“Born in Austria, made in America!”: With these words, Arnold Schwarzenegger (76) is celebrating a very special anniversary on Instagram: The Hollywood star, who was born in 1947 in Austrian Styria, has been the owner of the for exactly 40 years US citizenship.
September 16, 1983 was one of “the proudest days of my life,” the actor wrote in his post. “I owe everything to America.” He shared a video that was cut together from many different photos. The pictures show Schwarzenegger as a child and adolescence, with his family, but also when he served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 to 2011.
You can also see excerpts from the day the “Terminator” star raised his right hand to take the oath of citizenship and then accepted his US citizenship card. In the background, Schwarzenegger played a speech he gave as governor at the 2004 Republican National Convention.
“My fellow Americans, this is an amazing moment for me,” he began his speech at the time. To imagine that a once scrawny boy from Austria could grow up to become governor of the state of California, “that’s an immigrant’s dream.”
Even at school he dreamed of living in the USA. “Everything in America seemed so big, so open, so possible. […] I finally arrived here in 1968 – what a special day it was. I remembered that I had come with empty pockets but full of dreams, arrived here full of determination and longing.” His speech continued: “As long as I live, I will never forget the day I raised my hand to take the oath of citizenship.”
