Arnold Schwarzenegger celebrated four decades of American citizenship this weekend. In a post on Instagram, the bodybuilder-turned-actor-politician commemorated the anniversary of “one of the proudest days of my life” with a series of photos set to his 2004 Republican National Convention speech.
“My fellow Americans, this is an incredible moment for me,” the speech begins. “To think that a once skinny Austrian kid could become governor of the state of California, that is an immigrant’s dream. In school, when the teacher talked about the United States, I daydreamed about coming here. I would daydream about living here. As long as I live, I will never forget the day I raised my right hand and took the oath of citizenship. Do you know how proud I was? “I was so proud that I walked with the American flag on my shoulders all day.”
“I came here with empty pockets, but full of dreams, full of determination, full of desire,” said the former governor of California while photographs of his youth in Austria, his arrival in the United States, his oath of American citizenship in 1983 and Los Highlights from a long and diverse career play in the background.
“Everything about America seemed so big, so open, so possible,” he continued. “To my fellow immigrants listening tonight, I want you to know how welcome you are. We promote your dreams. “We believe in its future.”
Schwarzenegger recently opened about almost dying after open heart surgery. In a video shared on YouTube, Schwarzenegger said the operation took place several years ago, just before he started working on Terminator: Dark Fate (released in 2019). Schwarzenegger recalled that he woke up after the procedure and visited his doctor, who told him that the operation had not gone as planned. The actor said the procedure was supposed to be a relatively non-invasive procedure to replace a heart valve, but his doctors “made a mistake and punctured the wall of the heart.” That puncture caused serious “internal bleeding,” forcing Schwarzenegger’s doctors to quickly open him to save his life.
“I wanted to start exercising and get out of the hospital as quickly as possible and then get back to training because three months later I started with Terminator 6Schwarzenegger said. “I had to be in shape, I had to be able to move, run, lift things, do the fight scenes. So we did it because I had a positive attitude, I knew exactly how I was going to get there and I had the support system. Because we can do none of this alone.”
The 76-year-old shows no signs of slowing down. At the beginning of this year, Schwarzenegger starred action comedy series FUBARwhich has been renewed for a second season.