Three citizenship ceremonies in the nation’s capital highlighted the resilience of thousands of immigrants who are now officially part of the American community. Despite a year of changes and challenges to the naturalization process, each ceremony felt inspiring and hopeful. Those in attendance celebrated a major milestone in the pursuit of shared values and inclusion.

In 2017, poet Raymond Antrobus stepped into a Durham classroom and met Thomas, an 11-year-old with silver hearing aids whose curiosity changed the writer’s life. Their brief exchange now anchors Antrobus’s forthcoming memoir, The Quiet Ear: An Investigation of Missing Sound, an exploration of deafness, poetry, and the search for meaning.