citizenship and tests

A Pole in Yorkshire’s Tale

by

I attended a recent 3millions lobbying event and when I arrived at the event “Schadenfreude” was all I felt. “Schade” (shame) because why we have to do it? It should be straightforward. We are living in the UK, this is our home. Since the Article 50 was triggered, this feeling of home has been on very shaky ground. And this is why we met. But I felt also “Freude” (joy). I am not alone. Mine is not a lone wolf’s cry.

Read more

A Dutch citizen’s tale about PR and naturalisation

by

Is it strange that I nearly burst into tears at the end of my passport interview?

After the unnerving first question “do you know why you’re here?”, I got through twenty minutes of fairly random questioning of my personal life, worried that I might be failing because I’m not very good at remembering my parents’ dates and places of birth (I know that’s odd, I just have a very bad memory). He wasn’t even listening to my answers because several times he asked me something which I had just told him as part of the previous answer.

Read more

A French EU Citizen’s Story (2)

by

In September 1987 I came to London to work as a Language Assistant. I immediately liked the ancestral land of my mother’s lineage (being Breton, my mother’s family came from here many centuries ago).  They were Celts persecuted by Angles, Saxons, Danes and Jutes – my people already persecuted here so long before I was born. I think I’m starting to understand now a few decades after my arrival why my maternal ancestors left. This land episodically has a xenophobic phase.

Read more