Switching Perspectives

Many of us subtly, reflexively change the way we express ourselves all the time. We’re hop-scotching between different cultural and linguistic spaces and different parts of our own identities — sometimes within a single interaction. (Gene Demby, on NPR’s blog Code Switch)

Switching Perspectives

By Alexis Chen Johnson

“Mom, you’re doing it again,” my daughter teased. “You’re talking with an Indian accent.”

My kids noticed the code-switch before I did. For me, code-switching is something that happens instantaneously and unconsciously. As soon as our plane touched down in India, the desh of my childhood, a key turned inside of me and a door opened. Behind the door was a part of me just waiting to light up again. This part doesn’t need dusting off or warming up or a rehearsal to incarnate. She’s ready. It’s this part my kids recognized as I negotiated our taxi ride outside of Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi. Head bobbling side to side in a gentle, rocking motion, voice speaking with a sing-song quality, and wrists dancing in circular gestures, it felt natural to embody this part of who I am. Of course, I probably still sounded quite American to the Indian gentleman at the taxi stand, but that’s okay. Through code-switching, an important part of me that only makes sense in India, one of the host countries of my TCK childhood, had the chance to come alive again.

As a half Chinese-American, half European-American TCK raised in Bangladesh and India, I grew up code-switching between multiple cultures. It was normal for me to go from eating with my hands to chopsticks to a fork and knife depending on where I was in the world and who I was with. Like many TCKs, I have several keys to several doors inside of me. Each unlocks a different, yet essential part of who I am. Behind each door is more than a set of mannerisms. Each door opens to a distinct and multifaceted world—a vast expanse we call culture, with its blend of values, customs, languages, expressions, beliefs, traditions, unspoken expectations and more of a particular people and place. During a TCK childhood, we are imprinted by a variety of cultures and each of them takes root, sometimes at the surface and sometimes quite deep within us.

But for TCKs, people whose identity formation happens cross-culturally, code-switching can be a way of life.”

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Alexis Chen Johnson is a third-generation adult TCK following in the nomadic footsteps of her mother and grandfather. She grew up in Bangladesh and India, but now lives near Boston with her husband, three children, and little dog, Tess. Alexis is writing a memoir of her TCK story.