Helena de Groot grew up in Belgium and is now a radio producer living in New York City. When I found out she was about to take her citizenship test, I asked if she’d be willing to record herself talking about what it feels like to become an American…and she agreed.

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Helena is the host and producer of the Poetry Foundation podcast Poetry Off the Shelf and senior producer of The Paris Review Podcast, and she teaches at Columbia University and the University of Michigan. Once a year she goes home to Belgium, and then comes back home to New York. Ten years after they first met, she still thinks David is the most beautiful man on the entire planet.