I have spanish citizenship through my father and acquired american citizenship about 12 years ago so I had dual passports. My spanish one expired about 3 years ago and now when I went to renew it they tell me I have to request reinstatement of my spanish citizenship since I had 2 passports. This makes no sense to me. The only thing that lapsed was my spanish passport in my opinion. I have some paperwork dated 1984 that states I can have dual citizenship.
My question is has this changed? Now I have to reapply for spanish citizenship and am required to write a letter stating why I want my Spanish citizenship reinstated.
Any ideas whats going on???

As far as I know (and I’m no lawyer or expert) the Spanish do not allow you to have dual citizenship. My British friend got Spanish citizenship and had to hand in her British passport at the time and swear allegiance to the Spanish flag. Of course, the next day she reapplied for her British passport and as the British do allow you to hold more than one passport, at the consulate they just marked down ‘given up to Spanish authorities’ or something similar on the application form and happily gave her and her kids another one. Apparently it happens a lot.
My advice - swear to be a good Spanish citizen and then do whatever afterwards!

According to the Embassy here in Los Angeles they do allow dual citizenship but only recently and since I got my American citizenship before they allowed it technically I gave up my Spanish one which makes no sense to me because I have a letter written by them in ‘84 stating that I cannot loose my Spanish citizenship if I acquire citizenship from another country. I will have to bring this in with me tomorrow and see what excuse they pull out of their butts.

I did some checking and Spain does allow dual citizenship in many cases. I have a have brother who applied for Spanish Citizenship and got it with them knowing he also had American citizenship.
Im wondering if it would go any faster if I applied in Spain other than california where I am at now.

new regulations regarding dual Spain and US citizenship went into effect in 2002. You should contact the Spanish embassy in Washington, DC. I don’t think it takes that long, and since your father is a Spanish citizen it shouldn’t be difficult.

Thanks for the reply, I’ll give DC a try