When you seek your dual citizenship, the Italian government rightly requires you to prove that your LIRA’s line was not broken by someone along the way renouncing their Italian citizenship. One way a newly arrived Italian man would to do this is by becoming a naturalized citizen in the US. The process as I understand it was long and filled with its own pitfalls. The 1910 census that proved by great grandfather Guiseppe was still an “alien” when my grandfather John was born also helped me learn that neither Guiseppe nor Angela could read or write English when that census worker knocked on their front door.
Many of the forms and documents I am reading to learn the steps to acquire my dual citizenship are in Italian. I have been studying Italian for a while now, and have a passable understanding of the written language. My speaking skills are rudimentary, though slowly improving with my continued desire to be able to have a conversation in Italian. But I also have a powerful computer in my pocket at all times that can quickly translate for me or allow me to look up a word or phrase when I stumble.
Imagine my great grandfather at 30 years old, presenting himself to the Superior Court of Rhode Island with his two witnesses but perhaps only a passable understanding of the words being spoken while he did so, all to become a US citizen. I hope he is not rolling in his grave with the thought of me going the opposite direction for the very thing he was relinquishing.