On Citizenship
citizen: noun a legally recognized subject or national of a state of commonwealth, either native or naturalized
Over the past couple of weeks, I have been following a story here in Germany that centers on the introduction of citizenship tests.
The main controversy concerns whether or not these tests unfairly target Muslims and their compatibility with local (aka “German”) values, but that isn’t why I have been following the story: I have been following the story because as a result of my marriage to A., I am more than likely a permanent resident of Germany and after I have lived here for a few more years I could technically apply for German citizenship.
Honestly, though I have thought about it from time to time, abandoning my American citizenship for German citizenship is something that I am not sure if I could do. If dual citizenship were option for me I might consider it, but according to both American and German law, it isn’t.
A. claims that citizenship is just another “piece of paper” and honestly doesn’t understand my reluctance to abandon my American passport. Because A. is technically an Austrian citizen who has never lived in his “home” country, I believe that the reason he doesn’t understand my perspective is because he doesn’t have a real sense of what a person’s citizenship can mean to his or her identity.
I don’t fault him for his view, but I just feel that no matter how long I live in Germany, how well I speak the language, or how much I know about German history and culture, it will never make me solely German. If I were to become a German citizen I would feel like a fraud because no matter where my destiny takes me, I was born and raised in the United States and those experiences mark me as forever American.
That is not to say that I don’t believe that as an expatriate I don’t have a responsibility to attempt to integrate myself into German society: I think I do merely out of respect for the place where I am living and the people that I am interacting with. However, on the other hand, I don’t believe that during the process I can’t also be an American.
Some days I wonder at how successful my attempts to integrate into Germany really are: After all, A. and I still speak English together and if you walk into my house it looks like a little slice of America. However, though I might not be tempted to become an official German citizen any time soon even if I can successfully pass a completely unauthorized German citizenship quiz, the idea of becoming the equivalent of a “permanent resident” seems just a little more feasible than it did four years ago.
