48 Eftychia Mylona in the shipping industry, the fact that Greeks belonged by citizenship to a state that was not in conflict with the British or French made them desirable candidates in periods of political crisis such as World War II.37 Following the mid-twentieth-century legal changes to work and residence permits, some companies in the Suez Canal region conditioned employment on Egyptian citizenship. One of my interlocutors, Nikolas, who was a former resident of Suez, commented that companies that specialized in mining, road construction, and engineering, specifically around the Ataqa Mountain, demanded after 1956 that their employees hold Egyptian citizenship. Nikolas recalled that his father, who worked as a contract engineer in and outside Suez, was not requested by the contractor company he worked for to obtain Egyptian citizenship because he was under a short-term contract. Since for Nikolas’ father there were no direct implications for not having the Egyptian citizenship, Nikolas recalled that as a child he did not experience any instability in his family environment that would have necessitated relocation or even migration. Despite his young age and the relative stability of his family, Nikolas was aware of how such laws influenced other Greeks. He recalls that his father’s colleagues, who worked at the company for longer periods, were subject to this condition.38 Egyptian citizenship was supposedly requested by and granted to employees working for the Suez Company. The archival records I examined capture this changing status. Several Greek children first appeared with Greek citizenship on their birth certificates; however, when they later attended school, they are listed as having Egyptian. One of these cases is that of Nikolaos Patros, a Greek child born in 1949 in Port Tawfik. According to Nikolaos’ birth certificate, his father was a migrant from the island of Symi who arrived in Egypt as a Greek citizen. Nikolaos’ father worked as a sailor (bahhār), for the Suez Company, as many other Greeks did, since the company was one of the main employers for Greek migrants. By the time Nikolaos attended fifth grade at the Suez and Port Tawfik Greek community school in 1960, his citizenship status had changed from Greek to Egyptian, as stated on his student card. Most likely Nikolaos’ father had requested and obtained Egyptian citizenship sometime in the late 1950s. Presumably, his status as an employee of the Suez Company contributed to his successful naturalization. In turn, Nikolaos was automatically granted Egyptian citizenship through his father. 39 Nikolaos’ school records ceased with his graduation in 1967. Though it is clear that Nikolaos held Egyptian citizenship, at this stage