AN AMERICAN IS MADE: `I'M ONE OF YOU GUYS!'

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 16, 1993                   TAG: 9301160210
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: By DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
AN AMERICAN IS MADE: `I'M ONE OF YOU GUYS!'
Twelve-year-old Gracie Anne Madayag had no problem making friends when she moved from the Philippines to Lynchburg four years ago.
The only difference now is that Gracie is no longer a foreigner.
"I am one of you guys!" the sixth-grader exclaimed Friday after she became a U.S. citizen.
Gracie and her mother, Gloria R. Madayag, were among the 38 people who took part in a naturalization ceremony at the Poff Building in Roanoke.
Their path to citizenship began nearly 12 years ago, when Bernardo Madayag departed for the United States, leaving his wife and infant daughter behind.
The plan was for them to wait until Madayag met citizenship requirements and sent for them.
They waited eight years.
During that period, Madayag was able to return to the Philippines only three times to visit his family. Little Gracie Anne hardly knew her father and did not know how to act around him.
"I was very shy whenever he came to visit," she said.
Madayag became an American citizen in 1987, and about a year later brought his wife and daughter to Lynchburg.
Bernardo Madayag works in the materials management department at Virginia Baptist Hospital. Gloria Madayag found secretarial work at Lynchburg General Hospital.
Gracie Anne attends Linkhorne Middle School and still hasn't gotten used to Virginia winters.
"It's very pretty here," she said, "but it sure is colder."

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB