An American on what it takes to be a Canadian
Update | June 30, 2019: Since this story was first published in July 2017, Nate Tabak's application for Canadian citizenship was approved. The original story runs below.
American-born journalist Nate Tabak logs onto the Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada website twice a day to check his application status.
"We decided that we wanted to settle down in North America, where we could make more money and offer a better future for our kids once we have them. But then Trump got elected, and it was clear for us at least that the United States really wasn't going to be that place. Canada on the other hand was the country that took in Hana's family in the 1990's."
Yet, neither thinks Canada is perfect, or as Hana Marku, his wife, says: "It's not like Canada is hermetically sealed from ethno-nationalism."
And, for Tabak, getting citizenship is also about being able to settle and find a job more easily in Canada.
While Marku is a Canadian citizen, Tabak's decided to pursue his citizenship through his mother, who one day received a surprise letter in the mail that declared her a Canadian citizen because her father, Tabak's grandfather, was born in Canada.
So, is Tabak Canadian?
Under the law he should be.
But he's not.
Because the legality of who is a Canadian can be confusing.
Nate spoke to a 'lost Canadian,' Don Chapman, who was born in Vancouver but was stripped of his citizenship at the age of six when he also became an American citizen.
Chapman got his Canadian citizenship back more than 40 years later and after a fight.
"It's very humiliating ... Becoming an immigrant in your own country is so wrong. It felt so wrong," Chapman says.
Chapman's just one example of Canadians affected by some of the Byzantine provisions in the Canadian Citizenship Act that can strip someone of their citizenship.
In terms of Tabak's mom, he thinks she was born a Canadian citizen but had it stripped without her knowing about it because of one of those provisions.
Ironically, says Tabak, she probably got it back because of the work Chapman has been doing fighting against these laws.
But the retroactive citizenship his mom received apparently doesn't include the ability to translate it to her son.
Chapman's trying to change that too.
So, in the meantime, Tabak continues to check Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada's website, checking whether he'll be deemed a Canadian-American or just an American living in Canada.
This story originally aired on July 2, 2017. It appears in the Out in the Open episode "Hyphen State".