Category Archives: TCKs

TCKs

Third-Culture Kids: Growing Up Everywhere, and Nowhere

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You who are on the road must have a code that you can live by.
And so become yourself, because the past is just a goodbye.

Graham Nash – Teach Your Children

“A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture.  The TCK builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background.”

David C. Pollock & Ruth E. Van Reken

Third Culture Kids – available from Amazon UK | US – If you are a TCK or have a TCK in your life, read this book!

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Coming “Home” to America

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So I’ve returned to live (and work) in the USA. A number of people, particularly US immigration officers, have said: “Welcome home.” I am grateful for their friendly intentions, but “home” is not what the US represents for me. I’ve lived here only about a third of my life to date.

Having spent many of my formative years in Asia, I tried to come “home” to America once before, when I graduated from high school in India and entered college in the US. Like many third culture kids, I had felt out of place (though not unhappy) in the exotic countries I’d lived in, where I was very obviously foreign even after being there for years. I dreamed of returning to a country where I would feel wholly at ease and be accepted as a natural part of the scenery. It was a rude shock to discover that this homeland, for me and others like me, is a myth. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I was a “hidden immigrant”: on the surface seemingly a local, but in reality a not-quite-native, which manifested in ways which confused and irritated the real Americans.

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Shut Up or Go Home – No Culture Likes a Kibitzer

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I was recently interviewed for an article about third-culture kids, to be published in the Christian Science Monitor. In an hour,s taped phone conversation, Erik Olsen asked many questions, including: “Being an outsider in all cultures, how does that make you feel?” I thought for a moment, and said: “Superior.”

No doubt that statement will be quoted in the article. <wry grin> I tried to explain that, as outsiders in every culture, we TCKs see things with a more objective eye than insiders who are familiar only with their own culture*. This doesn’t mean that we despise every culture we encounter, or have nothing but criticism to offer. But it’s common for a TCK to think: “In country X they do this differently, and it seems to have certain advantages. Why couldn’t it be done that way here?” This is NOT the stereotypical case of ugly Americans who think that everything is better in America. In fact, most TCKs, including American ones, tend to criticize their “home” culture more than any other.

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Cultural Assumptions

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What You Think You Might Know About Somebody… Might Be Wrong

Years ago, before we were even living in Italy, Enrico and I spent a night in Courmayeur, on the French side of Mont Blanc, on our way to somewhere. Our hotel included breakfast (most of them do), eaten at large, bare wooden tables with benches. We were asked what form of coffee we wanted, then crusty rolls, croissants, jam, butter, etc. were brought, and we began eating, scattering crumbs all over the bare table just like everyone else.

The waiter overheard us speaking English.

“Are you American?” he asked.

She’s American, he’s Italian, we explained, as usual.

“You’re American!” exclaimed the waiter in horror. “Then you want this!” And he rushed to set the table with paper placements.

I wonder what traumatic encounter he’d had with an American to fix that notion so firmly in his mind.

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What Happens When You’re Not a Native of Anywhere?

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I’ve been living in Italy so long that I seem to be losing what minimal ability I ever had to pass for a “real” American. My accent is becoming indefinable, or so I guess. Some Americans have told me that I sound vaguely British, and a few years ago in Dallas, someone asked me if I was a foreigner. I catch myself using a hybrid language, translating Italian idiom far too literally into English (and vice-versa).

I’ve become Italian in my sense of personal space. Italians have an extraordinary ability to block public thoroughfares, for example stopping to have a chat at the top of an escalator, or in the only patch of sidewalk that isn’t already blocked by parked cars. But at least they don’t take it amiss when you brush past them, as you often have to do. Life is lived smaller in Italy; we’re crowded together, so some physical overlap is to be expected and must be tolerated. I’m used to it. Other Americans evidently are not.

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