Dual Nationality

DUAL NATIONALITY

“Dual nationality” is a peculiar status. One can understand how – from migration, from cross-border  marriages or from cross-border births. Indeed its existence reflects a reasonably healthy mixture of chauvinism and tolerance: “Anyone born on our soil is ours, regardless of parentage; anyone born elsewhere from one of ours is ours, regardless of geography”.

But there is also a fundamental contradiction. The essence of an individual’s nationality includes reciprocal loyalties between citizen and state (We, the State, will protect you and sometimes even cherish you; You, the citizen, shall obey our laws and sometimes serve you, even in the military). How can you pledge loyalty to two states, even if they are often joined at the hip (which is only likely to apply contingently)?

The dilemma is especially acute in the case of naturalisation- an individual applying to become the citizen of a new state, being already by birth the citizen of another. Naturalisation involves a formal process, including an Oath of Allegiance in the case of the United States. This Oath includes renunciation of other allegiances, which is logical_ but what if the individual’s birth nationality still persists?

I am the child of a British father ( born in Imperial India and whose father was born in the south of C19 Ireland, but let that particular complication of nationalities pass) and a US mother. She to her dying day had only US citizenship. (In her early married life she thought that she would return to the US if she were widowed (which she was); but her increasingly left wing political views meant that the attraction of her native country receded to vanishing point.)

In 1969, on gap year, I was to visit my US relatives on an extended tour, to include what would now be called work experience in my uncle’s engineering firm in Boise, Idaho.

I held a UK passport. It was the common  understanding that I needed a US visa, so I presented myself one morning, aged 18, at the consular section of the US embassy in Grosvenor Square in London.

There were a lot of visa applicants already sitting in the waiting area. I resigned to a long day, after handing in my paperwork at the reception desk. But only a short while later a consular person came out. “Mr Crosthwait? Please come with me.”. I was surprised; embarrassed of course. Was there some awful error or red-line disclosure in my application which needed to be officially dealt without delay, such was the affront of allowing it to persist a moment longer?

I was led down some corridors and shown into the office of a youngish consular official. He sat behind a large desk. Behind him an even larger Stars and Stripes flag was fixed to the wall. To one side near the window sat an unobtrusive stenographer or secretary.

The consular man was, of course, crew-cut and, of course, wore steel-framed spectacles. But he was affable. “Mr Crosthwait, I am afraid we cannot grant your request for a visa.” I goggled at him- what was the terrible unknown fault  in the face of which my US mother, lack of criminal convictions and future university studies in England counted for nothing? He went on, obviously enjoying himself a little. “The reason is: you, Mr Crosthwait are an American citizen. To travel to the States you require a US passport.”

This was unexpected. My thought was: this could be good news- easier entry, certainly; maybe easier to get a summer job? But would there be a catch? Yes- in fact there were two.

The consular man turned and gestured at the Flag. “We need you to swear allegiance to the United States”.  There was a pause.  Then the recent sixth form intellectual prig in me jumped into action. I said: “I am not sure I can do that in all conscience. I’ve always regarded myself as British. If there were ever any kind of conflict between the US and the UK, my loyalties would be with the UK”.

There was another pause. Had I destroyed my citizenship before it had got started? Would I be denied a passport for being a potential traitor, but still refused a visa because I wasn’t an alien?

What happened next was unexpected. The consular man walked round from behind his desk. “Mr Crosthwait”, he said earnestly, “You are  a fine, moral young man. I respect your principles”. He shook my hand, turned to the secretary and asked her to type up a statement explaining the absence of an oath of allegiance in my case. I signed, wondering at my “victory”.

(I have since come to the view that the oath business was not strictly a condition of my citizenship. I was a citizen by birth- that is, I had always been a US citizen and the right to a passport automatically followed. Oaths are for people seeking to be naturalised as citizens of a new country. So perhaps the consular man in my case was indulging in a bit of theatre, easily stepped back from. Or so I believe.)

Was that it? No, there was one more thing. Without instruction, the secretary, after typing my apologia, had started typing on a small cardboard form. Just before the friendly and admiring consular man showed me out, he handed part of the form to me. I looked down at it. It was my very own Draft Registration Card for the US military.

I left without burning.