I voted for Obama this week.

I know I like to joke around a lot in this column but on this I’m serious.

The law regarding dual citizenship was changed a few years ago, so, after having been forced to renounce my US citizenship many moons ago, I discovered that I could actually reapply to get it back.

Fishing out all the yellowed documents in order to send in my application, I was transported back in time…there it was, signed by Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, no less…the certificate declaring me a “naturalised” Maltese citizen (even though I was born here). OK, let me explain. After we had been living in the US for five years, my mother studied and passed her exam to become a naturalised US citizen and as minors, my sister and I automatically obtained American citizenship too. At the time we had no idea we would end up coming back.

To put it mildly, it was a nasty shock when we did come back only to find out that, at the time, Malta did not allow dual citizenship. My parents steadfastly hung on to their American citizenship (do you blame them?) but if my sister and I wanted to work here, we had to make a choice. It was a dilemma, let me tell you, to give up that passport, and although technically I should have made the decision at 19, I dragged my feet because I was planning to go to an American university. For various reasons, I decided to stay here instead (I can hear you groaning) so I was in my early 20s with governmental letters coming through the mail telling me, “decide, decide” before I finally waved bye-bye to that dark blue passport.

Hello again

All these memories came flooding back when, this year, within a month of my application, my American passport arrived at the US Embassy. I was astonished at how easy it was – that was that. I sat staring at that passport and pondered my possibilities. Well, for a start, I don’t need to apply for a visa to visit my brother any more. And we can pack up and go live there if life in Malta really becomes unbearable (although to be honest, I could have done this long ago but I love my life here too much).

But most of all, I realised, I could vote for Barack Obama.

I’m saying all this not to “show off” or at least I hope it’s not coming across like that. It’s merely to illustrate just how utterly simple it is for someone overseas to vote in an election. No en masse bookings of chartered flights, no hysterical accusations of people voting who were not eligible.

I registered to vote online on the Los Angeles county website, giving them my last residence there from over 32 years ago (yes, that’s right, and I’m still entitled to vote). I received my ballot paper and this week I sent off my vote. By mail. The vote counts as long as it is received by 4 November when the national election takes place. You may wonder what security measures are taken. Well, for a start, it is written very clearly on the envelope that it is a felony to vote more than once in the same district, and when you sign the envelope you are confirming that you are who you say you are (I still have my social security number, the equivalent of Malta’s ID card number). If you are caught lying, you go to jail.

The incredible feeling of not only having voted, but of having voted for Obama, is hard to explain. If he makes it, which I sincerely hope he does, I will have been a tiny speck who made this historic election of the first black President happen.

If he doesn’t make it (and, God have mercy on us, a Republican President is chosen to occupy the White House for another four years), well then I would have still done my bit.

My two countries

Meanwhile, now that I find myself the citizen of two countries it has dawned on me that this perfectly captures how I have always felt inside.

For all intents and purposes I’m as Maltese as hobz biz-zejt, and I get a lump in my throat when Malta does well in anything. When we sang that eerily beautiful song, L-Ahhar Bidwi f’Wied il-Ghasel during Voices, it was often hard to hold back the tears.

I’m proud of our language and make a point of trying (not always successfully) to speak it well, although my brain still thinks first and foremost in English. There’s always a whole lot of mental translation going on up there. When I arrived here as a teenager I could never understand why people refused or weren’t bothered to speak their own language. To this day, the logic of why you should throw away your mother tongue still escapes me. You have to admit, nothing quite captures a situation as some of our colourful expressions. For example, the exclamation “x’affarijiet dawn!” (complete with making the sign of the cross and rolling one’s eyes thrown in for good measure) cannot be expressed in quite the same way in English.

And, although I often poke fun at Malta and its funny old ways, truly, it is done with affection. In fact, I will be the first to pounce on any “foreigner” who dares to unfairly criticise my country. You know where the airport is, people, just hop on a plane and leave. As for the myriad of characters who make up this nation, oh you just have to love ‘em, warts and all. From the hamalli (vulgar) to the tal-pepe (snobs), we are really a very interesting bunch and I’m constantly entranced and fascinated by them all.

Having said that, there will always be a part of me that feels “American”, and it is reflected in my humour, my taste in sitcoms, my liberal politics and my opinionated views, which are a result of an educational system in which you were actually encouraged to debate with the teachers.

Ten years of immersion in American culture during my crucial growing up years have left an indelible mark, and not just in my accent. It is part of who I am. So if I sometimes come across as if I’m straddling two cultures, and can’t quite make up my mind where I belong, well, that’s the reason.

Go Obama!

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