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Craig — For six years, Maria Sandoval, a translator and program counselor at the Northwest Colorado Visiting Nurse Association, has been the mediator between two worlds.

Yet, she didn't completely belong in either one of them until Friday.

Sandoval has worked at the VNA since 2002, translating for Spanish-speaking patients. She later became a counselor in the VNA's Women, Infant and Children program.

Although she wasn't born in the U.S., Sandoval has considered America her home for almost 20 years.

Still, she didn't become a U.S. citizen until this month.

The delay wasn't because of lack of effort.

Acquiring citizenship included multiple steps and took Sandoval 16 years to complete. During the process, she worked with, lived among and translated for U.S. citizens while she waited for her own citizenship to come through.

Many of her co-workers, including Jan Leonard, a registered nurse with the VNA's Nurse Family Partnership, were granted citizenship at birth. Leonard's views on that point changed as she watched Sandoval's continued efforts to become a U.S. citizen.

"I don't take (U.S. citizenship) for granted, as far as the rights we have, the things we enjoy," she said.

Sandoval believes that not all American-born citizens think the same way Leonard does.

The same cannot be said of Sandoval, who was born in Mexico.

She briefly lived in America when she was 9 years old, before her family moved back south.

She returned to America in 1988, when she was 20 years old. In 1992, she applied for her Visa, the first step toward achieving legal citizenship.

"I figured I won't go back (to Mexico)," Sandoval said. "I live here, work here. I might as well participate with everyone else."

The road to citizenship was a long one for Sandoval.

Visa applications are processed in order of the date they are received, Sandoval said. The U.S. government was still processing applications from previous years when she submitted her request in August 1992. For the next seven years, she continued checking on the status of her application.

The answer was the same each time: Her application date had not come up.

Sandoval's luck changed in 1999. That was the year she and her husband, Jaime, and her two children, Jaime Jr. and Christina, moved to Craig - and the year the government granted her a Visa.

The application process didn't end there.

Sandoval was granted temporary residency in 2001 and received permanent residency one year later.

Per federal law, Sandoval had to wait five years before applying for U.S. citizenship.

She worked as an interpreter for the VNA during that time.

The job proved to be a good fit for Sandoval, who said she prefers to translate her client's words instead of speaking herself.

She is currently the VNA's only translator and, as such, she does everything from running the WIC Spanish-speaking program to answering the phone when the person on the other end doesn't speak English.

She also translates for the Northwest Colorado Community Health Center.

"She's : a huge asset," said Dawna Brewer, health center medical assistant. "Without her, we'd be in a huge mess."

On Monday, her co-workers met her in one of the VNA's basement rooms. Sprays of metallic red, white and blue ribbons hung from the ceiling.

The cause for celebration?

A ceremony in Grand Junction on Friday, where she swore an oath that made her a U.S. citizen.

She remembers the day clearly. Surrounded by 24 other people from 10 nations, she renounced her Mexican citizenship and become a U.S. citizen instead, thereby granting her legal status in the country she had lived in for two decades.

For her, it was a day that had been long in the making.

"That's the day I became (a U.S.) citizen," she said.