(This is a post I wrote some time ago on the old sub. It is a complete satire; Saint Lucia is actually a lovely country, and did nothing to deserve this comparison.)
Saint Lucia is an island republic in the Caribbean. It has a population of about 150,000 people, of whom about 145,000 are pure or mixed Afro-Caribbean. For a small donation, their government will grant a foreigner full citizenship in their country, no questions asked. I successfully completed this process a week ago, and am now a citizen of two nations.
I was born in the United States. My parents are both northeastern WASPs. I am the exact right demographic to run for President, work at a white-shoe law firm, sit on the board of a Fortune 500 company, or marry a Kennedy. We're so white that we're actually Anglo-Saxons. Nevertheless, I chose to pursue a Saint Lucian nationality for two reasons. First, I have always felt that the West Indian lifestyle, culture, and values are more akin to my own: I love cricket, Bob Marley, fried plantains, their generally relaxed attitude towards time, their casual, easy-going manners, and Voodoo. Second, I find myself frankly unsafe and unwelcome in the face of the laws and customs of the United States, particularly as pertains to capital gains and income taxes, and find the Saint Lucian approach to these topics more comfortable. So in my heart, I've always been a Saint Lucian; this is just a question of making the world recognize it, and allowing me access to those rights and opportunities which all Saint Lucians ought to enjoy but have been denied to me.
Understand that I am not simply imposing myself on others without their consent. Some Saint Lucians might consider me an infiltrator and a colonist, but I reject those opinions out of hand. My actions are in accordance with a new Saint Lucian law, and the Governor-General himself - recognized internationally as the legitimate head of state - endorsed my new citizenship with his signature. Regardless of how any individual Saint Lucian might feel about it, both the law and the acquiescent majority are now firmly on my side, and that's the end of the story.
But now that I am a Saint Lucian - now that I'm as much a Saint Lucian as anyone else - I'm beginning to notice things about my new country that make me feel unwelcome. The first problem is the flag. The vast majority of Saint Lucians are black, and the flag has a black arrow on it, representing black skin. The national anthem also has a few lines about "hands once bound by chains now grasp rifles," etc etc, and there's a monument in the capital commemorating a slave rebellion. In short, there is a popular sentiment that conflates "being Saint Lucian" with "being a descendant of African slaves."
Now, I'm not begrudging any Saint Lucians of color their feelings on this; I think it's perfectly valid for them to have deep emotions about their ancestral struggles and triumphs. Certainly there is a strong correlation between these two data points. But I don't think it's appropriate for these symbols to be identified so strongly with our country itself, since I and many others had nothing to do with them, and it makes me feel uncomfortable and unwelcome to be around these symbols.
I can understand if you scoff at these feelings of mine, but I can't agree with it. You see, I am an immigrant, and these are dark days to be an immigrant. Look at what's happening on the US-Mexico border; immigrant children are being locked up in cages. In Italy, nativist sentiment is so high that when two little Roma girls drowned at the beach, people just covered their bodies with blankets and kept on swimming. The world is growing more and more xenophobic and immigrants are being targeted for violence and abuse everywhere, and I think it's important to recognize that despite apperarances, I, too, am an immigrant and thus fall under this shadow.
Others have said that as long as I keep my American passport, and especially as long as I keep my house in America, I'm not really committing to Saint Lucia and thus I don't get a say. But I can't agree with that, either. Yes, I could go back to America at any time, but consider the sheer amount of effort I've put into setting up a new life here - getting plane tickets, setting up a telephone number, buying a moped... Why would I go through all that effort if I wasn't committed for life? Maybe I haven't bought a house, or invested any serious money, but a lot of Saint Lucians don't own houses, either, so how can you set up that kind of barrier?
In any case, that shouldn't matter. There are plenty of people around the world who have a valid reason for maintaining two nationalities. After World War 2, many Czechs and Poles who were refugees from their new Communist governments steadfastly maintained their old 2nd Republic or Czechoslovak nationalities, even as they accepted a United Nations Laissez-Passer and, eventually, citizenship from the new countries where they arrived as refugees. Giving up my American nationality will make me less safe, and how can you ask me to compromise my safety? Besides, the market isn't in a good place for me to sell my house.
Some people have said that my move to Saint Lucia is solely for financial gain. I won't deny that my move to Saint Lucia will have massive financial benefits for me, but that's unimportant. The suggestion that I don't even care about the vibrant culture and community of Saint Lucia, that I would abandon the country of their birth just to save a little money on taxes... that claim is so insulting that I won't even entertain it. It's not worth discussing. Let's move on.
And no, this is not a race thing. A pre-nationalized Saint Lucian - that's how I refer to myself before my documents arrived - could just as easily have come from Nigeria, or Atlanta, and would also have no connection to this history. Frankly, I'm offended at the comparison.
Look, really, my demands are simple. The overwhelming majority of Saint Lucians are the descendants of African slaves who were briefly granted freedom during the French Revolution, were occupied and re-enslaved by the British, and took to the countryside to establish hidden communities from which they fought for their freedom, dying by the thousands, often in unspeakable ways, to secure their liberty. For many of my new countrymen, the struggle for racial justice has been a multi-generational project, and one that by all accounts still isn't finished.
And all I want is for all commemoration and all discussion of this history, along with any action on this topic whatsoever, to be scrubbed from the public sphere, cloistered behind close doors where nobody has to see it, and for anyone who objects to these measures to be subject to the firmest reprisals and penalties available. In exchange, these images can be replaced by something that all of us can participate in equally.
Like cricket. And calypso. And Voodoo.
there doesn't seem to be anything here