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 [Amerikos lietuvis published this op/ed by me last week. Now that it is online, I have translated it into English and posted it here.]
Pagal Lietuvos Respublikos pilietybės įstatymo 1 straipsnį Lietuvos Respublikos piliečiai yra… asmenys, iki 1940 m. birželio 15 d. turėję Lietuvos pilietybę, jų vaikai, vaikaičiai ir provaikaičiai.
Among these descendants I find myself. So there am I, one of those with a right, from birth, to Lithuanian citizenship, a right I have often compared with the Jewish birthright to the citizenship of Israel, which makes for an interesting coincidence, as I’m writing these words during the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel. A century ago, Zionists and Lithuanian nationalists saw their goals in parallel, so maybe it would be useful to see if there are worthwhile similarities today.
The return to Israel is called “aliyah” (ascent), and emigration from Israel is called the “yerida” (descent). So already it’s clear under what frame the migration to and from Israel is seen among Jews and Israelis. The statistics regarding aliyah are straightforward: within the first four years of the establishment of the State of Israel, almost 700,000 new citizens arrived. Since then, the annual numbers have fluctuated between 15,000 and 35,000. And as we all know, there was a huge flush after the disintegration of the USSR in the 1990s, when during that decade 800,000 new immigrants arrived to Israel from Eastern Europe alone.
One of my (many) childhood fantasies was that there would be a similar ascent to Lithuania once it regained its independence. All of us Lithuanian-Americans would get our Lithuanian passports, and we all—my brothers, my friends—would “return” to a state which, though we had never visited it, we called our homeland.
Unfortunately, it did not really work out that way. On both hands I can count the number of my Lithuanian-American coevals who have “returned” to Lithuania to live there permanently. Perhaps among the earlier generations, especially among the exiles after WWII, a larger number has returned for good, but I imagine that the standard operation is simply to travel to Lithuania once a year or so to vacation in a de facto summer home: a condo in Vilnius.
I hear many explanations for why people are in no rush to return, but the most present is always economic—it is simply hard to earn a good living in Lithuania. But this forces a question: what kind of patriots are we, if economic comfort is reason enough for us not to return to our “homeland”? Is not, actually, our sacrifice most important now, while the economy of Lithuania is still emerging? We are, after all, Lithuanians, and “Lietuva, tėvynė mūsų,” some patriot once wrote. So are we not obligated to support that homeland with more than our vacation budgets? Would it not be useful to draw inspiration from Nathan Hale’s regret about having only one life to give to his country?
But somehow this patriotism and ethnic feeling [tautiškumas] fails to jostle a Lithuanian-American out of his or her rut in the US. I know far more Lithuanians born in the US who have either a Vytis or a tricolor tattooed on their bodies than live permanently in Lithuania. I am not criticizing these painted patriots, since they are, more than likely, my friends. But I feel it is important to keep this anecdotal image in mind when trying to understand better the issue of dual citizenship.
A tattoo is a permanent mark of something. By getting a tattoo, a person assents to carry a permanent mark on his or her body. That’s how I begin to understand the desire to get ink injected into your skin in the form of a Vytis. Nationalists, after all, have taught us at Lithuanian schools and summer camps that our Lithuanianness is some kind of invariable aspect of our identities from birth. As a result, that Vytis is already branded on our souls. The tattoo, then, becomes an afterthought. It merely signifies to the world what the person already feels inside.
Yet that tattoo is a mark that can also be concealed, say, by a suit worn to a job interview. So the Vytis is a permanent mark on the body, but it can be concealed in order to get a better job. So again, the pursuit of economic gain stands between a subject and his or her patriotic duty to be always a Lithuanian and a patriot.
A subcommittee in the Lithuanian Seimas is currently deciding to whom it will grant the privilege of dual citizenship, even though their new set of criteria will probably be as unconstitutional as the previous set [struck down in 2006 by the Lithuanian Supreme Court]. But among those, to whom the privilege will not be extended, are Lithuanians born in the US as well as Lithuanians who have become naturalized citizens of the US. These Lithuanians in America obviously still have the right to become citizens of Lithuania, but exercising that right now requires a rather serious sacrifice: a blue passport.
But wouldn’t this blue passport, a passport to a patriot’s temporary home, be a mere trifle? Should not the patriot be eager to get rid of that temporary status? Does not the patriot want to flee from that diaspora, from that misleading pseudo-homeland America, to that land of permanence, which was his or her property before birth?
Yet, again, for some reason it does not tend to work out that way.
So why do the words “O beautiful, for spacious skies” make an impression on a Lithuanian in America? The answer now is rather clear: these aforementioned people are not, simply, only, Lithuanians. They are also Americans. By their actions and gestures, then, they betray their [Lithuanian] nationalism.
Still, the obligation of nationalism, like that of Zionism, is an obligation of returning. But this attraction of nationalism is interrupted by the pursuit of capital accumulation (among other things): scattered in the space of globalism, we try to go there, where the wages are best or the life is the most comfortable. So for the very same (and completely legitimate) reasons why Lithuanians are leaving Lithuania (or Israelis are leaving Israel), US-born Lithuanians and Jews do not “return” to their “homelands” in greater numbers.
So what, exactly, is the point of dual citizenship? I have yet to hear a good (that is to say, nonselfish [non-economic]) reason, why, to an adult born in the US, dual citizenship is a crucial necessity. Every reason I hear drifts into the subjunctive [in Lithuanian]: “I would retire in Lithuania,” “I would move there, if the living standard would improve.” My own reason is no more semantically firm: “I would teach in Lithuania or the EU if I were to get a position.” In other words, we have no idea what the future may bring, so it is good idea to keep our options open. But having a plethora of options is also nice and convenient. Though in my childhood I was a childish nationalist, for these selfish reasons of convenience I am a full supporter of dual citizenship.
Patriotism, however, is not supposed to be convenient. So why do we, calling ourselves Lithuanians, choose the soft option? Would it be so hard to transfer those subjunctive reasons into the indicative? “I am retiring to Lithuania.” Great. Do it! “I am going to move there, and living standards will improve.” Great. Do it! “I am going to teach in Lithuania...” well... the point is clear: for patriots, nationalists, national heros, professional Lithuanians, and the like, there remains a way to take this path to Lithuanian citizenship. But it requires a sacrifice. They have to juridically demonstrate precisely how important Lithuania is to them.
So if that Lithuanian feeling is such an essential part of a person’s identity, that we feel it from our birth, why on earth are we so hesitant to forfeit US citizenship?
Back to my childhood fantasy, where I’m sitting with a passport of the Lithuanian Republic in my hands. There’s my name; there’s my photo. But is this theoretical passport a guide to one possible future, which lands me in Lithuania? Or is it merely a souvenir, a reminder of those bygone days when I was still an idealist, caught up in the childish daydreams where the Lithuanian nation [tauta] and the Lithuanian Republic would share a 1:1 relationship? On the other hand, if I were to get that passport now, then every time I open it, my very eyes would look at me and remind me that I did not choose the soft option. I chose which was my “homeland,” even if in so doing I risked my economic comfort. So that is my challenge to those, who would use patriotic and nationalist organizations (like LBs) to seek not national ends, but simply ends of comfort. Prove to me why in order for me to live a complete patriotic life as a Lithuanian I need more than just US or Lithuanian citizenship—that I need both.
It is standard for Lithuanians to argue that it is an ethnic obligation for a Lithuanian to take on the burden of learning the (impossibly difficult) Lithuanian language—a serious burden to anyone who did not have the dumb luck of being born in a household where Lithuanian was spoken. But when it comes to citizenship, they demand the least burdensome path. Why?
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Yesterday instead of working on my dissertation proposal, I threw together an 1100 word column for Amerikos lietuvis. It’s not very good, so I told them just to look at it and tell me if they wanted me to clean it up. Furthermore, it’s almost unreadable from dripping with irony, for which I cannot really account. I think the problem grows from the shame and frustration I feel over seeing the demagoguery that many people are stooping to (myself included, to a point) regarding this issue.