As an Example of Dual Citizenship
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
ISSN 1822-5152 tAlfred Erich SENN As An Example Of Dual Citizenship My purpose is to discuss my practice in but then 1944 was not a good year for being a having two passports, two citizenships. I do tourist on the European continent. I traveled not want to attempt formulating a theory. I to Europe for the first time in 1957, afterI had am not involved in the current Lithuanian finished my graduate studies. At that time I discussion of this question; I could argue practiced only my American citizenship. against or for the principle of dual citizenship. In the 1950s American views on dual citi- In this paper I just want to concentrate on my zenship began to change. Speaking in a most own experience and practice. unscholarly fashion, I would identify two I have two citizenships, two passports, by major factors in the American change: the es- birth. My parents were Swiss citizens when I tablishment of the state of Israel and the mar- was born in the United States. My parents met riage of the movie star Grace Kelly to Prince and married in Kaunas, and my two older sis- Rainier of Monaco. American Jews showed a ters were born here, but as far as I know I have strong interest in obtaining Israeli citizenship, no right to a Lithuanian passport. My mother, but they did not want to give up their Ameri- who was born in Raudondvaris, not far from can citizenship. Grace Kelly’s father, a noted here, had given up her Lithuanian citizenship, Philadelphia businessman and a powerful po- and although I am a foreign member of the litical figure, did not want his daughter to lose Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, Lithuanian her citizenship just because she became the authorities have refused to give me a resi- wife of the last Divine Right Monarch in Eu- dence permit. But that is another story. rope. Scholars may come up with other argu- In my youth, I understood that an Ameri- ments and factors determining the change in can cannot have two passports and that the the American laws on this question, but these Swiss do not recognize a renunciation of their two factors contributed heavily to the change citizenship. This caused me no problems. in the public mood and the law. When I was a child, my father spoke of tak- For me, dual citizenship was not a great is- ing me to Europe when I was twelve years old, sue until I began to travel regularly to Europe. 1 There was an occasion inS witzerland when it request permission to remain in Lithuania. served me well. In 1970 I had a grant to write My parents left Lithuania in 1930–1931, both a book about Russian émigrés in Switzerland, looking for a new start in the United States. and I took my family to Zurich. The Swiss Eretas, I might point out, left Lithuania in consulate in Chicago had told me there would 1941 under the program that was repatriating be no problem in obtaining a residence per- Germans then living in Lithuania. mit in Switzerland, but in Zurich I was told My father took American citizenship in that I would probably not be allowed to stay. 1936; this was probably the first moment he When the officer in charge received me,I im- could. My mother did not act immediately, but mediately began to talk about my Swiss herit- during the war she underwent naturalization, age. He began to doubt that I even needed a as we call it, and became a United States citizen permit, but he then decided it was simpler to in order to avoid any problems that might arise give me the permit I was requesting. Our ses- from having been born in Lithuania which was sion ended with his searching his papers to now headed for Soviet domination. explain the authority of the Fremdenpolizei to I emphasize the use of the words citizen me. (This was relevant for my research.) and citizenship. I have always regarded my- I am, to be sure, Auslandsschweizer, that is, self as first of all a citizen of the United States a Swiss living abroad. Were I to try to make a of America, but also a citizen of Switzerland. career in Switzerland, I might well find this This has nothing to do with national herit- a handicap. My father was convinced that it age. At a Santara-Šviesa meeting, I was chal- was a handicap for him. He was actually born lenged – I had said I was not Lithuanian but in Alsace, then a part of Germany but now rather Swiss or American. My critic declared a part of France. Although our family was that neither Swiss nor Americans have a dis- registered in Baselland in the 14th century, he tinct national identity, and so what was I in felt a certain discrimination as an Ausland- fact? I responded that if the population of schweizer even though he used only his Swiss heaven is organized according to nationality, passport. All other things being equal, the as Šatrijos Ragana once suggested, then there Swiss officials in charge of filling a post prob- is no place there for me. I do not exist. ably favored the native born candidate. This I once read in Kultūros barai a writer’s was a major factor in his eventual decision to thought that he could imagine the confusion emigrate to the United States. that must exist in the mind of a child who has In the kaleidoscope of citizenship laws, my parents of different nationalities.M y reaction to mother ran into the same sort of trouble while this was negative. I cannot say that I ever had any living in Kaunas in the 1920s. A native of this distinct problem arising from my parent’s dif- region, she lost her citizenship when she mar- ferent national backgrounds. My parents spoke ried my father. My father was teaching at the to us children in Lithuanian; my sisters and I University of Lithuania; in fact he took over answered in English. My father made great ef- Kazys Būga’s classes after Būga’s death. But he forts to make us aware of our Swiss heritage. My refused to give up his Swiss citizenship – he mother introduced me, through the Lithuanian specifically spoke to me about his decision language, to Russian culture. A significant part not to follow the example of his old friend of my brain is occupied by German and Russian Joseph Ehret, Juozas Eretas. As a result, my folk songs, not Lithuanian. By the standards of mother, who now lived with a Swiss passport nationalist ideologists, I perhaps should not ex- in Kaunas, just a few kilometers from her ist, but I think I have profited by this mixture of birth place in Raudondvaris, annually had to national heritage. 20 OI K OS LIETUVIų MIGRACIJOS IR DIASPOROS STUDIJOS Today I travel with two passports. I enter any further; my purpose here is just to discuss and leave the United States with my Ameri- my practical thoughts about living with two can passport. In Europe I show my Swiss passports. passport. My Swiss passport is better received In conclusion, I want to express one more here in Lithuania – and also in Latvia where thought about forcing a person to renounce I have to travel regularly – than my Ameri- one citizenship in favor of another. It might can passport. Switzerland is not formally a be argued that I have exploited my dual citi- member of the European Union, but we Swiss zenship for personal benefit.I have, but is that have treaty rights within the EU that are bad? I do not think so. Depriving a person of about equal to those of EU members. In this citizenship can have a much more destructive Brave New Globalized World, both Swiss and effect. My mother deeply resented the fact Lithuanians have this same higher identity as that the Lithuanian government took away citizens of the European Union. I have to re- her citizenship. This contributed to her readi- frain from discussing this particular thought ness to emigrate. How many Lithuanians to- day would think the same way? Alfred Erich SENN DVIGUBOS PILIETYBĖS PAVYZDYS Straipsnyje autorius dalijasi savo asmenine nors ir nedalyvauja šiandieninėje dvigubos dviejų pilietybių ir dviejų pasų turėjimo pa- Lietuvos pilietybės diskusijoje, tačiau palaiko tirtimi, kurios nesiekia teorizuoti. Autorius, dvigubos pilietybės idėją. 21.