Generally, U.S. citizenship is acquired when a parent finalizes the adoption in the United States. That process was very similar when I was adopted in 2005, from Hunan, China, by American parents. I was nine months old when I was adopted, so I was unable to sign any documentation, thus all the paperwork and legal forms were signed with my parents’ names.

The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 (CCA) grants children adopted by American citizens automatic U.S. citizenship; this is the legislation that granted me immediate citizenship when I arrived. However, there were a lot of steps that made this possible.

To become a U.S. citizen by adoption or biological, one must have at least one parent who is a citizen by birth or naturalization, in the custody of the parent, and be in the U.S. as a permanent resident. This process would not have been possible for me had my adoption not been legalized before I came home.

By the time my parents and I met in Changsha, they were confirmed as my adoptive family. In Guangzhou, we filed the requests for my visa and passport. Given that I was not yet a U.S. citizen, I was given a temporary Chinese passport with which I moved to the U.S. Since I wasn’t able to go home, to Chicago, without either document, we stayed in Guangzhou for several days.

After receiving both of those documents, I was able to move home. The flight to Chicago was about 13 hours. As soon as the wheels of the plane touched down in Chicago’s O’Hare airport, I was officially a U.S. citizen. As an international adoptee, I tend to have more citizenship papers, compared to my friends. I have a certificate of citizenship, something one born in the U.S. would have to apply for.

My parents took extra measures when I arrived home to further secure my guardianship and adoption. In the State of Illinois building, they readopted me and got me a birth certificate that shows my “record of a foreign birth.”

Categorized as a “naturalized citizen,” I’m entitled to the same rights someone born in the U.S. is, such as voting, a U.S. passport and more. However, this is not the case for all adoptees. The CCA took effect in 2000, but only affected adoptees under the age of 18 at the time it was instated.

While the CCA gave me citizenship in 2005, adult adoptees in 2000 might not be citizens. I sometimes overlook the rights citizenship grants me but must remember not all adoptees are as lucky to have full rights in the country they were raised in. This is why we must advocate for adoptee rights, even if we have ours.