it begins

[tielan]

Last week, my mother - an Australian citizen for over 50 years and an Australian resident for over 60 years - tried to change her address with an official government organisation.

They told her that neither her electoral enrolment, nor her Australian passport were sufficient evidence that she was an Australian citizen, and she needed her citizenship papers.

AND THIS IS HOW IT BEGINS.

After fifty years, do you think she still has her citizenship papers? And if they still have the records somewhere, do you think that she can get them cheaply and easily? Do you think the process would be simple to go through for someone who, perhaps, doesn't speak good English - ftr, my mother speaks excellent English although she's going a little deaf. My mother may be up to jumping through whatever hoops are put forward - how many others aren't?

And it raises questions, doesn't it?

Am I safe anymore? Is my citizenship truly unassailable if I'm not white? I was born to non-white Australians - one born here, one immigrated and naturalised here - will I get the benefit of the doubt, or will I spend the rest of my life proving my Australian bona fides? The far end of that question is: will I spend part of my life in a camp like George Takei and other Americans like him did - my goods and property and rights forfeit, my citizenship and loyalty in doubt - simply for being born non-white in a time of conflict?

I said a couple of weeks ago that Australians of Chinese descent were far too successful - individually and collectively - for White Australians to let us pass by without them taking a stab at us. I sincerely didn't think it would be this prophetic (or this personal) this soon.

Comments

[kass]

I am horrified. I am so sorry. I don't have good words.

[bladespark]

God, I fucking hate the attitude behind proving citizenship. Can't let somebody get away with something!!!!!

What the fuck is anybody getting away with? Existing? Oh god, no, can't have brown people existing! Can't have even the tiniest possible scrap of kindness or help or god forbid money going to somebody who doesn't perfectly deserve it!

As if the bureaucracy around preventing abuses of the system doesn't cost as much as those abuses ever did. More, sometimes! It's hideous, and it makes me embarrassed that as a white person, people I'm related to think that way.

[beatrice_otter]

Those fuckers.

I am so sorry.

[wpadmirer]

FUCK. That sucks balls.

I'm really worried for my naturalized friends in the states. One of my best friends is Indian. If they pull this shit on her, I'm going to blow a gasket.

[senmut]

Oh I am so sorry to hear this, and yes, it is how it begins.

May your government find a better way, too.

[raine]

Ugh, I hear on that. I was born in the US - but my mom, a Filipino immigrant, was six months pregnant with me. When my military job required me to get a national security clearance, my citizenship was questioned and my status as a native-born citizen was found to be "in fault" - all because some clerk somewhere saw the marriage license for my parents was Filipino, and totally ignored my father's citizenship. I wound up having to get my father's certified birth certificate, a certified letter stating my parents were legally married overseas, and all sorts of documentation - and that was in 1990. I cannot begin to imagine what it's like now.

[conuly]

FFS.

[schneefink]

They told her that neither her electoral enrolment, nor her Australian passport were sufficient evidence that she was an Australian citizen, and she needed her citizenship papers.
The FUCK.

That is ridiculous and horrible and scary.

[lilysea]

After fifty years, do you think she still has her citizenship papers? And if they still have the records somewhere, do you think that she can get them cheaply and easily? Do you think the process would be simple to go through for someone who, perhaps, doesn't speak good English - ftr, my mother speaks excellent English although she's going a little deaf. My mother may be up to jumping through whatever hoops are put forward - how many others aren't?

Yes!

What about people who have one or more of:

a) are Blind

b) are Deaf

c) have ADHD

d) have Anxiety

e) have Depression

f) are Autistic

g) have fatiguing chronic illnesses that make it hard or impossible to get to official government offices

h) are wheelchair users?

how are THEY supposed to jump through these hoops?

If there was a referendum for the question "Should Australia make anyone who has lived in Australia for the past 20 years and who has never been convicted of a violent crime a citizen immediately with only the barest possible minimum of paperwork" I would vote yes.

[booksarelife]

That’s horrible, I’m so sorry and angry

[ladyjax]

I have the same worries about Shirley even though she's native born Californian, I know that someone somewhere will have issue with her being Mexican because they can.

As someone else said, there are no good words. Strength to you and your family, my friend.

[amilyn]

This. Is. Unacceptable.

It's unacceptable as it's happening here. It's unacceptable that it's happening there.

I'm so sorry.

I have a friend in Wisconsin who had her right to vote suspended because she didn't have a WI State DL or ID...which she couldn't get because she didn't have her naturalization papers (nor could her parents, who had received them when the family was naturalized when my friend was about 10 years old, find them). It took her 2 or 3 years, THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS, and the intervention of advocacy groups to get her naturalization papers, then her Wisconsin ID, so that she could vote again.

(Wanna guess what her skin color *isn't*?)