Michael After living a whopping 25 years in the USA, we decided to become American citizens. Why? With our Green Card, we were allowed to stay in the U.S. indefinitely, but if we ever decided to live outside the country for more than six months, the Green Card would expire immediately and we didn't want that risk. Furthermore, Green Card holders are legally fragile hybrids, powerless against changing administrations who can seemingly willy nilly modify the rules that govern immigration. The rights of an American citizen, however, are protected by the constitution, and are therefore carved in stone.

Michael Ultimately, the German government is interested in not having every Tom, Dick and Harry running around with a German citizenship, even if they don't need it, and you've got to admit that that makes a lot of sense. Double citizenships create a bureaucratic mess, and should only be tolerated in exceptional cases. That is why basketball player Schrempf lost his German citizenship when he accepted the American one. We, on the other hand, submitted an application in which we demonstrated that we would suffer significant disadvantages if we a) did not accept the American citizenship and b) lost the German one.

Angelika Getting an American Green Card can take years or even decades. But once you have the Green Card in your pocket, it is relatively easy to become an American citizen if you have led an unblemished life in the country and always paid your taxes in full. Here are the conditions that must be met before an application for American citizenship can be made:

Angelika On February 7th, we had our interviews at the Immigration Office in San Francisco, two hours apart. Michael's was at 12:30pm and mine was at 2:30pm. By the way, it's not the norm for married couples to go to the interview on the same day, but we were lucky in that regard. When it was my turn, Michael had already finished his interview and passed the citizenship test. We met on the street in front of the building, and Michael was able to give me some quick tips. As usual, he had to retrieve his small pocket knife from a flower pot around the corner, since you weren't allowed to bring a knife, no matter how small, into the building, since we all had to go through a security check and a metal detector. What I've already gone through with Michael and his knives in the wrong place could fill a lot of pages. But I digress.

Angelika Before Corona, the swearing-in ceremony for American citizenship was quite a spectacle and took place in larger venues, such as the Paramount Theater in Oakland. The applicants were allowed to bring guests and the show was patriotically pompous. Thank God we were spared all this, although of course my students would have liked to be part of the swearing-in ceremony. The problem with such mass events is that after passing the interview, you have to wait weeks for the swearing-in date. Since the immigration office in San Francisco handles a lot of naturalization interviews and there are still bottlenecks and restrictions due to Corona, the swearing-in ceremonies in San Francisco took place five times a day in groups of 35 people in 2022. Michael was lucky and was sworn in right after his interview at 3 p.m. Unfortunately, I didn't make it, despite the efforts of my official, and then got an appointment two days later at nine in the morning.

Angelika Unlike Germaney, there is no such thing as a resident registration office in the United States. But where do the American citizens apply for their passport? The surprising answer is: usually at the post office. Not every post office offers this service, but in a city like San Francisco there are several post offices to choose from. The post office in our neighborhood "Noe Valley" is also one of them, as I have been able to experience several times on my post runs. Because when someone has an appointment for a passport application in front of you, you'll wait forever in the queue! The passport application gets submitted at the counter. We applied for our passports at my favorite post office on Evans Avenue in San Francisco. This post office has long opening hours, namely from 7 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. on weekdays, and I have many a times taken a package that had to be sent to Germany the next day there late in the evening.