Unlocking the Oath

by David Wayne Stewart

I’ve long stowed my kids’ American and Canadian passports in a fireproof safe in the garage of our California home. I realize now that I had embraced my role as keeper of the passports as much for my benefit as for theirs. I saw their Canadian passports as symbols of a national identity that I wanted to share with them. As each new child arrived, I would promptly file applications for a Canadian citizenship card and, later, a passport. And since Canadian citizenship cards are never updated, all three of my kids’ cards still feature their cute baby photos, lasting proof not only of their second nationality but also of my own compulsive need to prove their Canadianness.

My passport responsibilities began to ebb in 2017, when my son left for college and took his papers with him. And they were about to erode further on this day, two years later, as I stooped over once again to spin the dial and open that safe. It was the day of my daughter Beatrice’s departure for college, and time to retrieve another pair of passports.

I peered into the safe and eyed a mess of papers. I pulled out a stack of files and thumbed through bank records, savings bonds and birth certificates. I even found my mom’s Ontario death certificate. I thought back to when I’d visited Mom on her deathbed eighteen years earlier and handed over then-baby Beatrice for her to cradle. She had gazed into Beatrice’s dark brown eyes, probably wondering what would become of this granddaughter she’d never really know. Mom had loved writing, so she would have been proud to know that Bea was planning to study creative writing at university.

As I continued rifling through files, I came across my first immigration case, the 1997 visa petition for the Mexican illustrator Federico Jordan. Had I kept it because it had launched my career in immigration law? Or out of sentimentality, since “Feddy” and I had become close friends?

Federico’s illustrations now appear in high-end publications like The New York Times but, in the 1990s, he was just starting out. He had sent samples of his artwork to Tripod, the startup where my wife Margaret was working at the time. Tripod’s design staff loved his whimsical style, and, since Tripod was also one of my law clients, I was tasked with getting him into the U.S.

The NAFTA treaty had recently been signed, introducing mobility rights for Canadian, American and Mexican professionals under a new “TN” visa category. I filed a petition with what was then known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service, or INS, and soon Feddy was on a plane headed north.

Tripod was based in Williamstown, a town in Western Massachusetts. Once Feddy arrived there, he and I became fast friends. Locals often spotted us riding bikes to the town’s only Mexican restaurant, where Feddy introduced me to fajitas, flautas and tamales. He regaled me with stories of Tenochtitlán and the Mexican-American War, while I fed him tales of Quebec’s coureurs de bois pioneers and the War of 1812. Folks called us “the NAFTA buddies.”

I’d shared so many Canadian tales with Feddy that I finally invited him to see Canada’s northern dreamscape for himself. So, on a clear October day in 1998, we climbed into my Honda Civic and began our beautiful fall foliage drive north. We quickly crossed the state line into Vermont, which at that point was all that stood between us and my homeland.

“D’you know, señor,” he observed as we wound through the scenic Green Mountains — he always referred to me jokingly as señor — “the Vermont is more relaxed than the Massachusetts, no? Massachusetts is like, crrr, crrr,” he ground his palate and robotically jerked his arms. “But Vermont is like, tweet, tweet,” he warbled like a songbird.

I chuckled. I would never have thought to compare states in this colourful way.

Three hours later, we crossed the border into southern Quebec. Soon I was touring Feddy around Montreal’s bustling cafés and the battle sites of the U.S.’s ill-fated invasions of Canada during the Revolutionary War. We saw my old stomping grounds on the McGill University campus and the imposing St. Joseph’s Oratory, where miracles were reported to have occurred. I was delighted to share Canada’s history and culture with Feddy, since he’d shared so much of his country’s richness with me.

Feddy and I spent two glorious days in Montreal, exploring landmarks such as Mount Royal Park and the lively Atwater Market. On our third day, we began our leisurely drive home, singing to a Dave Matthews CD as we cruised down the highway. Soon we approached the border near Plattsburgh, New York.

“Citizenship?” the U.S. Customs agent asked.

“Canadian,” I said, flashing my passport and green card.

“Mexican,” Feddy said.

“This way.” The agent waved us towards a nearby concrete building.

We entered a sterile room where a few stone-faced agents directed people to chairs or beckoned with their fingers. There was something about the commanding hand gestures and lack of words that reminded me of how people communicate with their dogs. As we entered, an agent motioned us his way, confiscated our passports and pointed us to some chairs.

After a brief wait, the officer summoned Feddy to the counter and began aggressively questioning the validity of his visa. Since I had prepared Feddy’s immigration case, I knew the agent’s concerns were baseless. NAFTA had only been in effect for a few years, so I figured he was probably unfamiliar with the new TN visas.

Since the agent was berating my friend for no good reason, I felt compelled to intervene. “Excuse me,” I interjected as I rose from my seat. “I filed his immigration paperwork, and his visa—”

“Did I call you?” the officer snapped. “Sit down!” Then he grabbed my passport out from the pile on his counter, waved it in my direction and flicked it behind him like a Frisbee. It spun to the back of the room, and I heard it skidding into the corner behind some desks.

I returned to my seat, fuming. The officer’s attitude reminded me of the things I’d come to dislike about American culture: the aggressiveness, the lack of curiosity. I sat helplessly as Feddy continued to get raked over the coals.

Then, as abruptly as it had started, the badgering stopped.

“Here you go,” the agent said with a phony smile as he returned my passport. “Have a nice day.”

Feddy and I exited the building and climbed into the car.

“What a jerk!” I griped as I slammed the car door.

“Señor, don’ worry! It’s normal, no? For Mexicans, it’s always like that!” Feddy said with a chuckle. At that moment, it dawned on me that the officer may not have doubted the validity of Feddy’s visa at all, he may have been picking on him because Feddy was Mexican. I’d been so consumed by my own feelings, and so defensive about my legal work, that I hadn’t noticed how Feddy had retained his composure the whole time. To him, this had been just another day at the border.

Then I wondered if Feddy’s perpetually sunny disposition might be a mask of sorts, a way to hide his own cultural struggles in America.

“Do people in Massachusetts treat you like that, too?” I asked.

“Nah,” he said, this time with a cackle. “They think I’m a crazy Mexican!”

* * *

I eventually found Beatrice’s passports near the bottom of my safe. A few hours later, my wife and I drove her to the San Francisco airport. My wife was travelling with Beatrice while I was staying home, so I escorted them both to the departure gate. My eyes welled up as the time came to see them off, knowing that Beatrice was about to start the next phase of her young life.

“Bye, Bea. I’ll miss you.” I gave her a big hug.

“I’ll miss you too,” she replied. “See you at Thanksgiving!”

I collected myself and pulled out a slim, blue leather case, a bit larger than a wallet. The time had come.

“Here are your passports,” I said solemnly as I handed over both her American and Canadian IDs. “Remember, keep them in a safe place. If something were to happen to Granddad, you wouldn’t be allowed into Canada without them.”

“Uh, yeah, Dad.” She rolled her eyes and slid the case into her backpack. “I’m not gonna lose my passports!”

When I returned home, I wanted to take my mind off things, so I went back out to the garage to continue tidying. As I rummaged through the safe again, I found another document that brought back memories: my U.S. naturalization certificate.

Canadians living in the U.S. must eventually decide whether to naturalize. The word rings dissonant to me, as naturalizing was one of the most unnatural things I have done. At first I resisted it as a betrayal of my values and my country. But as an immigration lawyer, I knew that U.S. citizenship would offer me the surest guarantee against deportation, and I didn’t want my family to worry about losing me in that way.

So began a weighing of my family’s needs versus my loyalty to Canada. I coped in an admittedly extreme way: after filing my application for naturalization early in 2000, I enrolled in a cultural studies master’s program, in which I hoped to deconstruct my Canadianness and explore a new identity. Months of reading Foucault, Bourdieu and other cultural thinkers helped me embrace the notion of a hybrid identity: both a Canadian and an American citizen. Later I would interview Canadian expats in the U.S. and write an ethnography rethinking how I saw myself.

I hadn’t seen my naturalization certificate in years, so I took a closer look. It bore my photo, a seal and the statement “Country of former nationality: Canada.” Legally, I knew this was not accurate, since I had retained my Canadian nationality after naturalizing. Why did the U.S. promote this claim? To trick me into thinking my Canadian past was not important? To coerce me into abandoning a part of what makes me me?

Part of what had reassured me when I’d filed my N-400 citizenship application was the knowledge that I would keep my Canadian citizenship: Canada recognizes dual nationality and does not expatriate its citizens who naturalize elsewhere. The American approach is more nuanced: new citizens must disavow their birth country without fully renouncing their citizenship. The result is a kind of “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy: I’m still Canadian, but I mustn’t disclose that fact to U.S. border guards. At the time, I had resented what I had seen as the U.S.’s more coercive approach, and I’d felt grateful that Canada would accommodate my new allegiance.

My thoughts wandered back to the day I had climbed the subway stairs eighteen years earlier on the way to my naturalization interview, pausing by the Boston INS office before entering. I had felt relief, because I would soon be protected from deportation and able to vote in my adopted home. But I had also felt some wistfulness. If all went well then, in a bittersweet moment, I’d soon have to forswear my allegiance to Canada.

My interviewing INS officer had been a courteous Asian-American. He had asked the usual questions: Are you a Communist? A polygamist? A terrorist? Then came the test, ten questions to gauge my fitness to be an American.

The officer glanced at his clipboard before firing off the first query.

“Why did the Pilgrims come to America?”

“Well, there were many reasons,” I mused.

My interrogator peered at me over his glasses, pencil twitching. This wasn’t a university exam, I realized. No grey areas, just one answer.

“But if I had to pick one, I’d say... to escape religious persecution.”

He ticked a box in my file.

* * *

As I continued my housekeeping, I found yet another memento in the garage: an INS notice, from late 2000, advising me that I had missed my swearing-in ceremony. I remembered panicking when I first opened that notice a few weeks after my naturalization interview. How could I have missed it? I called the Boston INS office right away, worried that I’d need to start the arduous process all over again.

“Hello?” I greeted an INS agent over the phone. “I got a notice that I failed to appear for my swearing-in. Sorry, I didn’t put it on my calendar. May I reschedule?”

“It means that much to you, huh?” she replied dryly.

The remark stung. If I had truly cared about naturalizing, then I wouldn’t have missed the swearing-in. Had my subconscious been trying to tell me something? A few months earlier, I’d started the cultural studies master’s program that was helping me to rethink my Canadianness. So I closed my eyes and recalled some of the takeaways from my studies so far:

National identity is not just a legal status, it’s also a social construct.

I have the power to negotiate and renegotiate my national identity in the world.

Legally, I will keep my Canadian citizenship even if I naturalize.

I turned these rationalizations over in my mind and relaxed, reassured that I could naturalize and retain a Canadian identity. But I worried that, even though I’d be telling the truth, forswearing my allegiance to Canada might never be fully true, at least not in a visceral sense.

A month later, I arrived at my rescheduled swearing-in ceremony. A speaker extolled America’s virtues and asked our group to rise and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Somehow all the participants around me seemed to know the pledge, even though English wasn’t their first language. I didn’t know the words, so I faked it.

“Rah-la-rah,” I mumbled, opening and closing my mouth like a Muppet. I saw Margaret’s knowing smile as she watched me from the family gallery. This was the second time she’d seen me fake the pledge; I had also “recited” it at a swearing-in event for my admission to the Massachusetts bar two years earlier at Boston’s historic Faneuil Hall, while she had spectated in amusement from a balcony above.

I found myself shifting impatiently in my seat. It felt as though we were celebrating a glorious version of America that I’d seen only in movies. I almost expected to hear a triumphant orchestral score. I wanted this to be over.

Soon we rose from our seats again, like a church congregation popping up and down to sing hymns. The time had come to swear the oath. Respect the Constitution? No problem. Uphold my rights and responsibilities as a citizen? Sure. Forsake my allegiance to foreign sovereigns or potentates? This was the tricky part. I breathed, reminded myself of all the reasons to do this and raised my hand. And I forswore my heart out.

Afterwards, I waited in line to receive my naturalization certificate. I glanced at the document and immediately saw the words “Country of former nationality: Canada.” So it was true, I thought. They really do want me to abandon a part of myself. I scanned the room for an exit, but an unexpected scene caused me to stop in my tracks. An Asian woman was weeping what appeared to be tears of joy. A Latino man was proudly holding up his certificate to his family. An African family was locked in an embrace. I had always understood that, for many, naturalization was the final step on an arduous path to freedom. But this was the first time I’d seen the emotional reality of the promise of America up close.

I’d been so preoccupied with how the U.S. was pressuring me to give up a part of myself that I had neglected to consider the positive aspects of my adopted home. I had a good job in Massachusetts, and I had made new friends like Federico. And at least I got to choose — or, as they say in cultural studies, “negotiate” — my nationality in the world. Looking around that room, I realized that most people don’t get a choice.

* * *

I stacked and aligned the folders one last time before returning everything to the safe, stowing even my own proof of citizenship away.

Yet, as I closed the latch, I felt a twinge of regret. Beatrice didn’t need me to keep her passports any more. This was yet another part of my kids’ lives where I was no longer needed.

Sometimes it’s been hard for me to relinquish even the small things I’ve managed for my kids. I’d invested so many years helping them get to school on time that I found it hard to let go. Maybe my resistance to family changes helps explain why it was hard for me to give up a part of my Canadian self when I had first come to America. Sure, I missed my country back then. But I’ve often found it difficult to look ahead in many aspects of my life, to boldly embrace change, to see not only what I stand to lose but also what I stand to gain from a new experience.

Suddenly a cry from down the hall snapped me out of my thoughts:

“Dad!” It was my younger daughter, Isabel, then fifteen.

I poked my head into her room. “Hey, Izzy, what’s up?”

“I’m filling out some forms for my choir trip and was just wondering... Do you have my passport?”