LONDON — How does one define citizenship? I contemplated this over the weekend as I gave my Britain-born friend a tour of Central London.
As I walked her through New Oxford Street, Soho Square, Covent Garden, Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus, she was impressed by how easily I navigated the city and was amazed by the number of shops and restaurants I had come to know in only a matter of months.
Oddly enough, I wasn’t surprised by how simple navigating London had become. I didn’t even stop to contemplate how I had acquired so much knowledge about where to eat the best burrito, salad and desserts. All these aspects had become natural, as if I had spent years in London rather than the mere months that have flown by and will very shortly come to an end.
I allowed myself to be completely swallowed by London’s culture and metropolitan landscape; I hadn’t even noticed the transition I made into walking the streets as a citizen and no longer as a tourist. Yet, how could I, in the eyes of any true Brit, or the law, be labeled as a citizen without the necessary documentation and the accent?
I don’t think it ought to matter.
Most definitions of citizen or citizenship only acknowledge the notion of being counted as an inhabitant of a community or a nation for purposes such as taxes and the census, which would require specificity on who belongs to an area or not. These meanings, on the other hand, don’t examine the social and cultural implications of citizenship.
I am a native-born and raised American, yet I can wholeheartedly admit that I feel like a British citizen. But surely it takes more than a few trips to the tourist attractions, mingling with the natives, going to pubs and using the currency to identify oneself as a citizen.
I do believe, though, that the fact that I have become so well-adjusted to the cultural differences and have made this wonderful city my personal playground proves that I have reached a comfort level that can only be associated with home.
So perhaps the true definition of citizenship shouldn’t be boiled down to numbers, laws or geographical data. It should encompass the aforementioned parts, as well as the feeling of being at home.
Feeling at home is one of the most, if not the most, crucial aspect to being a citizen of any place. No other emotion can substitute the feeling of being at home, feeling completely welcomed by neighbors in one’s vicinity, being able to identify one’s self with a community and its beliefs and having a sense of belonging and comfort.
Can people truly call themselves citizens of any community if they don’t have any of these emotional ties to where they live?
So many individuals have naturalized themselves to belong to nations and communities where they stand a greater chance at seizing opportunities and having better lives than the ones they lived in their homelands. Of those who choose to integrate themselves into other places, how many of them in the long run feel like natural members of the countries in which they have chosen to live?
There is also the scenario of natural members of a country not feeling at home within their own borders. There are plenty of people who can’t identify with the people they live with and do not have the same values and convictions as other members of their society. How many natural born citizens feel as if their true homes exist outside of their homelands?
Citizenship shouldn’t be defined by just birth certificates, passport registration and addresses. It should mean identifying with all or most that your country stands for and having an unwavering feeling of comfort that can only derive from being where you belong — home.