What Makes Someone a Citizen of Another Country

Anonymous
What Makes Someone a Citizen of Another Country

I have spent all but the first 2 years of my life living in the US, and I consider myself American though I was born in another country. My mom is American. The family I do have in my home country does not consider me "one of them" outside of being related to them, and because I have no accent and have spent my whole life in the US, no one outside of reading my last name on a sheet of paper is like, oh were you born here?

I saw this video recently where there were some adults trying different food from around the world. It was something like French people try different foods. In the video, there is a black woman clearly speaking French, and for all purposes, in my eyes, a French woman. Obviously, I don't know her life story or anything, but she was pretty young, so I think it's fair to say, she's probably grown up there. I swear, 99% of the comments on the video were either racist comments, comments about how NOT French she was, or comments stating that the video creators should have found "real" French people to star in the video. Like what is that? How can someone who grew up in a place their entire lives, not be of that country or be considered one of them?

What Makes Someone a Citizen of Another Country

What makes someone truly a citizen of a country? And I'm not talking legally because that's it's own thing, but I'm talking about what makes you personally classify someone else as being a part of your country or another?

For me, I claim my birth country only in reference to my birth origin. I've never lived there outside of those first two years of life, none of which I remember because I was too young, so it seems foolish to be like, look at me, I'm a citizen. I don't speak the language, never attended school there, don't know the holidays, never eaten the food, and have barely even met family from there. I wouldn't fool anyone from there into believing for a second I was a citizen. They recognize me on the grounds that I am family, but nothing beyond that. To them, I am American.

What Makes Someone a Citizen of Another Country

Thanks to world travel, we are countries of people who move and shift. Skin color no longer specifically defines your origins aside from on a genetic basis. Just ask all the people complaining world wide that "their" country is no longer their own because of the many foreigners that live there which personally I think is a good thing because the world and it's lands don't belong to anyone. They belong to everyone, and where you live and settle and can afford to be, is where you are, and you cannot change someone's history and where they grew up, lest deny it even happening in some racist or xenophobic reasons for not wanting to claim someone like that as a fellow countryman or woman. Add to that, more and more people are now being born biracial around the globe. Skin color, race, all of it, it's no longer one thing or another. They aren't just born of the one parents heritage anymore.

Being a part of a place means you know it and know it well. You grew up there. You may not have history there, as in your people people's people, but starting with whatever generation you are, you become part of the landscape and that which makes that country what it is. This Black French woman is French. We can say that she has African Ancestry or that she is French African or whatever hybrid one wants to claim, but that doesn't take away that she may have been born there, and set down her roots, and grew up there and is a French person. People are too hung up on what they think things should or ought to be, and not the reality of what things and people actually are.

What Makes Someone a Citizen of Another Country
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