

It was a two-hour interview. Dafodel did fine on the oral test, until it came to naming the 49thstate. “I knew it was either Hawaii or Alaska,” she said. “But I couldn’t remember which was which.”

She was asked to write an essay. At the end of the last paragraph she wrote in capital letters ‘I want to be an American Citizen.’

“The examiner could tell I liked those words,” she said. “She said I’d done a good job.”

Dafodel went in September to take the oath of citizenship at the US District Court House in Kansas City.

“There were about 60 people there from all over the world,” she said.

Dafodel and the others were sent into a courtroom, while family and friends were asked to wait outside. Dafodel got a living history lesson when US Magistrate Judge Robert E. Larsen entered the courtroom. He looked around and boomed, “This is YOUR courtroom!” and ordered that family and friends be allowed in.

“Little Frankie cried ‘Mama’,” said Dafodel. “Her cry echoed through the whole building. She ran over to me and was standing by me when I took the oath.”

Along with the other new Americans, Dafodel raised her hand and repeated: “I will support and defend the Constitution and law of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same…”

Dafodel Alombro Franco Archer was born in the Philippines. She worked nine years as an electronics engineer with a company in her native country. She then signed on with an overseas agency and got a job with Kodak, the camera company, in Taiwan.

Dafodel was christened Daffodil by her parents. Not until she went to fill out papers to get a Visa, did she discover her name was mangled on her birth certificate.

“I hate it,” she said. “It’s spelled wrong. It’s really Daffodil, just like a flower. In the Philippines you have to hire a lawyer to change your name, so I have that name on all my documents and legal papers.”

Because Dafodel was proficient in the Chinese language, she oriented new workers to the Kodak company and taught them about the product. She was responsible for up to 60 Philippine workers.

When Dafodel decided to marry Franklin Archer, an American, her boss offered her advice: “You don’t know him. You’re completely different. You’ve never met his family.”

Dafodel reasoned, “People marry their own kind and get divorced. It depends on the two individuals and how they handled the marriage, not their race. I left it up to God. Whatever His purpose for me was.”

She and Franklin met twice in Taiwan and stayed in touch by phone. They were married in Taiwan, though Dafodel would have preferred a Christian church wedding and a gown of white.

“In the Philippines, there is no such thing as divorce. Marriage is a very solemn ceremony. Couples go through counseling for at a minimum of two to three weeks. And the marriage ceremony is very much like that of one in America, with the bride wearing white. We were married in Taiwan where the Taiwanese are Buddhist and white is only worn at funerals.”

Assimilation wasn’t easy once Dafodel reached America and her home in Gallatin. She had always lived in the city and wasn’t prepared for the countryside. It was a lonely time for her away from her home and family and friends.

“I cried all night,” she said. “I took two years to get over being homesick.”

Dafodel says she has not encountered very much outright discrimination in Daviess County.

“I hate that word. God created us all equally,” she said. “Some criticized me when I first came here, especially for my English.”

The Philippines have over 100 different dialects. Dafodel has read English well since elementary school. Her grandfather was Spanish and she learned to speak Spanish at an early age. Her father could speak Japanese and she learned that language too. At Kodak, she spoke Mandarin Chinese.

“Some people would make fun of my intonation,” she said. “But they should walk in my shoes. They cannot even speak one sentence of my language.”

The Archer family went to the Philippines to visit in January. They stayed about six weeks.

“My mother was crazy about the kids. The whole family was so proud. They took the children out strolling every day.”