'It’s a New Day, It’s a New Life…' – National Identity from the Perspective of the Naturalized Citizen

This paper derives from a project (Pluridemos) that aims, among other goals, to assess how the 'new' citizens of migrant descent who have acquired Portuguese citizenship, experience their full citizenship condition; to map their visions about the meanings of Portuguese national identity, and to reflect on how such meanings may colide, complement, change or reaffirm the popular visions that Portuguese have about their own 'national identity'. The Portuguese Nationality Law, defined in 2006, has been considered one of the most progressive in Europe and is often evaluated as the best example in integration policies (Huddleston et al 2015). Following one decade of its implementation, thousands of persons acquired Portuguese citizenship. According to Oliveira and Gomes (2016) between 2007 and 2014, Portuguese nationality was granted to 310 693 individuals, with a refusal rate of 5.7%, which contrast with the 14 865 concessions and a 30% rejection rate in the period between 2001 and 2006. The paper begins by explaining that the country's recent bailout did not have a negative outcome on the legal frame and on the rates of those interested in acquiring Portuguese nationality. Second, the paper addresses the question: what is to be a "Portuguese citizen" from the perspective of the new citizens; what is that they value most in their 'identity' definition; and (following previous research interests) we assess also how they describe and evaluate their experiences regarding political citizenship in particular. We deem that all these questions are very important in order to understanding the role that "new citizens" may have in the active and continuous making of "national identity" as a collective, dynamic, and a non-fixed project. Despite its relevance, this field seems to attract though less attention than the (often quantitative and comparative ) analysis of structural elements such as policies of integration, nationality laws and policies of citizenship, eclipsing thus much of the agents’ experiences and perspectives about national identity.