Page 22 - Flathead Beacon // 9.28.16

★ DAYE-LLYN DALLES RANDLE
70 YEARS OLD
POLSON, MONTANA
CANADA
COVER
IMMIGRATION
★ SANDRINE TOCHEM
30 YEARS OLD
MISSOULA, MONTANA
CHAD
ONE PARK, ONE FAMILY
A CITIZEN FOR LIFE, FINALLY
S★ BY TRISTAN SCOTT OF THE BEACON
ANDRINE TOCHEM AND HER
ancé, Samuel Redfern, both
gained their citizenship to the United States within the peak-stud- ded boundary of Glacier National Park, albeit under disparate circumstances, and on days that fell nearly 40 years apart.
Nevertheless, on Sept. 21, they embraced along the shore of Lake McDonald, enjoined as U.S. citizens both for the rst time since meeting.
Redfern, of Missoula, was born inside the park, along a trail, to a pair of unsus- pecting parents on a huckleberry-pick- ing hike in 1977, while Tochem, who was born in the central African nation of Chad, became an American at a natu- ralization ceremony last week, the rst of its kind to occur in Glacier, which was transformed into an o cial courtroom for the occasion.
“Samuel was born here,” Tochem said prior to the ceremony, before going on to explain that she meant “here” in explicit terms. “So when I had the option of becoming naturalized here, I picked Glacier National Park.”
Redfern, who served in the U.S. Army for 12 years and completed a combat tour in Iraq in November 2005, “can tell you something about service to this country,” U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen told the crowd of friends and family members who gathered for the ceremony.
Now, Tochem can tell you something about it, too.
Born to the Laka Tribe, Tochem escaped the Chadian Civil War nine years ago, at the age of 21, when her father helped her ee rebel violence.
The fth of seven children, she was the only sibling to break loose from the war. Although she keeps in touch with
her siblings via Facebook and Skype, she was unable to return home when her father, a diplomat from the capitol city of N’Djamena, died three years ago.
“It was very hard, to not be able to go be with my family, but I worried that if I left I would not return,” she said.
For two years, Tochem lived in Vir- ginia, where she worked at a Home Depot and taught herself English — her rst lan- guage is French — while saving up money to apply for permanent resident status as a refugee and, eventually, a green card.
“It was a very expensive process, so I worked hard to save money,” she said. After arriving in Montana, she
attended college for two semesters at Montana State University, studying architecture, before transferring to the University of Montana to study business and, later, nursing.
Although she is taking a break from school to raise her two daughters, Evan- geline, 5, and Alexandra, 2, she plans on returning to complete her nursing degree. She currently works in home health care.
“My life is here now because of my daughters,” she said. “My family is the most important to me, and so is educa- tion. But it has been very busy. Working and being a mom isn’t easy.”
Neither is gaining citizenship.
But Tochem said she promised her late father that she would become an American, and she was determined to keep her word. She studied for her cit- izenship test while commuting to work and on errands, using an audio lesson plan on CD.
“I really wanted to be part of this country, especially because my family did not have the same opportunity,” she said. “Maybe I am the luckiest one. I feel very lucky.” ★
D★ BY TRISTAN SCOTT OF THE BEACON
AYE-LLYN DALLES RANDLE
spent nearly 70 proud years
believing he was a citizen of the United States.
Until the day he learned he wasn’t.
Last summer, in the midst of a gene- alogy project to research his family’s complex history, Randall learned that he was a Canadian citizen, despite hav- ing served his country — or the country that he’d always believed was his — in the Vietnam War, as a member of the 588th Engineer Battalion in the prov- ince of Tay Ninh.
Upon his return, he raised three daughters in Montana with his wife, Kathe, and spent the lion’s share of a long career working as a maintenance technician specializing in genera- tor sets. He lived in Texas and Oregon before settling in Montana, wanting to raise his children in the mountains, and near the discipline-rich farming com- munity that he’d grown up on in the Peace River country of Alberta, Canada.
“I’d always known that I was born in Canada, but what I didn’t realize until last summer was that my mother was also born there,” he said. “I’d spent my entire life believing that I had dual cit- izenship, so all of a sudden my whole world exploded. I knew I had to x this.”
And x it he did.
On Sept. 21, he celebrated his rst day as a true American, earning his citizen- ship at a naturalization ceremony in Gla- cier National Park along with 10 other
new Americans, and putting to rest any question of his allegiance, even though he has served his country overseas and voted in every national election.
The confusion began last year when Randle was attempting to track down his mother’s birth certi cate so he could esh out his obscure family history in hopes of preserving the family tree for his daughters.
On Randle’s birth certi cate, his mother’s place of birth read Spokane, Washington, but when he tried to track down the document there, he was told it didn’t exist.
After talking to his cousins, he learned that his uncle, Everett Maurice, had been born in Lacombe, Alberta, and sure enough, after calling the Depart- ment of Vital Statistics, he found out that his mother had been born there, too.
“It was earth shattering,” he said. “All of a sudden, one of my deepest beliefs, that I was an American citizen, was turned upside down. I have always con- sidered myself an American, so all I’m doing here is correcting the record.”
Holding an American ag on the shore of Lake McDonald with the mountainous backdrop dappled in autumn sunlight, Randle admitted it was a pretty decent setting for setting records straight.
“It’s been quite the circus, but I didn’t want there to be any question about my citizenship,” he said. “And that’s how I ended up here today in Glacier National Park. Not a bad way to become an Amer- ican citizen.” ★
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SEPTEMBER 28, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM