Aussie, Aussie, Aussie

I became an Australian citizen this week.  The final step in the citizenship process is a public ceremony in which I pledged allegiance to Australia and received a certificate of citizenship and an Australian native plant.  It had the solemn feel of a school commencement ceremony, and it was a commencement of sorts.

My ceremony took part in an art deco town hall with a curtained stage at the front and balcony seating at the back.  Half the ground floor seating was filled by other foreigners taking the pledge.  The other half and the entire balcony were filled with family members and friends, there to acknowledge the metamorphosis.

During the ceremony we were told to introduce ourselves to our neighbor and say “I am an Australian.”  The woman next to me, the wife of an Australian and mother of two Australians, repeated it over and over as if she couldn’t believe it had finally happened.  For me it didn’t seem real until the next day when I was trying to explain to my three year old what the ceremony was for.

As the new citizens were called to receive their certificate and cross the stage I tried to listen to the countries they were from.  Quite a few were from India, there were two other women from the US, a few Taiwanese, one Iraqi.  I do not know the story behind any of these people stating their allegiance to the Australia but I can guess that for some of them it was a significant achievement, a huge figurative step forward in the opportunities that are open to them.  To me, it felt like the logical next step on a path I was steered down many years ago, not entirely of my own choice.

I didn’t grow up dreaming of living in a better world.  I was fortunate to be born into one of the wealthiest and most powerful countries on the earth.  So when I left the US, it was not out of distaste for my homeland (though I do joke that it was distaste for its president at the time) but to be with the Australian part of my family.  It took me many years to accept that I belong here and only recently, when I needed to arrange a new visa, did I start to realize how ridiculous it was that I needed permission to stay here.  My husband and children are Australian.  I own a house here.  I do my shopping here (well, most of it), and occasionally I work here.  I have all my daily and weekly routine worked out here.  My friends (most of them) are here.  This is not something that comes about over night.  It took years to get to this stage.  And though I may fantasize about moving back to some mythical place in the US that existed 10 years ago but not any more, I have no ambitions to go through the social upheaval and dislocation that comes with an international move again.

I thought it was interesting that we were supposed to say “I am an Australian”.  I don’t think I would ever choose to say it that way.  I would naturally say “I am Australian,” just like I say “I am American.”  Am I an Australian?  Well, technically I am, but do I feel like I am?  I eat Vegemite, know the words to Waltzing Matilda, and have been swooped by a magpie.  On the other hand, I have never seen an episode of A Country Practice, I can’t seem to develop a taste for Weetbix, and I’m still trying to figure out the appropriate way to use the phrase “fair dinkum.”

But now that I am an Australian am I still an American?  I watched the first space shuttle launch, love peanut butter, and always dip my chocolate chip cookies in milk.  But after 9/11 I didn’t fly the flag.  In fact, I wasn’t even aware it was unpatriotic not to do so until at least nine months later.  I don’t spend my life being paranoid about terrorists, nor have I ever thought it was appropriate to curtail the rights of the Guantanamo Bay detainees.  Who knows what else I’m missing out on by living “overseas.”

It was the seventeenth century when the first member of my family arrived in the colonies that became the US.  The most recent immigrants in my family were my great great grandparents.  After a lifetime of being a member of one of the oldest families in the US I am suddenly one of the newest immigrants of a country.  But sitting at the citizenship ceremony and listening to the mayor of Boroondara, who herself became an Australian only 6 years ago, and the member for Kew, who pointed out that more of the people in his electorate were children of people born overseas than those born in Australia, I came to appreciate the meaning of the phrase “a nation of immigrants.”  I may have missed out on the childhood experiences of the people who were born here, but I share the experience of a significant number who weren’t: we all naturalized to Australia.

Cheers rang out as the names of the new citizens were called, and at one point someone from the balcony chanted “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie” and got a few responses of “Oi, Oi, Oi.”  At first, the chant seemed an affront to the solemnity of the occasion, but on reflection I realized that it was a celebration of the fundamental meaning of the ceremony: to be an Australian.

Am I less American because I have taken this final step towards belonging in my new country?  I don’t think so.  I think it is just the government finally acknowledging how Australian I've become.