By Atlas Al
Two Passports
As much as I love blondes, when you spend enough time in Scandinavia you become desensitized. Blondes get a lot of attention in South America and Latina brunettes enjoy the same level of attention in Scandinavia. So you can imagine how this dark-haired tanned chica standing right in front of me caught my eye.
“Where are you from.” Everybody has to come from somewhere. She said her city (in Norway), and then mentioned that she’s from Chile and Norway. Obviously she didn’t know who she was talking to.
“You can’t be from two countries at the same time!”
“Why can’t I? I moved to Norway from Chile when I was 7 years old.”
“I have Two Passports too – American and French – but at the end of the day I’m American.”
“You’re white with blue eyes, you don’t stand out. Look at me – I have dark eyes, dark hair, unlike the average Norwegian. Your differences define you more than you think.”
“Just because you might look Chilean, doesn’t mean you aren’t more Norwegian.”
“You don’t understand! Norwegians see me as Chilean, and when I go back to Chile to visit family and friends, they see me as Norwegian!”
She makes a good point in that people define you by your differences, the things that make you stand out among your peers. When I was growing up, my friends would call me Frenchie because I was half French. They didn’t understand my love of smelly cheese, gourmet cuisine (not only is my dad French, he’s also a French chef), and why I would take French instead of Spanish in high school. I was still American, but being half French made me unique, at least when compared to the average American.
“What do you consider yourself to be more,” I asked. “Chilean or Norwegian?”
“I don’t have to answer that.”
“Yes, you do. You have to be one or the other, can’t be both. What I want to know is from which pair of eyes do you view the world? With which kind of cultural mental hard-wiring do you process information?”
Then she excused herself to smoke. I would’ve followed her to have one as well, except I knew she didn’t want to be pushed anymore. It’s a hard question to ask oneself, but it’s a question worth asking.
Dual Citizens
I told all this to my friend Chris. He agreed with my argument, but took her side to annoy me. According to him, some people are perfectly fine with the idea of going through life as neither one nationality nor the other.
“It’s like wearing a pair of bifocals; two different views, same pair of glasses.”
I strongly disagree. People should ask themselves these difficult questions. One might think that a Dual Citizen with Two Passports means they are two nationalities, i.e. two flags. However, it isn’t fair to claim two flags from the same person; one person = one flag, or as I like to say, “One flag per shag.”
Even babies are passed down more traits from one parent than the other. If physically we are more like one of our parents, then surely a Dual Citizen must think/act/behave more like one country’s culture.
Everyone has to choose, no one is exactly half-half. If she moved to Norway when she was 7 years old, we can assume she’s out of touch with Chilean culture, as a result making her a Chilean-looking Norwegian.
When it comes to Dual Citizens and multiple passport holders, all I want to know is this: with which cultural mindset do they process/absorb information, and from which nation’s eyes do they see the world with?
Based on what reasoning does a person have to belong only to one culture? I think this is a simplistic, and somehwhat shoehorned and limitted world view. What makes you think a person can only view the world through a single cultural lense?
From a flagger's point of view, we must know which culture/country a person identifies with MORE. A person can identify with 1, 2, 3, etc. cultures, but which one does said person consider themselves to be more.