Dual Citizenship

Camilo is now a citizen of two countries! By birth right, he is automatically Chilean, so we started there with his paperwork when he was just 2 weeks old. Funny thing is, the Registro Civil is not very equipped to service very tiny people!  We had a really hard time getting Camilo's tiny little thumb scanned without the machine scanning his whole hand!

Then it was photo time. For a Chilean ID, you should be looking straight at the camera, head held high and without any facial expression. Well try telling a baby who can't yet hold their own head up to do all of these things!  Eventually they let the rules slide, so Camilo has a very angry looking profile shot, looking straight into his extra-wide mouth.

Then we went to the American embassy. I have no pictures from this visit, since they don't allow you to enter with any electronic devices. But here is his passport photo (Joan and I did this one at home  with Camilo laying down comfortably on a white sheet):

As for paperwork, getting Camilo nationalized as a "gringo" wasn't too difficult. In fact, the consul let me slide on some of my documentation to prove that I was "physically present" in the United States for 28 years. All I had with me was a meager social security earnings statement and a copy of my PhD - He joked that the two together tell a pretty complete story of a poor student all on their own!

So now that we've got Camilo dual citizenship, we're free to travel! First journey: Baja in March!