Bi-National Couples

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Over in this thread, a few people (myself among them) mentioned that they were one nationality while their spouse was another. I got to wondering just how many of us “bi-national couples” there are here on the SDMB.

As I mentioned in the other thread, my wife is originally from the United States (she spent most of her life in Colorado), and I was born and raised in Canada. She came here as a landed immigrant a few years before we met, but took out Canadian citizenship just a couple of years ago, after we were married.

She has mentioned that the culture shock wasn’t too great, but there was some. Finding that the stores do not have as great a selection as in the US was one thing, but finding that all consumer goods tend to be labelled in both English and French she found to be rather nice. She wasn’t prepared for the passion Canadians have for hockey, but she could watch the NFL on TV, and continue to follow her beloved Denver Broncos. Canadian politics are still a little puzzling, but since she could vote as a Canadian for the first time in our federal election last June, we had a great opportunity for a civics lesson.

Of course, she keeps in touch with her family back in the US, and they have come to visit, as have a few of her friends. She is kind of proud to show our little part of Canada off to them, and takes care to remind them not to do such things as make fun of our money, or to diss hockey or curling.

What challenges have any other “bi-national couples” faced, and what advantages do you see? I love my wife dearly, and would even if she was Canadian-born-and-raised, but I really appreciate the wider view of both current affairs and everyday life that we seem to get from being a Canadian and an American. What say you?

2

Absolutely! Although my husband and I are both the same nationality (U.S.), my parents were Canadian (dad from Toronto - still have cousins there) and American (mom). Effects? For one, I always wonder why the Weather Channel’s map stops at the Canadian border. For two, I get that French is a world language.

My husband’s sister married a Turkish guy. Thirty years on, they’re still together, two grown kids. It’s been bumpy because of differing expectations (on both sides) about the role of extended family.

3

Dominican - Dane here. “Challenge” is an understatement since we both come from countries that are for the most part completely opposites. Funny enough my husband and I have so many things in common that we are the best example of the MTV generation.

4

I’m Canadian. my wife is American. It hasn’t been an issue, really. There was a bit of a culture shock for me, and there are some things I was used to in Canada that you just can’t get here. I only have two family members up there, one in Ontario and one in British Columbia. I keep in touch with them regularly. The one furthest away has been to visit three times. The nearer brother isn’t in the financial position to just take off to Florida. I have this idea that it would be nice to go back at some point, but I haven’t any idea what we’d do for a week. One brother and two friends left from the old days, separated by hundreds of miles. Seems kind of a waste of two or three thousand dollars, which we don’t really have to throw away.

But otherwise, there has been no challenge of any kind to our differing nationalities. There must be a reason why I’m holding on to my Canadian citizenship, but it doesn’t offer me any advantage or disadvantage in anything I’ve done so far, or plan to do in the future.

5

I’m American, living in Ireland. My SO is Serbian, living in Serbia. The geography is the biggest problem at the moment, but I imagine there will be new challenges down the road because of our differing backgrounds. The fact that nobody in his family besides him speaks any English is likely to be one of them (although the communication problem didn’t stop us all enjoying each other’s company when he took me back to his hometown to meet them). I’m learning Serbian, but I doubt anyone else in my family will, so our families will never get to be very close, which is a shame because I think they’d really like each other and my family is really big on the “extended family” thing.

OTOH, one of the reasons I was so drawn to him was precisely because our backgrounds are so different and yet we’re so much alike. It’s one of the things that makes us so interesting to each other.

My sister’s husband is Indian, and she has some issues with his family (cultural differences and their initial unhappiness with him marrying a white American girl). But they’re quite happy nonetheless, so I see no reason Mr Ruadh and I can’t be :slight_smile:

6

Wow, really??? We’ve found it to be just the opposite. Perhaps it’s simply regional. We found it exceptionally difficult to find a wide variety of anything in my home state of NM. We were making a curry and had to resort to making some things from scratch and substituting ingredients because nowhere in town were we able to find the right ingredients. And all shopping was done primarily in big box stores and strip malls with the same brand names over and over.

In NYC with my current GF, I’ve even found it difficult to find a good selection of vintages unless I go to a specialized store (where things were far more expensive because it was considered a “specialty item”).

I suspect it depends on your home state, the size of the population, and ethnic demographics. Albuquerque ended up being quite limited when it came to foodstuffs, produce, and vintages compared to a lot of cities in Ontario.

Never had this problem is MA, though.

7

I’m Canadian, born and raised in Alberta, lived in Alberta, NWT, and Ontario. Weirddave is American, a Baltimoron through-and-through. We now live in a suburb of Baltimore.

I can’t even begin to describe how difficult it was for me when I first moved here. I moved here from virtually racism free western Canada, smack dab in the middle of KKK country (at least there is KKK activity up there).

I think what I miss most is the politeness of everyone. Here, I find people to be standoffish, but it could just be that we’re in a big city. Customer service at home seemed to be better, as well.

Dave says that when he goes to Canada, it’s like someone has picked up the world and dropped it at 15 degrees to true.

American politics drive me to distraction. I tend to try to avoid them at all cost - as I’m not a citizen, I don’t vote, but I certainly wish I could make a change for the positive.

8

I’m Australian. My long-term boyfriend is English.

We live together in London. Coming from Australia, there isn’t much of a culture shock–in fact, our two cultures are so similar that the differences between them are enriching rather alienating. The changes in scenery, geography and climate are the biggest change I’ve suffered since leaving Australia (and in fact, I miss the sun and the water almost as much as my friends and family).

We’re both able to travel between our countries. We’ll spend half of the northern winter this year in Australia (where it’s warm!). I have an unrestricted UK visa and my bf can get an Australian visa as my de facto partner, so we may spend 2006-2007 working in Australia.

I think we’d both be equally happy living in England or Australia.

9

Mrs. Murdoch is from Iran, so I think I take the opposite countries prize here.

Our different backgrounds can, of course, create challenges.

My wife grew up in a world where she was forced to raise her fist in the air and shout “death to America” everyday at school. I was an adolescent when the hostages were taken so I grew up in a society where Iran was thought of as the most evil and backwards place on earth. Not much has changed between the countries since then.

There are also the cultural differences. My wife had to adjust to our society where women speak their minds, sexuality is in the open, alcohol is legal, there is no dress code and people have a generally casual attitude. I’ve had to adjust to people who stand on vast amounts of formality. I also get tired of my nutty brother in law who thinks the U.S. is responsible for all the world’s evil.

I just told my kid this week that there are many people in Iran who hate America. He was a little confused by that whole concept, but I’m sure we can help him to understand the way things are and that there is always hope for the future.

There is so much more than this, but I’m reluctant to go on.

At any rate, we do just fine. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.

10

I’m American, my husband is Australian. He lived in the U.S. for over a decade and we met there (and lived the first years of our marriage there). We moved to Australia about 6 months ago. His father is very sick and, also, my husband was feeling very homesick.

We’ll probably be moving back to the U.S. in a few years. I’ve had a bit of culture shock, but my husband has had a lot of trouble adjusting, too. He remembered things differently than what they really are, only remembered good stuff, and basically expected life to be different here than it is. He left here right after university, so he only had the ease of childhood and the excitement of college to color his views. He never had to worry about making a living, affording a house, wondering about health care, taking care of a child. This is a great place to live, but things are harder here than they ever were in the U.S. Plus, the added stress of dealing with his dad isn’t helping him out.

My husband says that now that we’ll be here for at least a little while, when we do go back to the U.S., he’ll apply for citizenship (when he’s eligible, etc.). He needed a little taste of home before he could make the commitment (I’ll add here that, although I’d like to go back, I’d be okay either way and I was very surprised that he’d want U.S. citizenship).

Obviously, our biggest obstacle has been choosing one place over the other. There are good and bad points to both places, and it’s hard to choose one family over the other. If we were from countries a little closer, we could travel more easily between the two, but when we eventually settle down, we’ll have to accept that one of our families (most likely his) will be pretty much unknown to our kids.

Kids…that’s another thing. Our son was born in South Carolina and has dual U.S./Australian citizenship. We’re planning on having our second (and final) child in Australia and also getting dual citizenship for him/her. That whole process was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I’d like our kids to identify strongly with both nationalities. When we were in the U.S., we celebrated Australian holidays with the help of a close group of expat friends (and ANZAC Day at the Aussie/NZ Embassy…fun!!). Here, we’re having a big Thanksgiving celebration and we had a small July 4th picnic.

I don’t know…I’m rambling. I guess to sum it up, we’ve had very few challenges with our personal relationship with each other, but many difficult decisions when it comes to choosing where to physically be.

11

American-Canadian relationship here. All of our problems have involved distances and borders, as the cultural differences between Wisconsin and Ontario are not huge. We do have occasional arguments over the zee vs. zed thing, where I make fun of him because his alphabet song doesn’t rhyme. :smiley:

12

I’m Canadian, my husband is American. We live in eastern Washington state.

I really don’t like it here one bit but that’s due to my love of the coast, rain, and the colour green. It’s too dry and hot on this side of the mountains.

I find the local people rude and obnoxious. Religion is very prominant here. I often get asked what church I belong to then get either glares or tracts when I say I don’t belong to any church thank-you-very-much. The sound of semi-automatic gunfire down the road really doesn’t do it for me either.

I miss a tonne of Canadian treats that I can’t get down here. I’m a tea snob and Tetley won’t cut it. I miss my family dearly and my friends. I haven’t found anyone here I really mesh with on a friendship basis. Healthcare is a huge issue now.

I do enjoy the western part of the state more. I’m just not cut out for desert living. Unfortunately my other half is employed at Hanford so at this time we don’t have any greener options. He’s also itching to move. Western Montana, Wyoming and Oregon are on our list. Hubby is also considering Canada as an option.

I will say that the drivers here don’t seem as insane as the ones back home! We also have a cool biker neighbour who makes up for the meth-harpy who lives on the other side of us. Our yard is also the gathering place for escapee horses and that always makes me smile. If I can’t get a horse, at least I can get my fix by returning the wandering steeds in the area. :wink:

13

Soon! I’ll be moving from Vancouver (in Canada, of course) to the very foreign country of Texas, and my interview for the fiance visa is on Friday!

The biggest differences I’ve seen are the politics and the food.

I grew up with a multi-party parliamentary system of government and a much wider but much less extreme set of political opinions. (Yes, I know it sounds odd. Maybe it would be better to say that politicians in Canada are generally much more willing to talk to their opponents and even <gasp> compromise!)

In Texas, there’s great barbecue and Tex-Mex food, which is pretty sparse in the Vancouver area, but we have everything else (and I mean everything!) all over the city. For example, within walking distance in my perfectly ordinary neighbourhood, I have pretty good Chinese, Thai (two of them), Indian, and Romanian restaurants, as well as two Eastern European delis, a corner store that sells halal meats, and an African food store. All of those are mom-and-pop operations run by the appropriate nationalities.

I haven’t had much chance to talk to strangers in Texas, but I hear they’re pretty friendly. Everybody talks to me here, so I suppose I’ll get along.

Best of all, Zyada is a complete sweetie and has the same slightly-twisted sense of humour I do, so we’ll be fine! :smiley:

Yeehaw, eh?

14

Some good responses here! In fact, some reminded me of a few challenges we’ve encountered–

First, about the variety of goods available in the US. I think what she was disappointed in was not so much the lack of goods themselves (such as the fixings for curries Eats_Crayons) but the way certain brands didn’t have the varieties that were available in the US.

To illustrate, she misses (and this is a fictional example) Double-Stuffed Strawberry-Apple-Cinnamon Extra-Crunchy Frosted-'n-Glazed Tasty Pastry, just like she used to have back home. Up here, we just have a choice of chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla Tasty Pastry, and that’s it. Seems the Canadian division of the Tasty Pastry company doesn’t want to make the 48 varieties of its product that the American consumer demands. Needless to say, when she visits the US, we always make sure we visit a supermarket so she can stock up on things she cannot get in Canada.

Secondly, about borders. We’ve had a few interesting times crossing them. Usually, when we head for the US, she sails right through the US Customs and Immigration desk, while I’m the one who is held up answering all kinds of questions. The reverse happens when we return to Canada, of course.

Now that she is a Canadian, even more interesting things are happening. Normally, when we go to the US, she uses her American passport. But recently, a business trip took her to Vancouver, BC; not far from where her mother now lives in Seattle. Since she was there for a couple of weeks, she thought she’d drive two hours down I-5 and visit her mother for the weekend.

All is well and good, and while she inadvertently left her US passport at home, she has her wallet-sized Canadian citizenship card, which will allow her to cross the border. However, the card mentions the place she was born (the United States, of course), and seeing this, the US Customs and Immigration officer proceeds to lecture her for ten minutes on how she is really an American. Of course, the officer had no reason to exclude her from the US so she did eventually get on her way, but she did not appreciate the lecture.

15

It rhymes if you ‘sing with Fred’. :smiley:

16

Oooooh, that makes more sense. Although, there are many towns in Ontario that are Test Markets. So we may get stuff like McDonald’s Pizza when you dont get to try it, and if it works then they try to introduce it in the U.S. Sometimes it tanks in the U.S. but still does okay here.

My current GF is American and can’t get enough of our wine gums, because “black” often means black currant flavour here (and in the UK where she got addicted to them) whereas black candy in the U.S. is more often licorice flavoured.

Technically, as a dual citizen, when I cross into the U.S. I’m alway supposed to do so as a U.S. citizen. I’m not quite sure why. I do know that whichever country you’re in has dibs on you. Eg/ If I was in the U.S. and got drafted into the U.S. army, I couldn’t just say “but I’m Canadian!” and appeal to the Canadian consulate to help me.

17

MrValley is from “Europe” (has citizenship in Sweden but lived in several different European countries growing up). We currently live in New Hampshire, USA, which is way up there on the non-diverse front. We love the geography and undeveloped space, but would love a bit more variety of people.

Yup, kids. ValleyGirl is a dual citizen as well, and we’re trying our darnedest to make sure that she can speak the languages of both of her nationalities. But it’s very hard with such an uncommon language. ValleyGirl must have seen our one kids video in Swedish about 37 times so far (of course, she still loves it). I am just so grateful that my husband’s parents are so internet savvy. It makes sharing pictures and updates and even chat so much easier. One conflict I have is whether I should be working right now. ValleyGirl is 9 months now, and I’ve been at home with her and loving it. However, I know if I worked, we’d have more money and actually be able to afford to visit Europe.

18

Lily, make sure Mr. Valley speaks Swedish exclusively to ValleyGirl. That’s very important in picking up the second language. I tried to get Mrs. Shibb to do this with the Shibblets but she’s not terribly patient so when they started off in English (which is the language that they heard the most) she just sort of gave up on it. It also helps to expose her to as much in Swedish as you can. Even little things like tapes of Swedish teletubbies or Wiggles (or whatever) will help, mostly for seeing her “peers” speaking in Swedish. The more her ear is trained for those phonemes at a young age the better. If you can find a Swedish school or something like that for young kids somewhere within driving distance then it might be worth making the trek as often as you can stand it (maybe something in Boston?). Also, have your in-laws send children’s books and have Mr. Vally read them as bedtime stories on alternate nights.

Mrs. Shibb was born in Thailand and lived there until 10 years old. Even after that she was raised in a Thai family in the states. As a result she’s equally fluent in English and Thai. The kids have a few Thai words and customs, but not so much (they do shed their shoes immediately upon entering any house). They know to wai to older Thais when they first meet them. The oldest picked up, and has since lost, some French when we lived in Geneva for a while. Both of them learned a bit of German in Germany and because of the similarity of the language can still understand a bit. For a long time they thought their daddy was German (I’m not), a not uncommon mistake. If we can afford it in the future I’d like them to spend some summers in Thailand so they can learn more about their Mom’s culture and language. They are just recently getting interested in knowing more about their ethnic background, which is extremely diverse if you count all the different places my relatives came from, mostly pretty long ago. I just consider myself American since it’s otherwise pretty complicated.

19

I second ShibOleth’s recommendation. My wife is also Thai (American here) and was never exposed to US culture until she had the misfortune to take up with me. Shib is so right about getting the parents to speak to the kids from day one in their mother tongue. We got this advice and followed it and it worked beautifully. My daughter is often mistaken for a native when the Thais hear her. Same with Americans. To be honest, both cultures find something just a bit odd in her. Both languages are perfect but her appearance is uncommon for either place.

We did go through a short spell when kiddo was very small when she thought all women spoke Thai and all men spoke English. Thankfully, that didn’t last long. After that was a period when all brown people spoke Thai and all pale people spoke English. That didn’t last long either. After that, she styarted trying people out in one language and then the other. It was fascinating to watch.

Regards

Testy

20

Testy, does your family live with you in the Kingdom? If so, how do they like/handle it? My colleagues used to try to get me to bring my family over there but I always declined.