Mario López-Goicoechea - Cuban, Immigrant, and Londoner

The Secretary of State, in exercise of the powers conferred by the British Nationality Act 1981, hereby grants this certificate of naturalisation to the person named below, who shall be a

BRITISH CITIZEN

from the date of this certificate

It was May, 2005. I, along with what must have numbered hundreds if not thousands of immigrants across the country, was being granted full British citizenship.

The certificate, which I am looking at now, is in a black file carrier, kept on a shelf alongside CDs and books. A fitting location, I would add, which shows my love for both, art and my adopted land. The document reminds me of the imaginary oath I have sworn to this country (I dont recall being asked to do an actual one) and the duties and responsibilities I share with those born here. It also reminds me of my privileges. Fully deserved privileges I never imagined having in the first place.

On that day in 2005, I was also granted something elseaccess to the democratic principles on which the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland were founded. To be clear, I had already gained and exercised these rights in my previous eight years in this country as a long-term resident. I had voted in four elections, including two London mayoral ones, and held two full-time jobs. I had always paid my taxes and contributed to that then-fashionable term, multicultural society.

Nevertheless, there was a special quality to having these hard-earned rights validated by the certificate I am holding in my hands. It was almost the reverse of Ralph Ellisons Invisible Mans opening passage:

I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fibre and liquids and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination indeed, everything and anything except me.

Unlike Ellison, my flesh and bone were perceived and my mind remarked on, but only in certain circumstances. Being an immigrant usually means juggling a multitude of identity markers. Some, you choose. Some, chosen for you. Those that fall in the latter category might not necessarily be at the forefront of the immigrants mind when defining themselves. For example, for some inexplicable reason, as soon as I arrived in Britain, I found myself having to define and explain my Cuban identity whenever questioned. Chiefly politically. This usually happened with likeminded people of a liberal bent. Yet, their preconceived notions of what they thought Cubans were and/or Cuba was clashed with the evidence-based reality which I confronted them with. To add an ironic twist to this state of affairs, when the said experts in Cuba were challenged by me, they tended to ignore my comments, thus, rendering me invisible. Perhaps Ellison was onto something after all.

***

Fifteen years after that day in 2005, I cannot read this certificate without getting a bit teary. Especially because in recent times, I and many other immigrants have started questioning our role in the modern British society. More importantly, if we have a role at all. There is no point in beating around the bush when there is a big, XXL-sized elephant in the room which changes colour according to which minority groups turn it is to be scapegoated. Brexit has unleashed a beast that respects no skin colour, race or creed.