Julia Warhola’s Naturalization Certificate

Andy Warhol Museum

Julia Warhola, Andy Warhol’s mother, was naturalized at the age of 49. Naturalization is a legal process of obtaining a new nationality. Funny how state-issued documents can name the process and passage through which one spends their lives becoming American a “naturalization.” Turning a newly adopted land, unfamiliar language, and strange cultural landscape into a place one can call home: How long does that take? How do people make their new history natural? As individuals? Families? Communities? What are the stories of each generation? What do they choose to remember, document, alter, erase?

HEIGHT:
Julia was five feet and two inches
STATUS:
Married
RESIDENCE:
3252 Dawson Street, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:
The Austrian-Hungarian Empire; The Warhola family’s hometown is in modern day Slovakia
MIGRATORY IMPACT:
Andrej and Julia Warhola had three sons, Paul, John, and Andy, the youngest. Andy Warhol would become one of the world’s most prolific artists whose work crossed borders of medium and sensibility throughout his life: from photography to illustration, painting to film, advertisement to the avant-garde. Julia’s naturalization certificate is on display on the seventh floor of The Andy Warhol Museum, the largest museum dedicated to his art and its influence.