CULTURE

My Nationality and Citizenship Are Different— Now What?

When your body resides in one country and your soul in another

Photo by on

I lost my German statehood through a clerical error.

Yes, that is possible. The very German Beibehaltungsgenehmigung was my undoing. Without this form, becoming a naturalized citizen in the US meant that I automatically lost my native statehood.

One form.

A German bureaucrat may argue that I do not deserve German citizenship because of such a monumental and entirely avoidable mistake; how very un-German of me.

But my customary obsession with crossing things off the to-do list put me in this punitive, unforgiving position; how very German of me.

So here I am—an accidental American and stranded non-German

An American with a British-German accent who has to explain her story every time she opens her mouth.

Every time.

The only way to get my German citizenship back is to give up the American one, which is financially problematic and personally undesirable; at least one of my kids will end up studying and living here. He is our Cub-Scouting, flag-waving, Dunkin’-addicted New…