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Dual Citizenship and Expatriation GEORGE SAKAMAKI E There are five general ways in which citizenship is acquired. One is by birth, which groups the nations of the world into three principal classifications: (1) nations that observe the Civil Law practice whereby a child’s citizenship is determined by the nationality of its parents, as in Germany, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and others; (2) nations that espouse the Common Law doctrine, which awards citizenship according to place of birth, as is the system in countries like Argentina, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Portugal; and (3) nations that combine the law of blood and the law of soil, including Belgium, France, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Russia, and the United States. These divisions are by no means clear cut, and a lack of uniformity produces confused and conflicting situations so as make it possible for a person to own two or more citizenships, knowingly or unknowingly. A person may knowingly become a dual citizen through naturalization , option, marriage, legitimation, and through other affirmative actions, if he gains his second citizenship without having divested himself of his original nationality.A person may unknowingly be dual, as in the case of a natural-born dual citizen claimed by the United States for having been born on American soil and at the same time by some foreign country holding to the law of natural descent. We are concerned in this article with the latter class of “mixed subjects” inasmuch as the problem of dual citizenship in Hawaii is focused on American citizens of Japanese ancestry. Americans of Japanese parentage in Hawaii have been given a clean bill of health by the Congressional Statehood investigation committee (see Senate Document No. 151, 75th Congress, 3rd Session, Washington, D.C.).The verdict has not softened their desire to become better Americans and more deserving of the confidence placed in them. Notwithstanding this, there are those who are skeptical of these 20 First published April 1938. young Americans, despite the fact that “the history of Hawaii and of America,” to quote Samuel W. King, “shows how each racial group at first suffered under various restrictions and discriminations, only to win eventual full acceptance as fellow Americans.” The problem of dual citizenship has been raised in Hawaii with little regard to an essential fact in the situation—that double nationality and dual allegiance are not synonymous. Young Americans in Hawaii definitely do not owe allegiance to Japan; they are not serving two masters. Most of the Americans of Japanese descent born prior to December 1, 1924, and who have not yet renounced their Japanese citizenship are not aware they are unwitting victims of a conflict in nationality laws. Take my case as an example. Born in Hawaii, I had always regarded myself ipso facto an American without any obligation to Japan. Only a day or two before I testified before the Congressional Statehood committee last fall, I learned that all persons of Japanese antecedent born prior to December 1, 1924, were automatically citizens of Japan, according to Japanese law, regardless of whether their births were or were not registered with Japanese authorities. That left me technically a dual citizen, and it was with great embarrassment that I so testified. A few weeks ago, however, another member of my family had the occasion to check on her status and found that I had been expatriated back in 1925. Thus, I find now that I am not in possession of two citizenships and that I have not been a dual citizen for more than twelve years. I mention this to point out that registration of births and even expatriation are frequently executed without the knowledge of the parties most concerned and in no way imply divided allegiance. In some cases duality continues because of inertia;in defense of this is the feeling that because they consider themselves loyal to the United States and to the United States only, they need not be concerned as to what the nationality law of some foreign country might be. Their position and attitude, although assailed, should be understandable to fellow Americans of other national strains that likewise do not bother to find out what laws might be in the land of their foreign ancestors. Nations as well as individuals object to conflicting claims on citizenship , yet are powerless in most cases to alter the situation that is so much part of every nation’s very existence. It is to “paradoxical Japan” that we must turn for an example...

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