- April 19, 2024
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If you met Jonah Best on the street, you wouldn’t think he was any different than your average American.
He drives a big truck, speaks like an American and has a deep love for the game of football — American football, as to not be confused.
Those simple facts — especially the way he speaks — are what throw people off when he tells people that he isn’t originally from the United States.
“That’s probably the question I get asked the most — why I don’t have an accent,” said Jonah Best, a Windermere resident who was born in Scotland. “But my parents do and my brother does.”
The hilarity of the situation isn’t lost on his mom — it’s something she recognized long ago when they first moved to the United States.
“You would have never known from talking to him that he wasn’t American, would you?” said Sarah Best, Jonah Best’s mom. “That’s what I always thought was so funny, because out of all of us he sounded like an American within five minutes of getting here and loved all of the American stuff.”
Despite living here in the U.S. for around 10 years, Jonah Best and his family were simply permanent residents. He and his siblings were born just outside of Glasgow, Scotland, while Sarah Best is English and their dad, David Best, is Scottish.
But the Bests’ living status changed on Nov. 7 when they arrived at a naturalization ceremony, where Sarah and David Best took the Oath of Allegiance, while Jonah Best and his sister watched on with the rest of the crowd there.
Though they were not participating, Jonah Best and his sister — due to being minors — were automatically naturalized alongside their parents.
“It was really crazy — the word that I’d use to describe it best is ‘proud,’” Jonah Best said. “I was proud that we were able to do this, and it was just a huge moment because we have lived here for so long.”
There were a lot of reasons why the decision to become naturalized was made, but one of the biggest, Sarah Best said, was because she knew how big it would be for her son.
“For me, it was very momentous because it means a lot for Jonah,” Sarah Best said. “He identifies as American — he wants to live here, he wants to participate in everything here and we wanted to make that as feasible as possible for him.”
The process to give Jonah Best the citizenship he had always wanted was relatively quick, which came as a total surprise, Sarah Best said.
It takes a good while to get all the paperwork and information in order to apply, and then there’s the wait that can take years and years. For David and Sarah Best, it took less than a year.
The interviews and tests that they needed to take were done the Monday before the naturalization ceremony.
“It was kind of crazy, because we weren’t expecting to get it that fast, because it’s a super long process for a lot of people,” Jonah Best said. “We only applied early 2019, because it was kind of mostly for me — for college stuff and the possibility of going into the military.”
Though he spent his early childhood close to Glasgow, Jonah Best never cared much for soccer.
In fact, it wasn’t until the Best family moved to Singapore — after living in the U.S for three years — when Jonah Best found the first sport he actively participated in: rugby.
“We went to an international school, so we had people from all over — I had friends in Singapore who were from the U.S. and the U.K.,” Jonah Best said. “A couple of my buddies and I, we figured one day we would go out and try out for the rugby team. We just went out there and had a lot of fun.”
Jonah Best would take his time in rugby to heart, and when he and his family moved back to the States just before he started eighth grade at Windermere Prep, he decided to give football a shot since it was similar to rugby.
To say things started off well for Jonah Best on the team is an understatement.
“I came to the summer workouts and practiced with the middle-school team, and that was the start of the whole thing,” Jonah Best said. “And that year we had a lot of fun, because we were really good as an eighth-grade team. That kind of propelled me into high-school football.”
Since then, Jonah Best has found a place as a starter on the offensive and defensive lines, where his work ethic, performance and leadership earned him captain honors this past season.
Though his football career is now done, Jonah Best will be back on the field in the spring — this time for lacrosse and throwing shot put. After graduating, he plans on going to either Florida State University or University of Central Florida to study information technology or computer engineering.
While sports — especially football — have been a huge part of his life, nothing has been bigger than the opportunity to pursue his dreams in the country that he can now officially call home.
“I love this country,” Jonah Best said. “(It’s) just the symbolism of becoming a part of this country that I have lived in for so long, and that I care about so much.”
