Belonging Everywhere and Nowhere

Where are you from?” A basic conversation-starter. A question, however, where I always find myself awkwardly hesitating and answering vaguely. I had an international childhood; I grew up in five different countries and traveled to twice as many. I took my first steps in the Ivory Coast, spoke my first words in Saint Martin, learned to read in Mali, made my first friends in Senegal and chose to study in France. I’ve heard that children like me are sometimes referred to as “Third Culture Kids” (TCK): a term that suggests that children who spend their childhood or a portion of it outside of the country they were born in belong to a “third” culture, separated from that of their home or parent’s countries. It’s an amalgam of many unique experiences.

According to David C. Pollok, an American sociologist, author and speaker, “The third culture kid frequently builds a relationship to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture may be assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, the sense

of belonging is in relationship to others from a similar background.” Third culture kids are not new, they are not few, but they have grown with different experiences than mono-cultural people that make them different to the eyes of the people around them. The third culture kid experience comes with advantages and disadvantages, struggles and opportunities.

The third culture kid is bilingual, trilingual and sometimes more. They are children of the world; open minded and adaptive, able to cross cultures with ease and never afraid of being suddenly immersed in a foreign country. The third culture kid shows increased tolerance, he is able to understand and respect different countries’ social norms and to appreciate food, music and overall culture being completely different from one country to another. The third culture kid knows that there is more than one way to look at situations that they are experiencing. They have a “third dimensional” view of the world.

Malick Keishi Rupert comes from a military family and was brought up by a Japanese mom and an American dad. Rupert moved around quite a lot in his childhood. He lived in Japan, Germany, the United States and France. “Whenever I’m faced with a problem or a question, I try to think about what I would’ve done based on where I would be.” He explained. “I picked up along the way cultural ideals and respects that I hold dear to me, like being punctual, loyal and creative, for example.”

Being raised abroad shapes the third culture kid’s way of seeing the world around them. They crave wanderlust and adventures and are constantly inhabited by the same fear: being stuck in one place forever. That explains the craving to find jobs and internships all around the world and the overall attraction to international colleges rather than in-state universities. “I think growing up abroad gives you more opportunities and pushes you to want to experience more,” confirmed Sasha Wilson. Born in the United States and raised in China, Sasha Wilson identifies as a TCK. “That’s why I choose AUP, I wanted to make friends with other people that are attracted to experience everything, experience more. I’ll probably keep traveling until I’m like 40 or 50 and then start to think about the idea of settling down somewhere.”

Furthermore, being raised abroad allows children to get more job opportunities. Communication, flexibility, problem-solving, eagerness to learn, ability to work with co-workers and determination are key qualities employers look for, often shared by third culture kids. “Nowadays, you can’t get very far with speaking only one language. Sure, English is required, but it’s not sufficient. The more languages you speak the more opportunities you get,” explained Quentin Palasti. Palasti was brought up by a French-Hungarian dad and a French-Italian mum. After he was born in France, he moved to Italy, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, the United States and finally came back to France to study here at AUP. He speaks Italian, French, English and German fluently. “I got a few jobs almost just because of the languages I spoke.” On the subject of job opportunities, Rupert told me that he “had the privilege to see so much by traveling and took in so much of the world, I think it’s something I can offer and that is going to help me in life, whether or not I want it to.”

But belonging everywhere and nowhere also comes with downsides and challenges for the third culture kid to overcome. Moving around a lot makes it hard to make life-long friends. It takes quite the effort to keep in touch when your closest friends are on different continents and in different times zones. The third culture kid will often find himself with friends living in Beijing, Sydney, Nashville, Toronto, Cape Town, and the list goes on. But time differences and long-distance relationships are just the tip of the iceberg. Given that third culture kids have lived in a few different countries, they usually speak at least two languages fluently and end up mixing them without even noticing. That can be a challenge for their families and friends and throughout their education.

Sometimes this cultural richness leaves the third culture kid incapable of finding a sense of belonging, confused between drastically different values and cultures and home-sick from a home that doesn’t physically exists. “Where are you from?” is probably the hardest question for a third culture kid to answer. The concept of home doesn’t mean the same thing for a TCK. Home is not a defined place, it’s not your parents’ home country nor the one you lived the longest in. Home is wherever you feel like it is. And sometimes what feels like home isn’t even a place but a person.

Indeed, one of the challenges of being a third culture kid is developing a sense of belonging, of commitment and attachment to one culture or to another. “The shock of culture between China and the United States is extremely big. For example, what struck me the most are the holidays. Americans tend to invite a lot of friends over for the Fourth of July for example while Chinese people are more secular—they give a huge importance to family. I used to feel like an outsider at the beginning,” explained Sasha Wilson. Those factors are very important to one’s self-esteem and identity, and when missing that sense of belonging, a third culture kid could find themselves “culturally homeless.” Culturally homeless individuals often experience confusion over their identity, especially because the third culture kid is frequently abroad during the adolescent development years when identity is most solidified psychologically. Leanna Rose Davis was brought up by an American dad and a South Korean mom. She grew up in England, Japan, the United States and Korea and finds herself in the very heart of that conflict, struggling to juggle between identities “I identify the most with the American culture but I’m fighting every day to keep my Korean background alive. I don’t want to forget a part of me and it gets me confused sometimes”.

The third culture kid will find a sense of belonging not in a place or a specific culture, but among others from the same background. Third culture kids fit

“Home is not a defined place, it’s not your parents’ home country nor the one you lived the longest in. Home is wherever you feel like it is.”

everywhere and nowhere at the same time, which can be quite confusing for most people. “I don’t really identify with any culture I’ve lived in. I have aspects that I dislike from all of them, so I equally choose not to identify with any,” said Rupert. “Sometimes one nationality is more convenient than another, so I’d take over one depending [on] who I’m talking to: It’s easy to tell Americans that you are from the U.S. rather than explaining ‘I’m Japanese but I grew up in the states but not only in the states but I’m also American.’”

“Where are you from?” Depending on who you are, you will get a different answer from me. I’ll either be from Senegal or from around the world, and both answers will be the truth. Belonging everywhere and nowhere at the same time has given me a sense of freedom. I wouldn’t trade my experience as a third culture kid and the opportunities that came along with it for anything. The possibilities for the future appear endless. I’ve gradually built myself an identity that is a collection of experiences, people and cultures, each of which I’ve hand-picked. The multiple parts of my identity are not mutually exclusive, they are complementary. Being a third culture kid doesn’t mean I don’t belong anywhere, it means that I can belong everywhere.