I Come From Foreign

So I think I’m finally ready to become a U.S. citizen. I’m so ready I already filled in every time I’ve left the U.S. for the last 15 years on the freakin form. Uh huh. Yeh. It’s a process.

I’ve been eligible since I was 17 (greencard) but I just… well I just never really wanted it that bad.

A part of it is about accepting where I am. The bf has to remind me sometimes. This is where you live. This is your home.

Okay, he’s right. But am I ready to officially renounce my Trinidadian passport, written-in name and all, and become a U.S. citizen? It’s the philosophical issue that gets me, not the practical one.

Practically, I’m old enough to see the benefits (unrestricted travel, voting rights, a guaranteed safe harbour in the event of a Trini-American war) and in the long run, I know I should do it.

Practically, I don’t even have to give up my Trini passport because the U.S. “recognizes that dual nationality exists,” although it “does not encourage it as a matter of policy.”

Philosophically, it’s a line I’ve been wary to cross, an official acknowledgment of where I’m planning to spend the rest of my life.

I’m not going to lie — the $675 price tag is a consideration. When I first decided I was going to do it it was only $400.

Actually, I do lie.

The cost has been more of an excuse than anything. It’s a reason for me to keep putting it off. But next year, my Trini passport expires (they’re going biometric) and it’s going to be a bitch and a half to renew it from Cali so I figure I should just bite the bullet and just finally get it done.

Can you imagine?

In the airport of my own home country and having to go in the visitors’ line?

It might just break my heart.

With every year I’m up here in foreign I feel like I’m cutting another tie to my old, Trini self. Which I guess would be okay if I had a developed Miami or Cali self I could slip into but I’m not there yet. I’m hanging on to an old self that doesn’t fit any more.

I’m a self-imposed hybrid who’s everything and nothing and wants everything and nothing and works herself up into a tizzy over the things she cannot change or refuses to change.

I long for home. But I’m not going back. The Trini I knew, the one my 18-year-old self had a blast driving around town in the supa dupa trooper with my girlies, it doesn’t exist anymore. It’s a memory. A delicious memory.

I’m here for good. Let’s face it. That’s probably the first time I’ve ever said that out loud. I always hem and haw and maybe we’ll see and I want to do half and half and I’ll retire back home and a bunch of other pipe dreams that have no bearing in reality.

I like it here. There I said that too. I’m happy here in LA. Even though it’s not home home, it’s still home. I have opportunity and dreams and I’m excited about building that new life, that new self, about building it here in LA.

So I’ll go ahead and become a citizen. But I’m keeping my Trini passport until it expires. And I might just renew it anyway.