“Traveling mercies” is an expression, a wish for grace to follow you when you go off traveling somewhere. It is also the title of a book by Anne Lamott, subtitled Some Thoughts on Faith. I do not pretend to write like Anne Lamott but I have been struggling to articulate something that goes a little outside the normal fare even of The Discreet Traveler. (If you would rather skip all this, there's a colorful infographic posted below--all neat facts.)
This post has to do with how we are in the world, no matter where we travel or whom we meet. It is a vision TDT holds for how we could think, and act, as we make our journeys, not only across the globe but—perhaps—through life.
That vision requires messiness. This beautiful world we travel has horrible things in it and there are no neat answers. We need messy thinking, a messy frame of mind. Allowing for contradictions and questions we cannot answer.
I hope my readers can bear with my examples of too much neatness, some of which may sound like an indictment of particular individuals. They are not meant to be; they are meant to indict all of us, at times, as human beings. Every one of us can, or should be able to, recognize times when we have taken the neat way, rather than the messy way.
It is neat to know that something is wrong, not because of facts or a consistent moral position, but just because it was done by Barack Obama. Or George W. Bush. Or Margaret Thatcher. It is neat to know instantly what to think about a difficult decision based solely on who made it.
It is neat to be able to judge how a nation should defend itself, without even mentioning civilians on the other side. There are, on this World Wide Web of ours, supposedly Christian comments about the Gaza situation in which it appears that Palestinian lives are utterly valueless. There are also comments about the situation with a tin ear as to anti-Semitism, as to the fear that encircles the lives of Jews in countries other than Israel. It is neat to think so completely on one side or the other of this psychological wall.
It is neat not to know, or care, anything about the historical context of a messy situation. To regard each act of gun violence in the U.S., whether it’s white kids shot in an elementary school or black kids shot by police, as its own rather commonplace event, that doesn’t stem from anything systemic.
It is neat to have an opinion about immigrants that is uninformed by the experience of previous immigrants or, indeed, one’s own family. To say of terrified people in a shipping container, "Ship 'em back" or even "Seal it up and leave it!" To fear that Spanish speakers, or brown people, or mosques are coming to “swamp” your country, but exempt the people from whom you are descended. It is neat not to think about how the Native American Indians must have felt, on the receiving end of dispossession. Or the Celts.
It is neat to know, based on something in the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament or the Qur’an, exactly what political or military decisions should be made today. It is neat to so completely conflate religious heritage with secular government. It is especially neat to give such life-or-death importance to one verse—in Genesis or Leviticus or Romans—that you can overlook hundreds, or thousands, of other verses that might challenge you with a higher value.
It is messy to negotiate the contradictions of your many identities: as the citizen of a nation or nations, as a follower of one religion or no religion, as a heterosexual person or a queer person or a person who is past all those labels. It is messy to condemn violence, to abhor the consequences of certain beliefs, while still acknowledging the value that those beliefs have for others. It is messy to acknowledge where those values even overlap with your own.
It is messy to love. To love a person is messy, because there is so much about each of is that is unlovable, or unlovable from time to time. To love a country is messy for the same reason. Or to love a city, or a neighborhood. To love an institution for which one has worked. To love one’s brothers, brothers in arms, brothers in Christ. Love is messy.
Last week a friend was speaking about the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It was said by Jesus in Matthew 7:12; he probably knew the earlier version from a conversation between the rabbinic sages Hillel and Shammai. The story goes that a Gentile came to both and asked to be taught the whole Torah while standing on one leg. Shammai saw this as a provocation, and whacked him angrily with a measuring rod. But Hillel replied, “That which is hateful to you, do not unto another: This is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary — [and now] go study.”
Every sura of the Qur’an begins with words that translate in English as “In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate.” There are lots of other words that could have been about Allah, but in the Prophet Muhammad’s recitation, mercy and compassion were given top priority.
My friend reminded me that the Golden Rule is the overarching message—though as Hillel said, there is plenty else to study, and to comment on. The Golden Rule is simple to understand, hard to practice. But what a difference it would make if we all practiced it, first, and then got around to arguing about the other stuff.
The Golden Rule is a lot of hard work; it is messy, but it is still golden. And the fact that we human beings honor it mostly in the breach does not make it any less of a rule.
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Infographic: Second Passport by Descent
This graphic was passed on to me--it looks cool and may provide useful information to some of you.
Please include attribution to FreePeopleSearch.org with this graphic.
Friday, June 20, 2014
Every state line
Thank you, readers, for your comments. One of you has asked what The Discreet Traveler thinks about the irony that same-sex marriage is now recognized by the U.S. government, but not by many state governments. The bewildering array of state laws and the layers of state vs. federal government confuse even Americans. But never fear—TDT is here to be your guide.
The clue to American history is in the name of the country: The United States of America. Historically, the nation was a federation of states, former British colonies, and the individual states have been very wary of ceding their powers to the federal government. The U.S. Constitution, minimally amended since 1789, clearly lays out the powers of the states, including any government power not explicitly granted to the federal government. This is why, for example, the upper house of Congress (the Senate) has two senators from each state, no matter the relative size or population of the states.
If you’ve seen enough American movies, you’ll have seen wedding scenes where the minister, or other officiant, says, “By the power vested in me by the State of New York—” or wherever. States are responsible for most family law, including marriage licenses. And those jurisdictions’ laws vary. Nevada, for instance, famously has no residency or advance requirements for getting married in that state, hence all those movies with impulsive Las Vegas weddings.
In a sense, there is no national U.S. law recognizing marriage. The U.S. simply recognizes marriages that have been performed in various jurisdictions, whether those are states, territories, or outside the U.S.
The federal government rarely intervenes in the definition of marriage, but on certain historic occasions, it has. One was in 1967, the Supreme Court ruling Loving v. Virginia. In this case a loving couple—famously named Loving—sued Virginia for sentencing them to prison for the crime of marrying each other. Because Richard Loving was a man classified as “white” and Mildred Loving a woman classified as “colored” by the state*, Virginia said their marriage was illegal, even though they had been married in a different jurisdiction (Washington, D.C.)
The U.S. Constitution has another important principle, which is that a contract under the law of one jurisdiction is binding in all other states—a principle that Virginia was clearly violating. The case went to the judicial branch of the federal government, the Supreme Court, which ruled that “anti-miscegenation” laws such as Virginia’s were racist, and that people’s right to marry could not be infringed by the state in such a way. Those laws still on the books in other states became unenforceable, because interracial marriages were now recognized at the national level.
Loving v. Virginia is an enormously important precedent for marriage equality, and in recent years Mildred publicly pointed this out herself (Richard died in 1975). But the legislative and executive branches of the federal government overstepped their constitutional bounds in 1996. That year, Congress passed the “Defense of Marriage” Act, and President Clinton signed it into law. DOMA’s section 2 says that no state is required to recognize a same-sex marriage performed by another state. Section 3, the part that was ruled unconstitutional in 2013, said that the federal government only recognizes “marriage” as meaning between a man and a woman, and only recognizes “spouse” as meaning someone of the opposite sex.
(If you think section 2 sounds at least as unconstitutional as section 3, you have a point! States are required by the Constitution to recognize each other’s contracts, but the Supreme Court did not address this issue in the 2013 ruling. We’ll get back to this.)
In 1996 when DOMA was passed, no state allowed same-sex marriage; the law was a pre-emptive measure. But then same-sex U.S. couples began getting married in other countries, notably Canada from 2003. Historically, a couple married elsewhere in the world is considered married in the U.S. without having to get married all over again, but DOMA made same-sex couples an exception. And from 2004, individual states, beginning with Massachusetts, began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples too.
Suddenly, couples found themselves married for state purposes, but not federal. This created some absurd situations. For example, most states have state income tax, meaning Americans have to file both a federal tax return and a return for their state. The state taxes are based on the federal return, so the federal has to be filled out first. But because of DOMA, a person in a state with same-sex marriage had to fill out her federal tax return (according to which she was not married), followed by a “phantom” federal return as if she was married, in order to be able to complete her state tax return according to which she was married!
When the Supreme Court overturned section 3 of DOMA one year ago, all that changed. Now, if you’re married anywhere the federal government (including for tax purposes) agrees that you are. Essentially, the burden of deciding who is married was shifted back to the states, where it always belonged. But because the Court ruling did not overturn DOMA section 2, states can still refuse to recognize each other’s marriage contracts. There is as yet no national requirement to recognize same-sex marriages everywhere, as with Loving v. Virginia.
This leads to the absurdity of a cross-country trip where a couple is or is not married, every time they cross a different state line. To be sure, this is better than the previous situation, where a state could grant a marriage license but it didn’t have any federal “teeth.” Most notably, because immigration law is a federal matter, it makes all the difference to binational couples that the federal government now recognizes them as married. And if an American couple still lives in a state that doesn’t recognize their marriage, it is a lot more feasible for them to move to a friendlier state than it is to emigrate to another country!
It’s an absurd situation, but a familiar one from U.S. history. Black citizens used to have to worry about “Jim Crow” segregation laws when they crossed into certain states. Before that, of course, was the even more infamous era of “slave” vs. “free” states, where on one side of a state line a black person was just property, to be captured and returned to his owner or sold.
The shifting legal balance isn’t necessarily a social one. I don’t remember Canada in 2003 having a province-by-province fight, or demonstrators claiming that same-sex marriage would destroy the Canadian way of life. (In my view, it is the Canadian way of life.) But the U.S. is a very different country. At one level, it's fifty different countries.
The states, and the American people, remain far from united.
*Although Mildred Loving is often referred to as a “black woman,” she was in fact of mixed African–American and American Indian descent (Rappahannock nation). The point was that it mattered to Virginia that she wasn't white.
The clue to American history is in the name of the country: The United States of America. Historically, the nation was a federation of states, former British colonies, and the individual states have been very wary of ceding their powers to the federal government. The U.S. Constitution, minimally amended since 1789, clearly lays out the powers of the states, including any government power not explicitly granted to the federal government. This is why, for example, the upper house of Congress (the Senate) has two senators from each state, no matter the relative size or population of the states.
If you’ve seen enough American movies, you’ll have seen wedding scenes where the minister, or other officiant, says, “By the power vested in me by the State of New York—” or wherever. States are responsible for most family law, including marriage licenses. And those jurisdictions’ laws vary. Nevada, for instance, famously has no residency or advance requirements for getting married in that state, hence all those movies with impulsive Las Vegas weddings.
In a sense, there is no national U.S. law recognizing marriage. The U.S. simply recognizes marriages that have been performed in various jurisdictions, whether those are states, territories, or outside the U.S.
The federal government rarely intervenes in the definition of marriage, but on certain historic occasions, it has. One was in 1967, the Supreme Court ruling Loving v. Virginia. In this case a loving couple—famously named Loving—sued Virginia for sentencing them to prison for the crime of marrying each other. Because Richard Loving was a man classified as “white” and Mildred Loving a woman classified as “colored” by the state*, Virginia said their marriage was illegal, even though they had been married in a different jurisdiction (Washington, D.C.)
The U.S. Constitution has another important principle, which is that a contract under the law of one jurisdiction is binding in all other states—a principle that Virginia was clearly violating. The case went to the judicial branch of the federal government, the Supreme Court, which ruled that “anti-miscegenation” laws such as Virginia’s were racist, and that people’s right to marry could not be infringed by the state in such a way. Those laws still on the books in other states became unenforceable, because interracial marriages were now recognized at the national level.
Loving v. Virginia is an enormously important precedent for marriage equality, and in recent years Mildred publicly pointed this out herself (Richard died in 1975). But the legislative and executive branches of the federal government overstepped their constitutional bounds in 1996. That year, Congress passed the “Defense of Marriage” Act, and President Clinton signed it into law. DOMA’s section 2 says that no state is required to recognize a same-sex marriage performed by another state. Section 3, the part that was ruled unconstitutional in 2013, said that the federal government only recognizes “marriage” as meaning between a man and a woman, and only recognizes “spouse” as meaning someone of the opposite sex.
(If you think section 2 sounds at least as unconstitutional as section 3, you have a point! States are required by the Constitution to recognize each other’s contracts, but the Supreme Court did not address this issue in the 2013 ruling. We’ll get back to this.)
In 1996 when DOMA was passed, no state allowed same-sex marriage; the law was a pre-emptive measure. But then same-sex U.S. couples began getting married in other countries, notably Canada from 2003. Historically, a couple married elsewhere in the world is considered married in the U.S. without having to get married all over again, but DOMA made same-sex couples an exception. And from 2004, individual states, beginning with Massachusetts, began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples too.
Suddenly, couples found themselves married for state purposes, but not federal. This created some absurd situations. For example, most states have state income tax, meaning Americans have to file both a federal tax return and a return for their state. The state taxes are based on the federal return, so the federal has to be filled out first. But because of DOMA, a person in a state with same-sex marriage had to fill out her federal tax return (according to which she was not married), followed by a “phantom” federal return as if she was married, in order to be able to complete her state tax return according to which she was married!
When the Supreme Court overturned section 3 of DOMA one year ago, all that changed. Now, if you’re married anywhere the federal government (including for tax purposes) agrees that you are. Essentially, the burden of deciding who is married was shifted back to the states, where it always belonged. But because the Court ruling did not overturn DOMA section 2, states can still refuse to recognize each other’s marriage contracts. There is as yet no national requirement to recognize same-sex marriages everywhere, as with Loving v. Virginia.
This leads to the absurdity of a cross-country trip where a couple is or is not married, every time they cross a different state line. To be sure, this is better than the previous situation, where a state could grant a marriage license but it didn’t have any federal “teeth.” Most notably, because immigration law is a federal matter, it makes all the difference to binational couples that the federal government now recognizes them as married. And if an American couple still lives in a state that doesn’t recognize their marriage, it is a lot more feasible for them to move to a friendlier state than it is to emigrate to another country!
It’s an absurd situation, but a familiar one from U.S. history. Black citizens used to have to worry about “Jim Crow” segregation laws when they crossed into certain states. Before that, of course, was the even more infamous era of “slave” vs. “free” states, where on one side of a state line a black person was just property, to be captured and returned to his owner or sold.
The shifting legal balance isn’t necessarily a social one. I don’t remember Canada in 2003 having a province-by-province fight, or demonstrators claiming that same-sex marriage would destroy the Canadian way of life. (In my view, it is the Canadian way of life.) But the U.S. is a very different country. At one level, it's fifty different countries.
The states, and the American people, remain far from united.
*Although Mildred Loving is often referred to as a “black woman,” she was in fact of mixed African–American and American Indian descent (Rappahannock nation). The point was that it mattered to Virginia that she wasn't white.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
The customer is always wrong
Every once in a while The Discreet Traveler rants. What follows, though, is supposed to be humorous. I am sending up the country I happen to live in, but if I traveled through yours, sooner or later I would have something to say about that place too. Enjoy.
In the U.S.A., there used to be a saying that "The customer is always right." I don't know if anyone else remembers that saying now, let alone lives by it, but it's an American saying. And every once in a while, no matter how long I've lived "abroad," I find myself getting all American and writing obnoxious letters of complaint. Because if the saying was ever true in the United States, it is pretty much unknown outside.
Twenty years ago, when I lived for some months in Great Britain, I wrote a little piece called "The customer is always wrong." (It was meant as entertainment, too.) I had a whole host of little anecdotes like the one that follows, but this one happened only last month. Picture the scene: It is midday, a beautiful sunny day, about 60 degrees Fahrenheit (see, I'm getting American). A van with the words HOT DOGS printed prominently on the side is open for business. Lest there be any mistake, a sign propped outside the van--obviously put out this morning--also proclaims HOT DOGS for sale.
Nonetheless, there are no cooking smells, and I approach the van with caution. I have learned to expect to have to ask:
"Do you have hot dogs?"
Now, let's leave aside that "hot dogs" means something very different in England than it does in America. I do know this. I don't expect the same experience in a different country than I would have at "home." What I do, partly, still expect is that the merchandise for sale in a place might match what it says on the tin (as the British themselves say).
"No," the saleswoman tells me (I have to say, with a look of some incredulity). "We don't have hot food." Then, by way of explanation, "It's hot."
Now first of all, it is by no stretch of even the British imagination "hot." It is warm enough not to wear a jacket, but that is another matter. Second--did no one ever eat hot dogs in hot weather? One might rather ask, when else would one eat them?
"Well it's just that--" I gesture to the words HOT DOGS permanently imprinted on the van, but it's no use.
"You're the first person today who's asked for hot food," she adds, almost reproachfully.
Yeah, but there's still the temporary sign. You'd think at least that bit of false advertising might not have been set out for the day, or that a bit of paper might have been stuck over the words HOT DOGS--something. But no, the saleswoman would rather apologize, not just to me, but (as I hear) to each subsequent customer who also asks for the products she does not have for sale.
"You're the first person today who's asked for hot food," she adds, almost reproachfully.
Yeah, but there's still the temporary sign. You'd think at least that bit of false advertising might not have been set out for the day, or that a bit of paper might have been stuck over the words HOT DOGS--something. But no, the saleswoman would rather apologize, not just to me, but (as I hear) to each subsequent customer who also asks for the products she does not have for sale.
It happens. It happens a lot. I, culturally, would much rather cross out the sign than have to keep apologizing--or hey, sell my products! But the hot dog incident pales by comparison to what followed a few days later, and unlike this poor non-hot-dog lady, this is a named business that is trading on its brand.
So I am going to name names here: The Globe Theatre. Shakespeare's Globe. Audience full every performance, visitors from around the world. Antony and Cleopatra and, as luck would have it, the poor actor playing Antony is sick. So far, out of the theatre's control.
Now, what I would expect to happen in this instance, and what has happened numerous times at plays I've attended in my life, is some hardworking young actor (probably paid a pittance) has understudied not only Antony's but another couple of parts. He gets his big break, steps into the role of Antony, and the audience applauds. Win, win.
Not at the Globe though. No, the Globe has no understudy. No one? Not even for Antony, the lead role?
What they do instead is ask another actor, who obviously knows but has not memorized the part, to read it from a pile of paper, complete with yellow highlighting. And so we are treated to the (admittedly well-blocked) spectacle of Antony running about with these notes in his hand, which he reads from as he sword-fights, as he kisses Cleopatra...even, most memorably, as he dies. There lies Antony, shuffling up the ramp, reading his dying lines as he shoves the paperwork before him towards the stage.
You couldn't make it up, or possibly have predicted such a fiasco--I thought. I was not even wholly surprised, though disappointed, that the audience was offered nothing at all in light of this disappointing performance--no discount on tickets or even merchandise in the shop. Oh well, perhaps it was hot dogs and they didn't have any either.
But when I wrote my (very American) letter of complaint later, what did I get? The policy of the Globe is not to have understudies. Surely I (the customer) can appreciate this. The Globe is a charity.
Now, I know what this means. The definition of "charity" in Great Britain is incredibly broad; it emphatically does not mean do-gooders. You could be raking in millions of pounds in profit and still be a charity, as long as your ends are artistic or something like that. So no, I do not appreciate this. A professional theatre company without understudies? How often do they expect such substandard performances?
And did I get a £3 token or the kind of thing I might expect to get even from the tightest of British businesses? No, twenty years has rendered even those gestures too generous. I am only a customer, after all, who paid for my tickets (not cheap, by the way). I should be supporting the "charity" that is the world famous, name-brand Shakespeare's Globe.
I should be grateful this has-been hot dog stand was offering any product at all.
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
My writing process
Today I'm taking a different
kind of tour—the #MyWritingProcess blog tour. I was generously tagged by Cheri Crystal,
author of the forthcoming novella Across
the Pond and many other entertaining, sexy stories. You can find her at http://chericrystal.com. Authors blog about
their writing process and then tag someone else to do the same. We all answer
the same four questions. Hope you enjoy.
#1 What am I working on?
I am at work on my third novel. The main character is a young woman called Spark who
keeps falling for the wrong person, but that is the least of her problems. Her
father, grandmother, and best friend are each struggling with a different
health crisis, and the only thing that gets Spark through is music.
#2 How does my work differ from others in the same
genre?
If the genre is “lesbian
fiction,” my work tends to the more mainstream or general fiction end of that
spectrum. There is same-sex desire in most of my fiction, but in the
novels, I tend to work best with a variety of characters, including male
characters. There are certainly other writers who deal with some of the same
themes I do, such as family, spiritual faith, and humor! But I try to make a
contribution that is a little bit unique.
#3 Why do I write what I do?
Writing is a habit and if
I don’t write, I get withdrawal—it’s part of my life. But once I create
characters, I care about them as if they were real people, and my aim is to get
that across to my readers. When readers say they were moved by something I
wrote or it made them think or made them laugh—that is the best feeling. I love
that experience as a reader, and so I love to share it with others.
#4 How does my writing process work?
I write best in a kind of
half-conscious flow, before I can start self-editing and blocking myself from
just getting it all out on paper. And paper it is—I write with a pencil,
ideally before I’ve turned on a computer at all, as early in the day as
possible. I do sketch out plot ideas and have some idea where the story is
going, but that’s only a guide. I listen to music the whole time. Only at the
rewriting stage do I start putting a version of those paper drafts into typed
form, so I can share them with my writing group and get their help.
The “Reading” page at jeknowles.com has published stories that you
can read for free. There are also links to my books, and a contact page,
because I always love to hear what others are reading. Thanks!
J. E. Knowles is the author of The Trees in the Field and Arusha, a 2010 Lambda Literary Award
finalist, and editor of Faith in Writing.
She also blogs at The Discreet Traveler: jeknowles.blogspot.com
Next up, we’re keeping it in Canada! Here are a
couple of terrific writers you should read:
Liz Bugg (lizbugg.com) is a Toronto-based writer best known for her Calli Barnow
mystery series. Her first novel, Red Rover, won a Goldie Award for Debut Author
from the Golden Crown Literary Society, and Yellow Vengeance is short-listed for
this year's Goldies in the Mystery/Thriller category. Liz also writes short
stories, and is presently working on a novel based on the life of her
grandmother.
Nadine LaPierre (nadinelapierre.com) is a
playwright, novelist, and composer. Her novel The Slayer, is the first in a mystery-thriller series set in
Halifax, Nova Scotia, and featuring Constable Danielle Renaud, an officer of
the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Her follow-up, Verity, is coming soon.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Dual nationality: Frequently asked questions
The most helpful and comprehensive information I’ve ever found about dual citizenship is at
http://www.richw.org/dualcit/
Rich Wales goes into more detail and with legal references. Although his site has not been updated since 2011, the fundamental information remains useful and clearly presented. One caveat is that it is U.S.-specific—it is very informative for Americans, less so if you’re not interested in U.S. citizenship.
Here are TDT’s answers to questions that seem to come up often about dual citizenship.
• What is dual citizenship?
Dual citizenship means holding the citizenship of two countries at the same time. I use “dual citizenship” to mean multiple citizenship—these answers are the same even if a person holds three or more citizenships at the same time.
Dual citizenship is not a special status in itself. A citizen of country A is just like any other citizen of A, and if she is also a citizen of B, then country B will treat her just like any other citizen. There is no world authority that administers dual citizenship, and no form to fill out for it.
• How does this happen?
Every country has its own rules defining who is and is not its citizen. Those rules are made independently by each country, regardless of other countries’ rules. When, for any number of reasons, the rules of country A define you as its citizen and the rules of country B also define you as its citizen, citizenships overlap, and you have both.
• Surely “where are you from?” isn’t a difficult question—a person can only be born in one place.
True, but it’s not only birth that leads to citizenship, and it’s not only where you are born that can count:
1. A person can gain citizenship by birth in several ways. Some (not most) countries define you as a citizen if you were born there (U.S.A.). Some define you as a citizen if you were born there, but with caveats (your parents have to be settled there and not just visiting, for example) (Britain). And some say that you are born with their citizenship because your parents or even grandparents were citizens, even though you were born somewhere else. In this last example, you could be born a dual citizen—if you have an American mother who’s settled in Britain, married to your British father, you have both citizenships from birth.
2. A person can also gain citizenship later in life, by naturalizing. If you immigrate to a new country and settle there, eventually you may be eligible to apply for citizenship. Unless your country of citizenship by birth has a law taking citizenship away if you become the citizen of another country (a few countries do have this rule), you are now a citizen of both. Even if your new country (the U.S. for example) requires an oath saying that you are no longer a citizen of any other countries, in practice, your old country may not recognize this oath as having any value (why would it care about U.S. citizenship laws?) In this case, you are still a citizen of both countries.
• But that’s wrong, isn’t it? I mean how can you be loyal to two different countries? What if they went to war with one another?
Whether it’s wrong or not is a personal decision and depends what loyalty means to you. It also depends on how likely the two countries are to go to war with each other, and what the practical effect would be. For some people, dual citizenship might be an advantage, for others a disadvantage. In today’s world, many people retain strong attachments to one country—family, grew up there, etc.—but actually live in another country because of their work or because their spouse is from there. They want to be full participants in the society where they actually live, without giving up their roots in a different society.
In terms of personal identity, what nationality means to you and how you identify will depend on a lot of things, not just citizenship. An Italian–American may qualify for Italian citizenship and be proud of her Italian heritage, while still being American! This is an easier concept for immigrant-based cultures, like Canada and the U.S., than it is in Old World cultures.
• Still, you’re really only one or the other, right?
Legally, each country of your citizenship will treat you only as its citizen. So if you’re both an American and a British citizen, America will regard you as American alone (like any other American citizen), and Britain will regard you as British alone. You can’t go to the British embassy in America and claim help if you violate American laws, for example. As a general rule, if you are in a country you’re a citizen of, that country’s laws take priority—it has a stronger claim on you. If you’re in a third country, again as a general rule, you identify yourself by the passport you use to enter that country.
• So it turns out I’m eligible for another citizenship. What should I do?
Find out whether holding the other citizenship (B) will cause conflicts with the country you’re a citizen of now (A). Is A one of those countries that takes away your citizenship if you acquire another? Will B require you to do something onerous, like military service in the old country? If there are no such pitfalls, decide whether the advantages of dual citizenship (see below) outweigh the possible disadvantages. Once you decide what’s right for your case, there is usually an application process before you actually acquire the other citizenship—either by naturalizing or by proving you’re entitled to it by birth.
• Right, so I’m a dual citizen now. Do I need to get a passport from my new country, and travel with it?
Not necessarily. A passport is just a travel document, not citizenship. People with no plans to travel outside the country they live in often don’t have a passport at all. On the other hand, if you have ties to another country where you might have to travel at short notice—relatives there, for instance—it’s wise to keep an up-to-date passport at all times.
• So which passport should I use?
This depends on your travel requirements. U.S. law, for example, requires anyone who is a U.S. citizen to travel to and from the U.S. with a U.S. passport (regardless of any other citizenships that person may have). So an American who lives or travels abroad really needs an American passport. If your country has a similar requirement and you plan to travel there, then get a passport from that country. Usually, a passport is also the best way to establish that you’re entitled to live and work in that country and stay indefinitely, without any visa restrictions. But not always. British citizens, for example, are not required to travel on British passports, and can get a certificate in another passport showing that they have the “right of abode” in Britain. While this certificate is more expensive than a passport, and doesn’t confer the advantages of having a European Union passport in the rest of the EU, it is much quicker and less complicated to apply for than a first-time British passport.
• What are the advantages of dual citizenship?
Dual citizenship means you have the right to live, work, and stay indefinitely in more than one country, as well as to travel freely there. Unlike a foreign visitor, a citizen has the right to enter a country, and cannot be turned away at the border. For more on traveling with two passports, see "The A to B of traveling with two passports," below.
Quite apart from travel, citizenship also entitles you to participate fully in the life of a country, and if you have ties with more than one country, dual citizenship identifies you with both. For instance, it may give you the right to vote in the country where you live, as well as in elections “back home.” Citizenship means that you belong in a country. Unlike permanent residence or other visa status, it cannot usually be taken away, even if you live outside the country for years. (There can be exceptions, if you obtained the citizenship through fraud or committed a crime in the process, for example.)
• What are the possible disadvantages?
Some countries’ rules do cause conflicts, as already mentioned. Some countries restrict security clearances in the case of people with other citizenships; dual citizenship would therefore be a disadvantage if you wanted to apply for certain jobs. And, if you try for high office, you could have a political problem if your opponents tried to characterize you as disloyal (politicians not being constrained by the facts). Michaëlle Jean, the former Governor General of Canada, was criticized for being a dual citizen of Canada and France; her political opponents portrayed her French citizenship unfavorably, and eventually, she renounced it. (Most countries have a formal procedure for renouncing citizenship, rather than your automatically losing it. This is true for the U.S.—it is actually quite difficult for someone born with American citizenship to lose it, even if he wanted to.)
Also, be aware that obligations of one citizenship don’t go away just because you acquire another. The U.S. infamously requires its citizens to file tax forms every year, no matter what other citizenships they have or how long they’ve lived outside the U.S.
• I still don't get it. I get that some people may identify with two nationalities, but is there any justification for claiming a second citizenship, just because you are entitled to it?
This comes up in the media, often in regard to athletes who compete for a country other than the one they were born in. Sometimes this is politically dubious. Americans, for example, are happy to welcome athletes who defected from former communist bloc nations, but less happy to see athletes from the U.S. now competing for Russia.
However, there are circumstances where a second nationality, even if you wouldn’t otherwise claim it, can be of immense practical help. Suppose you lived in South Africa under apartheid, and because of ancestry, you were entitled to claim Irish citizenship. You might take the chance to start a new life in Ireland, rather than live under a system you found intolerable—even though you were still a proud South African. Or, although you are a proud Canadian, you have a British spouse, and are living together in Britain. In order to come and go without being subject to British immigration controls, you might choose to claim citizenship once entitled to it, without ever identifying as British.
These decisions don’t always make sense to others or to the wider public, but for personal reasons, they do. Wanting to live under a different type of government, or being married to a citizen, are convincing reasons to desire nationality. Those who disagree have perhaps always taken their own system for granted, or never fallen in love with a foreigner.
Enjoy your citizenship(s), whatever it or they may be. Enjoy your travels.
http://www.richw.org/dualcit/
Rich Wales goes into more detail and with legal references. Although his site has not been updated since 2011, the fundamental information remains useful and clearly presented. One caveat is that it is U.S.-specific—it is very informative for Americans, less so if you’re not interested in U.S. citizenship.
Here are TDT’s answers to questions that seem to come up often about dual citizenship.
• What is dual citizenship?
Dual citizenship means holding the citizenship of two countries at the same time. I use “dual citizenship” to mean multiple citizenship—these answers are the same even if a person holds three or more citizenships at the same time.
Dual citizenship is not a special status in itself. A citizen of country A is just like any other citizen of A, and if she is also a citizen of B, then country B will treat her just like any other citizen. There is no world authority that administers dual citizenship, and no form to fill out for it.
• How does this happen?
Every country has its own rules defining who is and is not its citizen. Those rules are made independently by each country, regardless of other countries’ rules. When, for any number of reasons, the rules of country A define you as its citizen and the rules of country B also define you as its citizen, citizenships overlap, and you have both.
• Surely “where are you from?” isn’t a difficult question—a person can only be born in one place.
True, but it’s not only birth that leads to citizenship, and it’s not only where you are born that can count:
1. A person can gain citizenship by birth in several ways. Some (not most) countries define you as a citizen if you were born there (U.S.A.). Some define you as a citizen if you were born there, but with caveats (your parents have to be settled there and not just visiting, for example) (Britain). And some say that you are born with their citizenship because your parents or even grandparents were citizens, even though you were born somewhere else. In this last example, you could be born a dual citizen—if you have an American mother who’s settled in Britain, married to your British father, you have both citizenships from birth.
2. A person can also gain citizenship later in life, by naturalizing. If you immigrate to a new country and settle there, eventually you may be eligible to apply for citizenship. Unless your country of citizenship by birth has a law taking citizenship away if you become the citizen of another country (a few countries do have this rule), you are now a citizen of both. Even if your new country (the U.S. for example) requires an oath saying that you are no longer a citizen of any other countries, in practice, your old country may not recognize this oath as having any value (why would it care about U.S. citizenship laws?) In this case, you are still a citizen of both countries.
• But that’s wrong, isn’t it? I mean how can you be loyal to two different countries? What if they went to war with one another?
Whether it’s wrong or not is a personal decision and depends what loyalty means to you. It also depends on how likely the two countries are to go to war with each other, and what the practical effect would be. For some people, dual citizenship might be an advantage, for others a disadvantage. In today’s world, many people retain strong attachments to one country—family, grew up there, etc.—but actually live in another country because of their work or because their spouse is from there. They want to be full participants in the society where they actually live, without giving up their roots in a different society.
In terms of personal identity, what nationality means to you and how you identify will depend on a lot of things, not just citizenship. An Italian–American may qualify for Italian citizenship and be proud of her Italian heritage, while still being American! This is an easier concept for immigrant-based cultures, like Canada and the U.S., than it is in Old World cultures.
• Still, you’re really only one or the other, right?
Legally, each country of your citizenship will treat you only as its citizen. So if you’re both an American and a British citizen, America will regard you as American alone (like any other American citizen), and Britain will regard you as British alone. You can’t go to the British embassy in America and claim help if you violate American laws, for example. As a general rule, if you are in a country you’re a citizen of, that country’s laws take priority—it has a stronger claim on you. If you’re in a third country, again as a general rule, you identify yourself by the passport you use to enter that country.
• So it turns out I’m eligible for another citizenship. What should I do?
Find out whether holding the other citizenship (B) will cause conflicts with the country you’re a citizen of now (A). Is A one of those countries that takes away your citizenship if you acquire another? Will B require you to do something onerous, like military service in the old country? If there are no such pitfalls, decide whether the advantages of dual citizenship (see below) outweigh the possible disadvantages. Once you decide what’s right for your case, there is usually an application process before you actually acquire the other citizenship—either by naturalizing or by proving you’re entitled to it by birth.
• Right, so I’m a dual citizen now. Do I need to get a passport from my new country, and travel with it?
Not necessarily. A passport is just a travel document, not citizenship. People with no plans to travel outside the country they live in often don’t have a passport at all. On the other hand, if you have ties to another country where you might have to travel at short notice—relatives there, for instance—it’s wise to keep an up-to-date passport at all times.
• So which passport should I use?
This depends on your travel requirements. U.S. law, for example, requires anyone who is a U.S. citizen to travel to and from the U.S. with a U.S. passport (regardless of any other citizenships that person may have). So an American who lives or travels abroad really needs an American passport. If your country has a similar requirement and you plan to travel there, then get a passport from that country. Usually, a passport is also the best way to establish that you’re entitled to live and work in that country and stay indefinitely, without any visa restrictions. But not always. British citizens, for example, are not required to travel on British passports, and can get a certificate in another passport showing that they have the “right of abode” in Britain. While this certificate is more expensive than a passport, and doesn’t confer the advantages of having a European Union passport in the rest of the EU, it is much quicker and less complicated to apply for than a first-time British passport.
• What are the advantages of dual citizenship?
Dual citizenship means you have the right to live, work, and stay indefinitely in more than one country, as well as to travel freely there. Unlike a foreign visitor, a citizen has the right to enter a country, and cannot be turned away at the border. For more on traveling with two passports, see "The A to B of traveling with two passports," below.
Quite apart from travel, citizenship also entitles you to participate fully in the life of a country, and if you have ties with more than one country, dual citizenship identifies you with both. For instance, it may give you the right to vote in the country where you live, as well as in elections “back home.” Citizenship means that you belong in a country. Unlike permanent residence or other visa status, it cannot usually be taken away, even if you live outside the country for years. (There can be exceptions, if you obtained the citizenship through fraud or committed a crime in the process, for example.)
• What are the possible disadvantages?
Some countries’ rules do cause conflicts, as already mentioned. Some countries restrict security clearances in the case of people with other citizenships; dual citizenship would therefore be a disadvantage if you wanted to apply for certain jobs. And, if you try for high office, you could have a political problem if your opponents tried to characterize you as disloyal (politicians not being constrained by the facts). Michaëlle Jean, the former Governor General of Canada, was criticized for being a dual citizen of Canada and France; her political opponents portrayed her French citizenship unfavorably, and eventually, she renounced it. (Most countries have a formal procedure for renouncing citizenship, rather than your automatically losing it. This is true for the U.S.—it is actually quite difficult for someone born with American citizenship to lose it, even if he wanted to.)
Also, be aware that obligations of one citizenship don’t go away just because you acquire another. The U.S. infamously requires its citizens to file tax forms every year, no matter what other citizenships they have or how long they’ve lived outside the U.S.
• I still don't get it. I get that some people may identify with two nationalities, but is there any justification for claiming a second citizenship, just because you are entitled to it?
This comes up in the media, often in regard to athletes who compete for a country other than the one they were born in. Sometimes this is politically dubious. Americans, for example, are happy to welcome athletes who defected from former communist bloc nations, but less happy to see athletes from the U.S. now competing for Russia.
However, there are circumstances where a second nationality, even if you wouldn’t otherwise claim it, can be of immense practical help. Suppose you lived in South Africa under apartheid, and because of ancestry, you were entitled to claim Irish citizenship. You might take the chance to start a new life in Ireland, rather than live under a system you found intolerable—even though you were still a proud South African. Or, although you are a proud Canadian, you have a British spouse, and are living together in Britain. In order to come and go without being subject to British immigration controls, you might choose to claim citizenship once entitled to it, without ever identifying as British.
These decisions don’t always make sense to others or to the wider public, but for personal reasons, they do. Wanting to live under a different type of government, or being married to a citizen, are convincing reasons to desire nationality. Those who disagree have perhaps always taken their own system for granted, or never fallen in love with a foreigner.
Enjoy your citizenship(s), whatever it or they may be. Enjoy your travels.
The A to B of traveling with two passports
My
10-step guide to traveling with two passports shows a very simple pattern,
actually. It looks like a pattern of poetic meter:
ABA BAB
Even
simpler—when you look at it it just alternates:
AB AB AB
It’s
simple enough in my first example, where you’re traveling from the country of
one of your citizenships to the other. You use passport A to enter and exit
country A, and passport B to enter and exit country B.
In
a moment, I’ll give an example of how this same pattern works in any
combination of countries, even when your passports aren’t from either. But
first, what are the advantages of
traveling with two passports? Even if you’re entitled to more than one, what’s
the advantage of paying to keep both up to date?
Some
practical advantages are:
· Your passport
entitles you to live and work in a country and to stay as long as you want.
Obviously, this is true of the country the passport is from—if you’re an Irish
citizen, you can live and work in Ireland, and don’t need a visa or any plans
to depart. But an Irish passport also entitles you to live and work in the
United Kingdom, without any restrictions—exactly as if you were a British
citizen. Furthermore, Ireland is part of the European Union, so any EU country
will let you live there as well.
· Even if you don’t
want to stay in a country indefinitely, it’s usually a lot simpler just to
enter if you have a passport from that country (or, in this example, an EU
passport). You can breeze through the “fast lane,” answer minimal questions (or
none at all), and get no stamp restricting your stay. If your plans change and you
wish to stay longer, so what? You haven’t promised anyone at the border to
leave by a certain date—you don’t have to.
· In any “third”
country, you can pick whichever passport gives you the least hassle. Maybe that
country requires visas from American citizens, but not for EU citizens (Brazil
is an example of this). Or maybe there are fees to pay on arrival, but they’re
less for Europeans than for Americans. Show that Irish passport and you can
save money and time.
· Speaking of
visas, in many countries and situations, they’re a pain to get. You have to
mail your passport off to some embassy, and as well as pay a fee, wait while
they process your visa. If you have another passport you’re free to travel in
the meanwhile, rather than be held hostage by some third country’s embassy.
I used “hostage” and “embassy” there
together as a deliberate exaggeration; I’m obviously not talking about a
situation such as the U.S. embassy workers in Iran were in in 1979. If you saw
the movie Argo, you know that the
movies portray dual passport usage in a very different way. Forged passports
(or in this case, genuine Canadian passports that were deliberately issued to
false identities for the Americans) are used in daredevil operations, either to
get away with a crime, or to get away from bad guys like the Iranian hostage
takers.
But this is not the movies, and your
passport is a travel document, nothing more. It is not your identity; you are
still one person, with a name and a date of birth, no matter how many passports
you legitimately hold. You can’t use a second passport to be a different
person. Some people think they can visit a country on passport A, stay the
maximum length of time, then revisit on passport B as if they were someone
else. Don’t try this.
American you and Irish you are still the
same person. Besides, once you’re in a country as an American, you need to
stick with that until you’re out of that country (always enter and exit on the same passport, remember?) Don’t leave
the airport and start showing your other passport as identification.
Especially, you don’t want to do this in a country of which you’re actually a
citizen; never identify yourself as Irish to American officials, or as American
to Irish officials.*
But—let’s say you’re a U.S. citizen with
permanent residence in Canada, and you want to visit Brazil. This is where your
two passports will really come in handy even though you aren’t a citizen of
either Canada or Brazil. In this example, the first passport you’ll use will be
your Irish (A), because that’s what
you’ll use to get into Brazil visa-free. Your U.S. passport (B) is what you use in Canada, because
that’s what your Canadian resident visa is in.
A Book your flight and check in at the airport
with your Irish passport.
B Canada doesn’t have exit immigration
controls, but if it did, you would always show your U.S. passport. You’re in
Canada as a U.S. citizen with permanent residence, so don’t confuse anyone by
showing your other passport—it’s irrelevant in Canada.
A Board your plane and arrive at Brazilian
immigration with your Irish passport. You don’t have to get a visa (or pay a
fee). Enjoy your visit to Brazil!
B When you check in for your flight home
to Canada, use your U.S. passport. That’s what the Canadians expect to see, and
since you don’t have an onward flight out of Canada, the airline needs to know
you’ll be let into Canada indefinitely. So they want the passport associated
with your Canadian residence visa.
A At Brazilian exit immigration, show your
Irish passport again. That’s what you entered Brazil on.
B Arrive back in Canada and show Canadian
immigration authorities your U.S. passport and its associated Canadian visa.
Welcome home.
Traveling with two passports is simple,
but dual nationality can also make life more complicated. It’s not for getting
away with anything (except in the movies). *But, that’s a subject for another
day.
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