The idea for Alexandra Pelosi‘s newest documentary started with a love story — her own.
Celebrating six years of marriage this month with husband Michiel Vos, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi‘s filmmaking daughter explained to Yeas & Nays how she first met the Dutch journalist and lawyer.
Her friends, filmmakers Andrew and Eugene Jarecki, pressured Pelosi into flying to the Netherlands one fall to participate in a film festival. “It was totally like ‘The Hangover,'” she said. “Instead of going to the airport and getting on a plane to go to San Francisco I ended up going to the airport and getting a $300 round trip to Amsterdam.”
Vos interviewed Pelosi and afterward, Andrew recruited him as their unofficial tour guide to the city. “He never talked to me, he was talking to Andrew the whole time…I was being obnoxious…I wasn’t exactly looking for a husband and I wasn’t exactly acting like a wife.”
It took a trip to New York for Pelosi and Vos to truly connect. The proposal took place in Italy. “It was one of those international love stories, it only happens like this in the movies,” she said. They were married, had two kids and then Vos decided he wanted to become a United States citizen.
“When our first son was born, it didn’t do it, after our second child was born, he was like, ‘now I’m going to have to be an American,'” Pelosi explained. Inspired, she decided to attend naturalization ceremonies across the country and document the stories of legal immigrants for HBO’s “Citizen USA: A 50 State Road Trip.”
“We know immigrants work really hard, but I’m not sure if we know how hard they work to become Americans,” she said.
She interviewed regular people and political and media powerhouses, including Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright and Arianna Huffington. “Everything they are today is because they were naturalized Americans,” she said. “They seemed obvious to me.”
Pelosi is coming to D.C. Thursday to screen the film for the first time, telling us that even her mom hasn’t seen it. “I don’t give her special privileges,” she said. “I make everybody show up.”
“Citizen USA” premieres on HBO July 4.
