Sandra Hussein was born in Texas and became a United States Citizen by naturalization at the age of 17 in 1969. Her mother was from Cuba. Sandra’s father was a United States citizen and she was raised as a U.S. Citizen by her mother and half-brother. Her birth mother had to marry twice because of the war that was going on in her home country at the time.
During her early years in the United States Sandra struggled with being a dual nationality. She had been married to an American citizen through marriage law but had been raised with her mother a U.S. Citizen, thus qualifying as her own person and subject to U.S. laws regarding marriage and nationality according to The Immigration Law. This caused difficulties for Sandra during her marriage because her mother always told Sandra that she was American and yet she had been raised as a Cuban by her stepfather.
In her book “Sandra Hussein: My Search For Truth” (written with her daughter) Sandra provides a great insight into how to determine one’s nationality. She discusses how different parts of the world view the identity of a person when it comes to their citizenship status. She gives examples of how this is done in the Caribbean, Central America and South America and how those who identify themselves as Americans in one of these regions may in fact be citizens of a different country. She also discusses how to determine one’s nationality through marriage according to The Immigration Law.