VIRGINIA CITY - Twelve children were made U.S. citizens at a ceremony in Virginia City on Saturday.
The children, ranging in ages from 5 to 18 and came from Canada, China, Colombia, Mexico, Philippines and the United Kingdom, took their oaths in the first-ever citizenship ceremony in Virginia City - a western town with its own colorful immigrant history.
The ceremony took place at the V&T Railroad station. After they took their oaths, the children and their families were picked up by a train for a ride down to Carson City and back.
As Charles Aglubat, 33, and Michelle Aglubat, 34, watched their daughters, Catrina, 7 and Carmina, 5, take their oath of citizenship on Saturday, it marked the end of a long journey to make them U.S. citizens.
"It means that our family is finally together," said Charles Aglubat, a Reno postal service worker who has lived in the United States since 1995. "I tried getting them here the past seven years and finally this past year my kids and my wife came over (from the Philippines) and then it's just a culmination of everything I've worked for in the past seven years for the two kids. In two years my wife is going to be a citizen, too."
"It means so much," Aglubat said.
Joe Curtis, 65, who co-owns Virginia City's Mark Twain Bookstore with his wife, spoke about his city's immigrant history, such as the immigrants who worked on the railroad that the families rode on after the ceremony.
"It was everybody that came here and contributed to this community," Curtis said. "You people are the people that make the stories and make the colorful and culture of not just Virginia City, but of our country as a whole."