(NOTE: The following is the first post in an intended “reboot” of this blog. My intention is to post new items quasi-weekly.)
“We love it where we from, but we kick it where we at.” – Digable Planets
Recently I have had occasion to look over my birth papers. I say “papers” because I have more than the standard one-page birth certificate. I was born in England to Americans, so I am a citizen of both countries. This relatively simple idea is upheld by a webwork of national and international law, and lots of government forms in which the details of my nationality are laid out. I want to talk about American citizenship in particular, as it’s become an important topic these days.
Among my papers, one of the more interesting items (to me) is the US State Department “Report of Birth Abroad.” No, it’s not my American birth certificate; I have one, but that came later. This is Form FS-240, signed by the American consul at the time, that announces my existence and asserts the rights to citizenship on my behalf. It enumerates a few responsibilities as well, but it’s mostly about my rights.
The legal principles are relatively easy to understand. It is worded very strongly, and is phrased to be inclusive rather than exclusive. It always makes my heart beat a little faster to read it, because it says explicitly that America wants me and considers me one of its own. It says that my American citizenship is MINE – more than a diplomatic nicety between countries, and not simply a privilege that could be given or taken away at someone else’s whim. It’s part of me at birth, like my fingers and toes.
The part of the document that refers specifically to me is only the first page, but the whole thing is three pages long, because unlike a lot of government forms, it is rendered in normal-sized print — perhaps not large enough for a king to read without his spectacles, but big enough.
These aren’t special laws that apply only to me — they’re the same laws that made you a citizen if you were born in America. I think most of us have the luxury of not having to think about the nature of our own citizenship – until recently, I didn’t much – but I invite you to read those laws. They’re a real eye-opener.
Whenever people start talking about immigration, I pay attention, because immigration is a more recent chapter in my family’s history than it is for most people. My grandparents came to this country in the 1950s, and became naturalized citizens partly through a sponsorship program that made them little more than sharecroppers until they could earn their way free. They spoke English with heavy accents their whole lives, and never completely got the hang of American slang and expressions. My Dad’s first language wasn’t English, although you’d never mistake him for anything but American-born to hear him speak. I can hear the slightest trace of an accent in only a handful of words, but let’s face it: words like “Weimaraner” and “marzipan” don’t typically come up in everyday conversation. Even if you heard him say them, you might just put it down to the little variations in speech we all have. I can hear it because he’s my Dad, and we’ve exchanged millions of words (well, perhaps not that many).
Dad was naturalized on his way back from Vietnam. At the time there was a draft, and he might have pointed to his birth certificate and refused to go, but he enlisted voluntarily without being drafted, took up arms and defended – if not actually American soil or freedom, at least his fellow service members – all before becoming a citizen. Although the military streamlined the naturalization process, I don’t think I’d call it an easy path to citizenship.
I myself was born an ocean away. I’m the third generation of that branch of my family to live in America, but I’m also the third generation to be born somewhere else. When people talk about “rounding them up and sending them back,” I usually speak up and say, “What about me? I’m an immigrant.”
Often, the subject changes. Occasionally, they’ll say something to the effect that I’m different, I’m an exception: we’re “some of the good ones.” I usually drop it at that point rather than starting an argument that will achieve nothing, but I definitely hear the rest of what they mean, whether or not they say it out loud: I’m white. I speak English with an American accent. I don’t “act foreign” (whatever that means), and I’m from a country that Americans mostly like.
Do I consider myself American, or English? Yes. On one hand, I grew up in the States, went to school here, and participated in the culture and traditions of this country. At the same time, my first and most formative memories are of England. I remember English life, English people, English food, even English TV and radio shows. England shaped a lot of my sensibilities. When something important happens in the UK — Brexit, the London subway bombings, the death of Queen Elizabeth II — I feel it as strongly as any British citizen. And when I go back, it’s more than a vacation; on some level, it feels somehow perfectly right that I should be there. Despite the fact that it’s not currently my home, it still feels very much like my country.
Dual citizenship means that, unlike someone who has gone through the long, arduous, and (very) expensive process of naturalization, I never had to renounce the country where I was born. I thank God for that, because although my family and friends are here, I have always felt allegiance to both of my countries.
I think a lot of immigrants feel the same way to some extent. We love America and what it’s supposed to stand for, and we’re happy to be here, but we still love our first home, wherever it might have been. And we can honestly talk about the strengths and the shortcomings of both places. We can be patriots, but not nationalists.
American citizenship is a fantastic thing. By that I mean that, regardless of how you feel about America, or the ways in which you may feel that America does or does not live up to the principles on which it’s founded, the way our citizenship works is truly special. Believe me (or feel free to find out yourself), citizenship definitely does not work the same way in all countries, and you can understand why American citizenship would be something that people would work so hard and sacrifice so much to get.
By being a citizen, you get everything in the Constitution. It doesn’t matter whether you were naturalized last week, or if your family came over on the Mayflower (or indeed, the Concepción) – you get the same rights. That’s pretty special. In a lot of countries, simply earning the right to live there doesn’t give you the right to become a citizen. In some places, even becoming naturalized doesn’t give you the same rights as someone native-born. Check out Japan’s immigration rules if you don’t believe me.
Every time there’s an election these days, we hear people of every political persuasion say that if it goes this way or that, they’ll “just move to Canada.” I don’t want to get into all the reasons why that’s wrong, but to me it reveals a few things: a patronizing attitude about Canada’s sovereignty and borders, an arrogance about our importance to other countries, i.e. “who wouldn’t want us, after all?” and, tellingly, our own assumptions about citizenship and what getting it requires. Some of us have become very selective about who we want to let in, but expect the welcome mat out for ourselves everywhere else.
I never thought these facts would become a political hot button, but we’ve recently seen the foundations of American citizenship challenged like never before, and it’s been happening in the name of political expediency. In recent months, ICE has rounded up a lot of people. Admittedly, a few were criminals guilty of crimes that would get them deported from any country – cast a wide enough net, and you’re bound to sweep up a few of what you said you were after. Others were legally here until their visas ran out. Some were people who came into the country without documentation, or refugees from countries where they and their loved ones would be in danger if they returned. Some were refugees specifically because of service performed for the United States: translators and interpreters for our troops during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some were already on their way to becoming naturalized, but not citizens yet – you have to live here for a number of years (usually three to five, but it varies) before you’re even eligible to apply for citizenship. Many others were people who would have loved to go through the proper channels, but lacked the money, time, or legal counsel to do so, and were afraid to ask for these things because of the political climate.
ICE has also rounded up and “deported” (perhaps the proper term would be “exported”) people who were already naturalized, who took the oath at the end of that years-long process and became citizens. They made a covenant with this nation, renounced forever their allegiance to the country they came from, swore to uphold and defend the United States with their lives if necessary, and someone decided that it wasn’t good enough.
It doesn’t even stop there. ICE has also detained and shipped off quite a few people who were born here, with those exact same rights of citizenship, who have never been citizens of any other place. People, in other words, as American as anybody.
If they can do it to them, they can do it to me.
They can do it to you.
