At Incheon Airport, South Korea, 2016

I vividly remember the feeling I had the first time I went back to South Korea to visit my parents after becoming a Canadian. I had recently changed my passport from South Korean to Canadian, and for the first time, I had to go to the opposite side of the immigration section at the airport that I had always been so familiar with, the one designated for ‘non-Korean passport holders.’ I will never forget the moment when I was standing there getting a six-month entry visa on my Canadian passport, and especially when I was asked to produce my old passport for one last time, so that the immigration officer could stamp it with the word ‘void.’

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After receiving my Canadian passport several months previously, something inside me had been telling me to ‘get it over with,’ to go through this inevitable procedure as soon as possible and move on. On one level, I needed this ‘ceremony’ as a self-affirmation for the decision I had made, so that I would never look back. It is because getting a Canadian citizenship has been one of the most difficult decisions I have made in my life, since it meant that I was required to give up my South Korean citizenship. Prior to this decision, I had long remained a permanent resident of Canada (PR, the equivalent of a Green Card holder in the US) during my doctoral program in Toronto without taking that one last step of becoming a full Canadian, even years after I had already been qualified to apply for a citizenship and a passport.

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For me, getting a new citizenship meant more than simply changing my passport. I often used to feel a sense of foreboding that once I got to that ‘point of no return,’ I might lose a substantial portion of my self-identity that I had taken for granted, and that my cherished memories up to that point as a Korean would somehow fade or even slip away completely. More than anything, I could sense deep down inside of me that there existed something akin to guilt whenever I imagined myself taking that last step, as if I were doing something somehow bad and immoral.

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In this globalized world in which many South Koreans freely emigrate abroad and acquire foreign citizenships, I could not tell if it was just me thinking too much and being old-fashioned. I remember how an Asian friend of mine once told me that he had also gone through a similar experience, and suggested that maybe that feeling of guilt was an ‘Asian thing.’ He gave me something to think about, but I am still not sure whether that is the case. In the end, though, I took that last step to become a Canadian, changed my passport, and gave up my South Korean citizenship.

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This piece is a personal reflection on how I have come to view the issue of citizenship through my own experience, and how I have finally made peace with myself and let go of my former Korean cultural legacy of regarding ethnic/national identity and citizenship as one and the same. It was in the resolution of the dilemma – strangely enough, while I was in Israel – that I finally found a way to convince myself that the two could be separated, allowing me to cherish both my ethnic/national identity and citizenship in different ways without losing the pride I had in the former and enabling me to make that decision.

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My background

I have spent a significant portion of my life living outside of South Korea. As a child and then as a teenager, I used to be back in Korea on and off while living in the US and Egypt. After receiving my bachelor’s degree from a Korean university, I departed once again, this time as an adult studying and working in Japan, Canada, and Israel. I have never lived permanently in Korea since my mid-20s.

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Whenever I was back in South Korea during my childhood, I received the typical national education of the time, including anti-communism classes (this was still during the Cold War), as well as those about history that strongly emphasized certain aspects of Japan-Korea interactions in the past, leaving deep impressions on the students’ minds. Nevertheless, I believe that the years I spent abroad during this formative period allowed me to keep a certain distance from the contents and the ideologies behind the national education that an ordinary student in South Korea would not have been able to manage.

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It certainly does not mean, however, that I felt any sense of dissatisfaction regarding the Korean education system or Korean culture, as someone comparatively more ‘internationalized’ than most of my peers from the standpoint of the time. In fact, while it is true that I felt grateful – mostly to my parents – for all the opportunities that enabled me to be exposed to other cultures early in life, as a teenager I also truly enjoyed going to weekend Korean schools and interacting with Korean communities during my time abroad, since they reminded me of being Korean and of all the fond memories of where I had originally come from; I probably tried to be more Korean than young Koreans living in Korea.

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As a result, occupied as I was with trying to keep up with the latest youth culture in Korea, and constantly self-conscious that I had to act and think like the friends I had left behind there, I ended up becoming a bit of an outsider at school in the US. That is why, after graduating from my American high school, I wanted to return to Korea to go to college. Although it was certainly not that I disliked the reality I had been given, being a Korean teenager abroad who was constantly preoccupied with checking if I were ‘Korean enough’ must have instilled in me a certain inner stress regarding self- and national identity, now that I look back.

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While attending university in South Korea, I lived like any typical college student would, and I remember that I never had to deal with that inner stress regarding identity, as it obviously never surfaced during this happy time. During this period, however, South Korea was facing many challenges – especially after the IMF crisis – and the national motto was fast-changing to so-called ‘globalization (gukjewha)’ in order to make Koreans more ‘international.’

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I came to the gradual realization that my upbringing and experience was placing me in an advantageous position in this changing environment, and I started to feel an urge to go abroad once again – this time, however, not because of my parents, but because I wanted to challenge myself internationally through my own deliberate choice. After I graduated, I thus chose Japan as my first destination, before ultimately ending up in Canada. That being said, I must confess that I never really thought about national identity or citizenship issues during this period, given that I expected to eventually return to Korea with a good-looking CV.

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Challenging myself, accumulating experiences, and building my career abroad were certainly not easy tasks, and there were numerous difficulties. But I was nevertheless blessed with many opportunities, friends, and mentors, as I tried to the best of my ability to build a ‘base of operations’ for my academic career in Japan and later in Canada. Before I knew it, I had lived in Japan and Canada for much longer than I had originally planned to, eventually surpassing once again the total amount of time I had spent in Korea. I came to the gradual realization, with a sense of guilt, that I was feeling more at ease abroad than in Korea; I now had more friends there, not to mention my career.

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For example, whenever I went back to Japan after visiting my parents in South Korea, I used to feel a somewhat complex uneasiness whenever I noticed inside of me a sense of relief upon reading the Japanese sign ‘okaerinasai (welcome back)’ at Narita Airport. At the same time, whenever I returned to Korea I also started to face the fact that I was not adequately coping with the fast pace of changes taking place in my own country. Although I had always known my country to be a dynamic place and had previously regarded this as a positive aspect, the fact that I sometimes felt like a baffled foreign tourist in my own country was not terribly comforting.

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When I moved to Canada after Japan and became a permanent resident, my life in Toronto re-introduced me to the long-dormant stress I had had as a teenager regarding my identity. I could now clearly see that there was indeed a growing mental gap taking shape in my head between pride and gratitude for the achievements I had gained abroad, and a sense of obligation towards a country to which I still had to return, despite lessening confidence whenever I contemplated the prospect of fully coping with life in Korea.

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For me, the stress was very real, because it was more than simply a matter of choosing which country to live in based on preference and pragmatic considerations. As mentioned earlier, I was already questioning whether I wanted to spend the rest of my life in Korea, but that did not automatically make me decide on becoming a Canadian, even if my mind was already tilting towards the personal merit of further pursuing my future career abroad.

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At the time, I felt as though I was bound to be a nomad, with a hollowness in my soul. However my life unfolded from that point onward, I was worried that I might forever be left with no true ‘homeland’ - what Koreans call gohyang, equivalent of the Japanese terms kokyo or furusato. Although my emotional attachment to Korea as gohyang was unquestionable, it nevertheless concerned me greatly that the degree of the emotion was lessening, and I pressed myself hard such that I should recover the emotion again without reservation. Regarding Canada, I could imagine myself acquiring Canadian citizenship, but I still could not visualize Canada replacing Korea as my gohyang in my mind, and it baffled me as to why this was so.

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The meaning of Canada for me and the nature of my ‘dilemma’

Throughout most of my time in Canada, I did not know whether I would be able to somehow resolve the source of the above-mentioned mental stress. But time was constantly pushing me to make a decision regarding where I would make my future ‘base of operations,’ and the question of citizenship obviously constituted the most critical issue.

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There were two options available. I could continue to maintain my South Korean citizenship while living in Canada as a PR foreigner for the rest of my life, if I really decided to settle in this country (and it was already becoming a very likely scenario at this point). Or, I could finally take the last step from being a PR to obtaining Canadian citizenship. Naturally, this course of action seemed to make more sense given the reality of my situation, but it also meant giving up my South Korean passport, seeing as it does not recognize dual citizenship.

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I would occasionally share my headachy story with my Canadian friends, but it seemed to me that many of them could not grasp the nature or the extent of my anxiety. It was understandable: Canada is admired around the world for its liberal and multicultural ideal of embracing immigration and granting citizenship to qualified individuals. And it also allows dual/multiple citizenships. Because of this, it is possible to remain a citizen of another country while still being a full Canadian citizen (whatever one’s reasons might be), all the while also proudly embracing and maintaining one’s own ethnic/national roots.

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From the Canadian perspective, there is no source of conflict or tension between one’s legal citizenship status and one’s ethnicity/nationality, which means that there does not have to be a painful choice in the first place. And even if one has to make a choice – usually because of the law of the country from which one comes, as was the case for me – most Canadians with whom I spoke seemed to think that there was nothing to be ashamed of in obtaining or giving up a citizenship; Canadian social understanding does not endorse making snap judgements on someone else’s choices based on his/her unique personal situation. From my Korean background, sometimes I even felt that many Canadians seemed to be overly flexible regarding this issue, considering citizenship in too pragmatic and utilitarian a fashion. I could, therefore, understand why many of my Canadian friends could not truly relate to my inner struggle, given that some of them were dual citizens themselves.

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I have always personally been of the opinion that the standard by which one gauges whether a country is ‘developed’ or ‘advanced’ is not based on its GDP, the number of its world-famous corporations or state-of-the-art products, its military might, or the speed of its internet. It is, in my mind, based on the reliability of a country’s legal institutions and social norms in fairly settling any dispute or problem, no matter who is involved. Based on my personal experience, I was able to say with certainty that I could rely on Canada’s laws and social system to be the most transparent and fair among the countries I had visited; a multicultural immigration-based state such as Canada cannot function without such social capital.

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Especially as a visible minority, it always gave me much consolation and appreciation for Canada to know that I would not be discriminated against or pushed to accept any position or social situation unequal to that of ‘mainstream’ Canadians because of my ethnic/national background. Of course, Canada is not a perfect country. No country is. But I developed a great deal of admiration for the principles that this country upholds, not to mention its welfare system. Even as a foreigner, to deliberately use a somewhat anachronistic expression, I was certainly able to believe that Canada was a country ‘worth fighting for.’

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It was obvious, therefore, that as far as my own inner struggle was concerned, it was never Canada that was preventing me from taking the final step to become a citizen, and I gradually came to realize the origin and the nature of the stress I had been dealing with for so long. One source was that South Korean citizenship law prevented me from becoming a dual citizen, but much more importantly, it was the psychological burden stemming from the legacy of my Korean cultural upbringing – despite my long time abroad –- which traditionally has taken ethnic/national identity and citizenship to be one and the same. From this perspective, when one is faced with a good reason to separate one’s citizenship from one’s ethnic/national identity, it inevitably creates a dilemma, naturally generating an inner resistance in the form of guilt, as if one were abandoning a part of one’s soul by artificially splitting something that is supposed to be whole.

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It was liberating to know that I could now pinpoint the nature of my dilemma. But knowing its nature still did not necessarily resolve anything. I could not simply adopt the liberal Canadian philosophy regarding citizenship, replacing the traditional Korean way of thinking that had dominated my subconscious mind for long, since the two were not compatible – and, as we all know, cultural legacy dies hard. I realized that, in order for me to take that final step, I would need other sources of assurance – other philosophical stances – that would help to truly convince myself that, even after I took that last step, I would still be able to maintain my ethnic/national identity with pride and without guilt for having become a citizen of another country.

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Coincidentally, it was during this time that an opportunity to spend time in Israel as a researcher was offered to me. It was while I was there that I finally got that additional source of assurance – that necessary self-convincing – which enabled me to resolve my inner dilemma and take the final step towards obtaining Canadian citizenship.

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What my experiences in Israel taught me about ethnic/national identity and citizenship

Israel, as is well-known, is a ‘multinational’ state made up mostly of Jews and Arabs, although its distinct and turbulent history makes the usage of the word ‘multinational’ quite different from how the term is commonly understood in Canada. Rather than going down that road, however, I will limit my story here to the Israeli Jews I interacted with. I do not in any way presume to make general claims regarding Israel’s ethnicity/nationality issues; I merely present here my limited personal observations, based on what I witnessed and heard from my Israeli friends, and which in turn helped me to overcome my dilemma.

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On the surface, Israel and Canada seem to share pragmatic ‘western’ views on dual/multiple citizenships. I met many Jews, especially from North America and Europe, who were immigrating to Israel while still keeping their old passports. On the other hand, there are also many Israeli Jews who live abroad for most of their lives with local citizenship while maintaining their Israeli passports.

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Some Israelis even told me, with a dose of cynicism and dark humour, that their citizenship law is so flexible that many Israelis with dual/multiple citizenships both inside and outside the country consider their Israeli and foreign passports something of a ‘security insurance policy’: Israelis abroad consider Israeli passports to be a guaranteed ‘ticket home’ in case the state they reside in becomes hostile towards the Jews; conversely, the Israelis in Israel with foreign passports hold on to their ‘way out’ of the country in case the situation there becomes untenable (which is somewhat contrary to the world-wide stereotype that all Israelis will always fight for their land to the bitter end).

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Having said that, there are of course millions of other Jews around the world who do not have Israeli citizenship: those without any official link to the State of Israel except for their ethnic/national sense of attachment to their ancestral homeland. It was this category of Jews, and how they are viewed by Israelis, that offered me an eye-opening moment in regards to the resolution of my dilemma.

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Jews without Israeli citizenship, who have no legal attachment or obligation to the country except for their historical national heritage, are still regarded by Israeli Jews as members of the wider Jewish family. Despite its similarities to Canada concerning flexible citizenship laws, Israel is certainly different from Canada or most other Western countries in this regard because it is founded upon the idea of the ‘Jewish State’ underscored by its national historical narrative (if we were to set aside for a moment the complexities surrounding the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict). It seemed to me that Israeli Jews constantly feel an acute need to ensure political, moral, and material support from abroad, especially given that Israel has always faced various types of challenges. In this sense, foreign Jews have always been regarded as the most reliable source of support.

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I was able to see that Israelis get both peace of mind and confidence from the fact that the support of these ‘family members’ is highly beneficial and important to Israel in the long run. This way of thinking is certainly not related to the widely-circulated negative stereotype that a foreign Jew is expected to utilize his position in his host country for Israel’s gain. The general understanding in Israel is that, if a Jew is successful abroad, there is nothing wrong in him building his career and establishing a position as a good citizen in his host country, where he is most appreciated. It is understood that his success is genuinely good for Israel even if he is not an Israeli citizen, because as long as his heart is still with his ancestral homeland, he is likely to do his best to bridge Israel and his country when the need arises, while at the same time his success is also contributing to the improvement of the overall international prestige of the Jewish family. From this perspective, I could understand why the success, achievements, and fame of the Jews abroad were often widely covered in Israel.

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Admittedly, it is also true that some politically-right Israelis emphasizing the necessity of sufficiently populating the Holy Land with Jews tend to see these foreign Jews who are not making aliyah (Jewish immigration to Israel based on the “Law of Return”) and obtaining Israeli citizenship in a negative light, especially now that the proportion of the Jewish population vis-à-vis that of the Arabs is seen to be under threat. But I also heard more moderate Israelis – who still consider themselves to be the silent majority – claiming that by no means do all Jews need to be crammed into the country, and that the Jews who are not immigrating to Israel for whatever personal reasons should not be so readily judged.

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In Israel, I thought that I had finally found that ‘something’ I had been looking for, the source of assurance that would help me put an end to my dilemma and give me self-justification for my decision to change citizenship. The philosophy that resonated most deeply with me was the Israeli notion that a Jew who is a successful and loyal citizen of a foreign country could also be a supporter of his homeland from outside of Israel based on his own capacity, and that his efforts would be appreciated by the wider Jewish community.

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At last, I decided that I would apply for citizenship in Canada. Obtaining it would realistically be the best choice for my career and my future, given my own specific situation in this internationalized world. But the decision was not based only on pragmatic reasons: as a loyal and grateful citizen, I genuinely wanted to give back to the country that had been good to me. Even if it meant giving up South Korean citizenship, I told myself, I would still find my own way to help Korea as a foreign national, fully maintaining my ethnic/national identity with pride and a sense of attachment to my heritage, like the non-Israeli Jews abroad. And, more importantly, I convinced myself that in the long run, my own success as a Canadian – if I were to achieve that – would be good for Korea too.

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My current life as a Korean-Canadian

I have explained how I recognized the weight and stickiness of a cultural background that traditionally upholds the union of ethnic/national identity and citizenship, once I started to contemplate the possibility of separating the two in my life journey. This is why the dilemma lingered in me so long between obtaining Canadian citizenship as the most reasonable and practical choice given my situation and the sense of foreboding for making a decision incompatible with my traditional cultural upbringing. I was constantly preoccupied with finding a self-satisfactory answer that would somehow resolve the dilemma in my mind. In my case, I finally found that answer – a needed source of assurance – while in Israel, seeing how the country views foreign Jews, and reflecting on how my being a Korean version of them could become the liberation from my burden.

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Having said that, I would not be wholly honest if I claimed that I do not have any sense of uneasiness in the back of my mind, even now. For example, when people ask me, “where are you from?”, I become self-conscious, and something inside me still does not let go of that emotion. Instead of simply calling myself “Canadian,” I find myself always replying with the lengthier, “I have Canadian citizenship, but I’m originally from Korea.”

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Nevertheless, now that I have made peace with my decision and have finally become a Canadian, I believe that I currently have two senses of attachment – of loyalty – comfortably co-existing in my mind most of the time. I feel that it is my responsibility to be true to my feelings towards both of these affiliations.

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The first sense of attachment I embrace is an emotional one that is directed towards Korea. It is an unchanging aspect of my Korean national identity, even if it might now have been separated from my citizenship. I still strongly consider myself an integral part of the wider family of Koreans, even if I might not be ‘living under the same roof’ with most of the members. I often find myself consciously reminding myself of my roots, and imagining ways to help my homeland from my own unique position to the best of my ability. The second is obviously linked to my newly-acquired legal citizenship status in Canada. The sense of attachment and loyalty I embrace towards this affiliation is also sacred, because I made a voluntary choice to become an official member of this great country.

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Looking beyond my personal case, I am aware that there are ongoing debates worldwide about the meaning of citizenship in our current internationalized world. The issue is an especially thorny one for those countries such as Korea and Japan that have long upheld the traditional norm of merging national identity with citizenship based on the myth of ‘ethnic homogeneity,’ but even these societies are currently facing gradual transformations as a result of globalization and demographic challenges. On the other end of this discursive spectrum are countries like Austria, Malta, or Cyprus that offer up their citizenships for sale, already enticing many of the well-to-do around the world for these badges of wealth. I do not know what the future will bring internationally regarding this issue, and I certainly do not intend to judge.

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In the case of contemporary South Korea, as mentioned earlier, the social mindset about this issue is admittedly going through a rapid transformation, and many ordinary Koreans are much more open to obtaining foreign citizenship than in the past. According to the Ministry of Justice and the Migration Research and Training Centre of the International Organization for Migration, Republic of Korea, around 20,000 to 30,000 people per year have either lost or given up Korean citizenship this decade. Demand for more flexible citizenship laws has grown, and there are also ongoing debates about allowing dual citizenship.

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Personally, it would obviously have made my life much easier if South Korean laws were more flexible, since I probably would not have had to go through the aforementioned dilemma. But I was reluctant to take part in the debate, because I felt that I would be shamelessly fighting for my own vested interest, and also because I genuinely felt that the issue must be approached with caution. The origin of this caution, now that I look back, is obvious: despite the social transformation, the traditional value regarding citizenship – a ‘cultural residue’ – is still deeply influential for individuals who grew up prior to the globalized era, such that some people find suddenly shifting their inner stance to a more liberal one not always so easy.

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Coming back to my personal case one last time, one of my friends recently asked me a question: “Which national anthem stirs your emotions more?” I answered, “both equally,” but further elaborated that, although the amount of emotion might be equal, the nature of each is different. It is quite difficult to explain in words, but the emotion that wells up when I hear the Korean anthem is like ‘bringing longing tears in my eyes,’ while the one I get from the Canadian anthem is like ‘putting a warm and happy smile on my face.’ Although my friend’s question was a corny one – as was my answer - I must say that it still caused me to have a thoughtful introspective moment.