Becoming a Spanish Citizen – the end of the immigrant hustle?

October 21, 2025

Last week I was in Phoenix.

My home town, out in the Arizona desert.

(Or, more accurately, on the northern edge of the Sonoran Desert.)

It was my wife Morena’s first time in Arizona, and her first time in the US generally.

My mom drove us up to the old neighborhood, so Morena could see the landscape. It rained heavily along the way – unusual for these parts, as you can imagine.

Finally, after the interminable drive up Scottsdale Rd, we turned off, and parked near the old house.

Morena and I got out of the car. It really hasn’t changed much. The road is badly paved, and stretches off into a vanishing point between palo verde trees. The big dead ironwood tree is still there in the front yard. And otherwise there’s nothing: no shops or transport or infrastructure of any kind. Just a handful of houses in the desert.

My childhood home is behind those trees.

Morena walks a bit, across the dry wash that’s actually – just today – not dry, because of the rain. We peer through the shrubs at the house where I grew up.

“Well, what do you think?” I ask.

“What a shithole!”

If you’re used to European civilization, this square of desert in the middle of nowhere doesn’t seem like much. And when I tell people I grew up in the desert, for some reason they don’t believe me.

I stare down the road for a minute. It didn’t used to be paved. Trucks would speed by and kick up a cloud of dust. We’d shake our shoes in the morning before putting them on – because of scorpions.

Shooting rabbits in this dry wash was one of the high points of my childhood.

“I hate this place with every fiber of my being”, I say, finally. And we get into the car and drive back to town.

What does “home” really mean?

A few days later, we’re back in Barcelona.

This is home, these days – el barrio de Clot. It’s not glamorous, but it’s what we’ve got.

Often, people look at me and Morena and get curious. “Where are you two from?”

I usually grumble a minimal response, but Morena is more chatty.

“Well, I’m from South India, and he’s from Arizona, but we live in Barcelona.”

“Oh, so you met in the US?”

“No, actually we met in Madrid, when I was doing a PhD. We moved to Barcelona later.” Etc.

In my opinion, this is a lot of backstory to give to some random taxi driver or fishmonger. Plus, any willingness to engage in this sort of thing eventually leads to a discussion of how I look Irish, and at this point, I’m pretty goddamn tired of talking about how I look Irish.

arizona saguaro
The obligatory cactus photo.

Anyway, for me, the word “home” might mean Barcelona. Or more accurately, Madrid, where I spent 13 years when I first moved to Spain. Or, even more accurately, that patch of land out in Arizona, on the edge of the wasteland, which my family hasn’t owned for decades. All this to say, it’s complicated.

“Home” is a story you can tell yourself. But depending on who you are, it might not matter all that much. Or maybe, like me, you spent most of your time there wishing you were somewhere else.

Spanish nationality, ¡por fin!

A few days after arriving back in Barcelona – yesterday, in fact – I got an email from the Civil Registry with my Spanish birth certificate attached.

That’s the final document I needed for my Spanish nationality process. I put in the papers a bit more than two years ago, got denied, appealed, and was finally accepted back in August.

All I needed now was a photo. I went down the street, to some sort of studio on the corner.

The guy working the camera asks what size photo I need.

“Spanish passport size, please.”

He squints at me. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, very sure.” I say.

“Because you’re not from here.”

I had considered that once I got the nationality, I might spend the remaining years of my life justifying my Spanishness to people who have never gotten up early to spend the morning in line at the immigration office… who have never known what it’s like to have your whole future hanging on the decision of some grumpy bureaucrat or underpaid social worker.

But I didn’t expect it to start now, before I even had the documents.

I mumble something. Not sure what.

The photo guy takes a picture, and charges me 9€.

It’s good to have someone to keep my ego in check – even if it’s a stranger, unwittingly.

spanish passport photo

It’s all good, baby baby!

This morning, then, birth certificate and Spanish-passport-size photo in hand, I went to the police station.

Through some sort of poetic coincidence, today is also my 21st Spainiversary – twenty-one years since I stepped off the plane in Madrid, back in 2004, with a vague idea I was going to live in Europe.

And through another poetic coincidence, I’m now 42, meaning that 21 years in Spain is half my life. Half my life living abroad. Half my life struggling with foreign bureaucracy, and telling people where I’m “from”.

On the metro I’m listening to Juicy, by The Notorious B.I.G.

It’s a rags-to-riches story.

You may remember the famous intro, where Biggie says: “This album is dedicated to all the teachers who told me I’d never amount to nothin’. To all the people who lived above the buildings I was hustlin’ in front of… To all my peoples in the struggle.”

Today, those words give me goosebumps. I’ve had more than a little struggle over the past couple of decades, trying to make it work as an immigrant. Not that I’m at Biggie’s level of rags-to-riches. But I’ve done pretty well for a college dropout from the middle of the desert.

(Lyrical note: certain versions of the song don’t say “my peoples in the struggle” but instead use a word I’m not supposed to repeat. Watch the video to find out which one…)

Once I reach the office, the ID card and passport take about 20 minutes to make – I walk into the police station as a foreigner and walk out as a Spaniard. ¡Viva España!

My life as an immigrant is over.

(Or is it?) Revisiting the Spanish dream

Fourteen years ago – because that’s how long I’ve been doing this – I wrote an article about the Spanish dream, which was then imploding in the wake of the 2009 financial crisis.

I’ve grown up a lot since then, but I don’t think I was wrong when I said (basically) that the Spanish dream consists of a job you can’t be fired from, and ownership of a small flat in a red brick building.

Morena and I bought a small flat a couple of years ago. (I assume our building is red brick under the stucco.) And the first thing I considered when my nationality came through was whether it’s too late for me to get a government job. It isn’t, although I’d have to learn a lot of Catalan, and take a civil service exam.

spanish passport
That’s it. That’s the passport.

So I most likely won’t be a stamp-wielding bureaucrat, a mailman, or a parking meter cop in this life.

(I wouldn’t mind having a job I could do outside. But being honest with myself, I’d probably hate working for the government, despite the steady paycheck.)

In any case, having Spanish nationality changes (almost) nothing. Or it changes everything. I haven’t decided yet.

I might have a whole identity crisis. I might start telling people I’m Spanish, but I grew up in the US.

I’m sure I’ll still get the “Oh but you look Irish!” or the “You’re not from here” thing all the time. That’s just part of being a sexy ginger. I’ll live with it.

In search of a new McGuffin

In another article, I compared the Spanish passport to the idea of a McGuffin in the movies.

A McGuffin (in case you’re not a huge nerd about writing and story structure) is just something a character wants. It doesn’t particularly matter what it is – just that the character wants it.

The McGuffin serves to move the plot forward. It’s the Holy Grail, or the Maltese Falcon. And I’ve had plenty of different McGuffins in my life. But the Spanish passport is the one that took the longest to get.

Of course, the problem with achieving your goals is you have to set new ones, and then work on achieving those.

It’s a cycle that doesn’t end as long as you’re still alive. And I’ve got some time left – maybe a lot of time!

Guess I’d better start looking for some new goals.

That’s all I’ve got for today.

Spanishly yours,

Daniel AKA Mr Chorizo.

P.S. My full article about the immigrant hustle is here: My immigrant life – two decades in Madrid and Barcelona. I think it’s pretty good. You might also like my article about the last time I was in Phoenix. (It’s about car culture, and urban sprawl, and guns, etc.)

P.P.S. I saw the real Holy Grail out in Valencia. You should check it out if you’re there. And you may like my articles about former capital Toledo, or Extremadura (and a bike tour I did out there), or why Madrid is better than Barcelona. Enjoy…

P.P.P.S. If you have any ideas about how I can make the most of my Spanishness, please let me know – right here in the comments. In the meantime, I’m going to start working on inventing a national dish that’s better than paella. (Should be easy… get it? Because paella sucks.) Thanks for reading!

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About the Author Daniel

How did I end up in Spain? Why am I still here almost 20 years later? Excellent questions. With no good answer... Anyway, at some point I became a blogger, bestselling author and contributor to Lonely Planet. So there's that. Drop me a line, I'm happy to hear from you.

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