In the midst of a very strange and surreal year, we have some crazy, wonderful, huge news: Ben, Arden and I have joined Logan to become Australian citizens!
We had our official citizenship ceremony in June, safely held via a short video conference. It would have been delightful to dress up and attend a fancy in-person event, and we did have the option of postponing the ceremony for whenever in-person activities resume (at this rate, maybe 2025?). But honestly, a video ceremony was a lovely and convenient option, especially with little children who would have been difficult to entertain at a fancy event.
Because of all the proposed changes to Australian visas and paths to citizenship in 2017, we didn't actually realise that we were eligible for citizenship... until the end of 2018. I was at dinner with Ben and his coworkers, some of whom were also American expats with Permanent Residency, and they were discussing their applications for citizenship.
"It's sooo tedious, but it's actually not as much work as the application for Permanent Residency," one of them was saying.
"How long have you been a PR?" I asked, picking at my gestational diabetes-friendly salad.
"Just over a year."
"I thought you couldn't apply for citizenship until you've been a PR for four years..."
"They haven't actually made that change yet, it's still only a year--"
"WAIT WHAAAAT we've been PRs for over a year..!!"
I'd like to say we immediately went home and got cracking on our application. But we procrastinated a bit (aka I gave birth to Logan and we all got distracted) and didn't actually apply until the beginning of 2019. After that, it was just a waiting game (it can take anywhere from a few months to years for applications to be processed).
A few months later, we both got e-mails with the date and time of our scheduled interview and test in late November... which happened to be the day before we flew to the States for our most recent trip. (Thank goodness it wasn't the day after!) We both passed our separate interviews and aced our tests (a 20-question multiple choice test, formulated to test both English proficiency and the ability to regurgitate Australian facts). Because citizenship applications can't be finalised when people are out of the country (Ben had mentioned to his officer that we'd be gone for six weeks), they pushed our file to the front of the line and granted us our citizenship that very day, which is pretty rare. The only thing left for us to do was attend our ceremony, which we got to do seven months later.
This is an enormous privilege, one that we won't take for granted. Even though getting our permanent residency was expensive and challenging, and applying for citizenship was a lot of work as well, I think we had it pretty easy compared to many others. Quite a few of my former classmates from uni, also here on temporary visas, have been unable to secure subsequent visas or a path to citizenship and have had to leave the country - so I won't take our journey to citizenship for granted.
While we're grateful for the opportunity to stay in Australia forever (and most importantly, for our children to have more options when they grow up), our hearts are still with our loved ones and our old communities back in the States. Stay safe, everyone - and hopefully we'll be able to see some of you in the near future.
-your friendly Australian neighbours, the Kortlevers!
