What It Took Me to Become a British Citizen

11 years of ups and downs and a happy outcome

Me at my British citizenship ceremony

It’s a strange feeling — I’m now a British citizen. I can vote. Britain is my country now.

It took me over 11 years to get here.

I had to have top grades and go to a top university so I could get a solid job to secure visa sponsorship while paying lots and lots of fees along the way. The playing field was never really level.

I had to leave friends and families behind, watching my birth town and my own family change year by year to the point where they became unrecognizable to me. There’s a sense of grief that’s hard to describe.

Worse, the possibility of losing everything and going back to Vietnam mid-way through with nothing to show for it induced constant anxiety, holding me back from reaching my full potential at times because I couldn’t take the risks I needed.

My sister and me in Chinatown in 2011

I’m now a self-assured woman with a life and careers I love, so different from the girl who came to England in 2011, but I have few witnesses to this transformation as I’ve lost contact with most school friends in…