Let me start off by saying that this is my first diary, so I hope I'm doing it correctly! Please do let me know if I've broken a rule or just need to fix anything. I did a search to see if anyone had written about this and didn't find anything. If someone already diaried this, I'll delete. And please do ignore any spelling errors. Thanks.
I was born in Bakersfield, Ca (or as I like to call it, "The Armpit of California") in the mid 70's. My mom is American and my dad is Canadian. Up until yesterday, I thought I was an American citizen like my mom. Lo and behold, overnight, my world was turned upside down (kinda like the guy in the video)! I'm actually not "just" an American anymore...
Yesterday morning I fire up the 'puter and notice on Yahoo (our homepage) a news story about a new Canadian citizenship law. I'm always interested in anything about my dad's birth country, so I clicked on the link. It took me to an article on WSJ.com -- "Surprise! You Might Be Canadian, Eh?" About halfway down is another link. I click and I'm on a Canadian site. There is a quiz to see if you are a "new" Canadian citizen, based on the changes to the citizenship law. I take it. I am! Holy cow! I called my dad and he thought it was pretty cool. I called my brother and he thinks it's pretty neat too. He says we should apply for the certificate of proof of citizenship. I agree. The changes to the law are kind of complicated. They deal mostly with people who have at least one Canadian parent but were born outside the country. There is more to it, based on when you were born and such, but that is the aspect pertinent to me. The Canadian website has all of the info about the new law if your situation is different than mine.
One thing my dad has always said, and that has gotten said more frequently in these uncertain times, is that if "TSHTF", he'd have all our asses up in Canada faster than we could say "Eh". It makes me feel a little bit better knowing that if things were dire, my family could be safe. I don't take leaving MY birth country very lightly, but I know that my DAD'S birth country is always there if we need it. I'm hopeful that it will never come to that.
And I can now proudly claim dual USA-Canada citizenship!
Edited to include the Canadian citizenship website link: http://www.cic.gc.ca/...