Oriana has long felt connected to Europe, and Italy in particular, even desiring to live there one day. While her mother was born in Spain and spent a good part of her life in Europe, she wasn’t able to get Spanish citizenship. However, Oriana also has Italian heritage on her father’s side, and once she learned more about the rules surrounding jure sanguinis, she decided to give Italian citizenship a try. Her father joined her on the journey too.
As it turned out, they were eligible through Oriana’s father’s grandmother, which came as a nice surprise since the door through her grandfather had been closed due to naturalization laws. This meant though that the application would have to fall under a “1948 case”—an instance in which a woman had the next-in-line child before January 1, 1948 when Italy’s constitution came into effect—and go through the Italian court system. Oriana’s great-grandmother came from a small town in Calabria, and the process of going through her family lineage on that side was quite meaningful.
There were thankfully no major obstacles in the process. Now that she has Italian citizenship, Oriana looks forward to potentially continuing her education in Europe, or to merely live and work there with ease now. It also gives her father more options for both his residency and healthcare. With Oriana’s husband also having EU citizenship, she’s excited about the prospects this brings.
In closing, Oriana and John say the following regarding their experience:
“We reflect on our experience gaining Italian citizenship as a gift and a lesson in reverse-assimilation. Our ancestor was a 1st-generation Italian immigrant from the late 19th century who, along with her spouse, created circumstances that would enable her children to achieve economic assimilation in the United States. That gift of hope transcended her generation to provide clarity as to why people desire to immigrate. We feel so fortunate to have gone through this process with ICA. Every step of the way we felt supported, seen, and heard. We feel a closeness with our contacts there and would love to meet them one day in Italy. ICA provided us with the same hope that our ancestors had so many years ago. We cannot thank them enough for their services and enabling us to share this gratitude.”
Oriana and John have agreed to serve as subjects of this success story and have granted ICA the right to use their names and image.
