When Culture Overrides Boundaries

I ruffled many readers with my recent column about finally becoming an American citizen after more than four decades in the United States. My critics questioned my timing, my sincerity and my loyalty.

Some sounded genuinely disturbed by my enthusiasm for dual citizenship, doubting whether a person can be true to two countries. One reader even compared it to bigamy.

“Boy, your article upset me,” a fellow immigrant wrote. “I was born in the former Yugoslavia, so I think I know all about the emotions a person goes through when you decide to take another citizenship. But you need to make a commitment. You can’t sit on the fence.”

Not everyone was so diplomatic. Another cyber critic came out swinging in the title of his e-mail message: “Go Back to Mexico.” And P.S.: “Take a few of your illegal countrymen with you.”

A few went out of their way to stress they harbored no ethnic resentments. Dr. Larry Weisenthal, a cancer specialist in Huntington Beach, said he opposed California’s “mean-spirited, anti-immigrant propositions.” But he still believes dual citizenship is a selfish concept because people do it to play both sides for the best deals. And he fears it can be treacherous.

“How can you possibly justify voting in national elections in two different countries?” asks the physician, who is of Finnish and Russian descent. “The U.S.A. and Mexico are fortunately not at war, but the two countries often do have divergent interests.

“You are like a lawyer trying to represent both the defense and the prosecution.”

To paraphrase Shakespeare, the first thing we do is kill all the lawyer metaphors. That just makes us think as antagonists and starts us on the wrong foot.

Citizenship doesn’t guarantee allegiance during time of war, as American draft dodgers proved during Vietnam. And conversely, citizenship doesn’t always protect those who claim it, as demonstrated by the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

To quote Montesquieu: “The citizen may perish, but man remains.”

Besides, citizenship does not require blind allegiance to one’s government. It does require a sense of duty to one’s group. Belonging to two groups expands the circle you should care about.

What’s so bad about that?

Nothing, says Enrique Morones, a vice president with the San Diego Padres, among the first Americans to receive dual nationality from Mexico. The native San Diegan whose parents were born in Mexico was one of 12 newly nationalized Mexicans from around the world who were welcomed last year in Mexico City by President Ernesto Zedillo.

Morones had already been acting as a dual citizen in doubly good standing. At the height of Pete Wilson’s anti-Mexican hysteria, he helped the Padres put out the welcome mat to Mexican fans bused in for games across the border by the thousands.

“I feel allegiance to both countries,” he told me. “I’m not confused about that whatsoever. If more people do this, the relationship will be better for both countries.”

Hear, hear. Living in Southern California has fueled my internationalist spirit, too. I’ve had friends from Puerto Rico, Cuba, Vietnam, Argentina, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador and Cambodia. My own son is entitled to three passports: Mexico, the United States and Peru, courtesy of his mother.

Among Latin Americans, a common culture overrides national boundaries. We may not share the same citizenship, but we share passions and viewpoints that sometimes make stronger bonds. It’s a Pan-American spirit often expressed in song and verse.

That is why salsa star Oscar D’Leon kissed the ground when he visited Cuba in 1982, long before socialist tourism became trendy. There you had a Venezuelan of African descent honoring a Caribbean country which had adopted an Argentinian, Che Guevara, as a national hero.

The popular singer’s visit was controversial, but not political. It expressed allegiance to Cuba as the cradle of Afro-Hispanic culture in the Americas.

Cuban-born Celia Cruz, another revered salsa star exiled after Castro, has expressed a similar sentiment in a song titled Soy Antillana (“I Am Antillean”), recorded with la Sonora Poncena, a Puerto Rican band. She feels equally Dominican, Cuban and Puerto Rican, the lyrics say, because “although separated by the sea, we form together a single nation.”

Celia rejects attempts to pin down her nationality: No puede haber definicion/No debe haber separacion.

“There can be no definition,” Celia sings. “There should be no separation.”

Agustin Gurza’s column appears Tuesdays. Readers can reach him at (714) 966-7712 or online at agustin.gurza@latimes.com