It is now official. I am American. I still don’t feel like an American. But then again, I never really felt very Swedish either. Or Polish for that matter. Having Polish parents while living in Sweden has made me somewhat confused over where I really belong. I have always conveniently chosen to answer where I’m from depending on the situation. When someone made fun of Sweden, I was Polish. When someone teased me about being from Poland, I was Swedish. It worked out great, and sometimes I felt sorry for those poor kids with only one country of origin. How did they manage?
Now, I have yet another identity to delude my sense of patriotism.
The ceremony was pretty nice. It was me and 850 other people from 93 different countries who took the Oath of Citizenship at the same time. Pretty neat. The only thing I found somewhat ironic was when they played “Born in the USA” through the loudspeakers, before the ceremony, in an auditorium full of 850 foreigners just about to become neutralized naturalized.
We celebrated afterwards by eating out. I had ribs, coleslaw and a Budweiser, instantly feeling a lot more American.
4 replies on “Alien no more”
Hehe.. gj m8. So, now you can move back to sweden?
Born in the USA – that it hysterical! Neil Diamond would have been far more appropriate and just as cheesy.
Congratulations!! Are you serious about the “Born in the USA”? I can’t make up my mind on whether that is really kind of fun and cool or really just silly and corny…
I wonder what they play in Sweden… “Jag trivs bäst i öppna landskap” or “Sommaren är kort”? 😉
So do you now hold tipple citizenships or dual? What country is next? 😉
@kitofr: Never. 🙂 Ok, I’ll never say never, but there are no plans anytime soon.
@ChanChan: They played a whole bunch of songs with various degrees of cheeziness. I’m pretty sure that they played Neil Diamond as well. Mariah Carey’s Hero got plaid on repeat it seemed. Not sure why, I guess we’re all Heros now that we’re American.
@JaCal: “Jag trivs bäst…” is definitely a song that I strongly associate with living in Sweden, but both of the songs are good and very swedish. 🙂
As far as citizenships go, I “only” have two now. My parents dropped their Polish citizenship when they moved to Sweden. They have since reapplied a few years ago, but that never included me. I guess I could probably get one, but at this point it wouldn’t really serve much purpose since Poland is in the EU and I could pretty much live there as a swedish citizen if I so wanted.
My next citizenship needs to be a little more challenging, like Iran or something. I’m thinking it might be hard to get into that country traveling on US papers……. or maybe not?