Mercy Kealey, USA citizen
How anxious was McCallie Director of Tuition Assistance and Enrollment Planning Mercy Kealey to earn her United States citizenship on Wednesday after spending the past 57 years in this country as a registered alien?
“I got up at 5:15,” said the Signal Mountain resident. “I was at Memorial Auditorium at 6:50 (a.m.). The ceremony didn’t start until 11. Now I feel free, very free.”
From the time she first came to this country from Cuba in 1967, Kealey said, “I never felt like I belonged. Anytime I traveled, they always made me feel less (the folks she had to deal with entering another country).”
Still, she made no plan to become a citizen until a McCallie admissions team trip to Canada in 2020. At the age of 58, having worked at McCallie for 17 years, she decided she would no longer carry a green card. She would do the work necessary to become a U.S. citizen. On Wednesday, as the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Auditorium filled with family and friends supporting 398 people from 88 countries earning their naturalized citizenship papers, Kealey was the lucky 11th person in line to receive hers.
“I couldn’t believe it when I was told I’d be No. 11,” said Kealey afterward. “That’s my lucky number. The letter K is the 11th letter in the alphabet. I was so pleased.”
She was also pleased that she’d be able to add her maiden name Rodriguez to her official name, which will forevermore be Mercy Rodriguez-Kealey, since registered aliens are not allowed to have three names.
To further liven the occasion and make it special, as many as 25 fellow McCallie faculty and staff showed up to support her.
“I was overwhelmed,” she said of the outpouring of affection, which included her co-workers waving miniature American flags and giving the traditional McCallie one-clap salute when both Kealey and the 10 whose names were called in front of her crossed the stage. “Everything in life is timing. It was not my time before, but now it is my time.”
One of those former McCallie staffers was Troy Kemp, who drove up from Atlanta and his current job at Ron Clark Academy.
“I hired Mercy,” said Kemp. “She’s like family. I don’t know what I would have done without her. She went above and beyond the call of duty so many times. She’s been like an aunt to my son. There was no way I was missing this special moment for her after all she’s done for me.”
There was one semi-funny moment as Kealey exited the stage to her cheering section’s one-clap salutes and flag-waving.
As she made her way down the steps from the stage, she stumbled and fell two steps from the bottom. Soon enough she was back up, arms spread wide and a big smile on her face, as if to assure folks, “I’m OK.”
But one couldn’t help but wonder if the Stars-and-Stripes high heels she ordered two days earlier from Amazon _ officially known as Patriotic Pumps _ were the culprits.
“She ordered them Monday night and they were at our door on Tuesday,” said her husband, Mike. “She saw a newscaster wearing them on TV on Monday and said, “I have to have them.”
Becoming a naturalized citizen is far from an easy process. Kealey estimates she studied 50 hours or more for the citizenship test, which consists of answering six questions correctly _ no misses allowed _ from a pool of 100 questions.
But to return to the beginning, to March 22, 1969, her initial path to Miami from Havana was terrifying for a 4-and-a-half-year-old.
Mike Kealey pulls up the picture on his cellphone. It’s Mercy preparing to board the plane with her mom, dad, and little sister for Miami. In the picture, she’s holding a doll, the only possession she was allowed to bring.
“But there’s a story behind that doll, a sad one,” said Mike. “Just as they were about to board the plane, the Cuban soldiers took it from her, tore the arms off, and broke it to pieces, thinking it might be hiding money or jewelry.”
Fortunately, her family heard about it and another doll was waiting for her in America.
Still, for 57 years, Kealey felt like a visitor in this country. She couldn’t vote. She couldn’t travel freely to or from the United States. She couldn’t, well, be free. As she talked early Wednesday afternoon about what she’s most looking forward to as a citizen, she said “There are no words to describe the joy I feel knowing I will wear a little "I voted" sticker next election.”
When she returned to McCallie’s campus around noon, a party was underway in her honor in Caldwell Hall’s Millis-Evans Room, complete with chicken and waffles and cakes decorated with American flags.
Before she knew it, her friends, her new fellow citizens, began a chant of “U-S-A, U-S-A.”
As Kealey entered Canada four years ago, a border official there told her, “You can’t be a woman without a country.”
From Wednesday on, she won’t be. She’ll be as red-white-and-blue as her Patriotic Pumps.