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ARTICLES:
Politics and Society
Being
a Third Culture Kid By Jay Newton-Small February 2003 If you ask her, Ana Krnajski might tell you she is Croatian. While this may be true on paper, Krnajski is what is coming to be known as a Third Culture Kid (TCK), or someone who grew up in many countries around the world. "When we first tell kids about the idea we draw a circle. Let's say they're American, we say 'This your first culture, American,'" said Kathleen Sullivan, a cross cultural trainer in New York. "We then draw two other interlinking circles where other cultures might go." Krnajski, for example, would put Yugoslavia in the first circle, then Zambia in the second as she lived in sub-Saharan Africa for the first five years of her life. Her third circle might be Malaysia, where she lived from ages seven to 10, or Serbia as her family returned to her mother's homeland in between Zambia and Malaysia. "The concept was first discovered in the 1950's when a psychologist went to India to study expatriate children and found their development vastly different from children at home," said Sullivan, who works for Prudential Inter-Cultural, a company that helps prepare families moving abroad. There is a marked difference in a TCK, Sullivan said, than an adult who has traveled abroad extensively. "Adults are like Velcro, they add on what is necessary to survive abroad but peel it off when they return home. A child absorbs what its learning, nature intends that, so they absorb it in a way that adults never do. That phenomena is what causes Third Culture Kids to arise," she said. Certainly many of these children have an almost James Bond-esque training very young. They learn to speak several languages and speak like natives, they can navigate the globe, finding the best coffee spots in Rome and the best doubles stand in Trinidad and Tobago with the same sense of unafraid curiosity. "Some of the positive things are that they are very knowledgeable culturally. They adapt easily, are usually well read, definitely more independent and, oddly enough, have closer bonds with the family. And they make friends pretty easily," Sullivan said. Krnajski, a fashion designer who now lives in London, believes the experience had its benefits and inconveniences. "You never feel like you quite belong in any one place. However, you are blessed to have so many special friends all around the world, it makes the world a smaller place. It makes you more of an individual, and hopefully open minded!" Of the dozens of TCKs I interviewed about their heritage, most of them said that one of the big benefits was making friends easily, or "having something, however small, to make small talk about to almost any body in the world," as one of them put it. "I guess you can say that I actively engage in other cultures. Having grown up in the most diverse places in the world has also helped a great deal in fusing in with a very colorful crowd with ease, honestly. I'm not afraid of other people or cultures, just curious with an open mind," said Shana Gulati, who moved from India to the United States when she was eight and now lives in London. A study done by McGill University in Canada on its own student population a few years back found, to the great surprise of many, that almost 80 percent of the student body had lived abroad in their formative years. "Apparently TCKs find each other almost by osmosis, and I've certainly seen that with my own children. We lived in six different countries over 20 years," said Sullivan, who became a cross cultural trainer after moving back to New York. Certainly, most of Krnajski's friends are TCKs, and most TCKs I spoke with said upon reflection a majority of their friends were well traveled, if not TCK. "One is more intrigued to interact with other people who are also multi-cultural. Socially, I'm more of a well-rounded person, more accepting of others," said Alexander Green, who is half Ecuadorian, half American and grew up in Nicaragua, Ecuador and the United States. As fabulous as the life style sounds, it can have its draw backs. Many of those I spoke with cited a feeling of isolation at the top of their cons list. "Now that I have been working in an American company for three years, I have almost blended—if it was not for my skin color and my easiness in drinking tequila," said Alberto Arelle, a Mexican who has lived abroad since his mid-teens and now works as a banker in Boston. "Not that I stick out like a sore thumb in the office, but though I enjoy the trust of my peers, I will remain a foreigner in this particular generation." For Nadia Allam, whose mother is German and father is Egyptian and grew up in Switzerland and the United States, being a TCK can also be socially awkward when dealing with people of more homogenized roots. "There is a feeling of isolation, of not belonging anywhere… I also get impatient with peers of lesser exposure. And you get the ants in the pants syndrome where you're never entirely happy where you are," said Allam, who works in product branding in New York. Often the stronger the family ties, especially if both parents are from the same country, the more rooted the TCK is in their primary culture. "I miss Turkey when I am here, and I miss New York—not particularly the United States—when I am in Istanbul. So it is a confusing situation when future is at stake. However, deep down, I think I will go back to Istanbul, to my family, friends and culture eventually," said Idil Ustun, a Turk who has living abroad on-and-off most of her life. "There are draw backs," said Sullivan, whose company began their research with the Navy and Peace Corps, but now advises mostly private companies. "There's a hesitancy to make deeper friendships because they've moved around so much. They are more global in their thinking, but there can also be hesitancy in making decisions because of this." Others cited an identity crisis as being a problem. The ones who had moved around the most had no idea of where they would eventually settle, or if they'd ever be entirely happy settling in just one place. "One of the cons is strongly desiring one place where the best of each of these cultures exists, but a perfect fit is nowhere," said Alice Savic, a corporate executive in Atlanta, GA, who has Yugoslavian roots but grew up mostly in the United States. On the other hand, some TCKs found the sensation that the world is shrinking, a comforting feeling: "Nowadays, with mass globalization, MTV, CNN, Madonna, McDonalds, I feel that living in New York or in Dhaka might round out to be the same for me. As the world has become more of a homogenized community in my lifetime, lifestyle differences and socioeconomic markers override cultural value systems with regard to directing our sense of self and belonging," said Zubin Khan, an American of Bangladeshi origin. Finally, there are those whose lives have flung them far, and who now long for a simpler home. "As I get older, I want to relate to my father's hometown, and upbringing, more. This is unusual because of all the sexy and fashionable places that can lay some ownership of me: New York (where I was born and now live), Sydney (where I was first brought up), London (where I grew up and my parents still live), New Hampshire (where I went to university), Hong Kong (where I got my first job and lived for two years), Los Angeles (where I moved after Hong Kong), it is Tacoma, WA, where my father was raised and where, until very recently, my grandmother lived, that I most think about when I consider what place has influenced me the most," said Will Taylor, who is half Indonesian, half American and is now a documentary film producer in New York. "I'll often introduce myself as being from Tacoma because it represents something that I aspire to. Plainness, stability, being from somewhere precisely because it's not international and subject to the whims of fashion," he added. About
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