“Can you pass the rubber?”
Yes, I am now aware that in the U.S., I should use the word “eraser.” A rubber, I have realized, is a condom. But so goes my cultural adaptation to life in the U.S. I also spell “humour” with a “u,” I can’t pronounce “literally,” and I get annoyed when I can’t use the passive voice. This confusion and grammatical non-conformity stems from a diverse upbringing: I am an Indian who was born and brought up in the Middle East, educated in a British School, and spent the last two years of high school in Singapore.
Because I was only around international students, many of whose upbringings were far more transient than my own, it didn’t hit me that my situation was unusual until I ended up at Georgetown. About a year ago, I came across a series of articles that perfectly described the lifestyle I had lived for the past 19 years. They called my life that of a “Third Culture Kid.”
TCKs are people who have spent most of their lives outside their country of citizenship. Most of us, these articles said, have three things in common: transience, intelligence, and an uncommitted attitude toward communities. TCKs are supposedly well-travelled, familiar with many cultures, adaptable, and self-sufficient. However, the constant volatility in environment makes them afraid of commitment and often leaves them feeling like they don’t belong. They are normally highly educated and very familiar with a wide range of issues, but rarely say things that are controversial. They can become well-versed in issues without forming a concrete opinion about them. They are rarely xenophobic and they are usually socially confident. Finally, their exposure to many cultures causes TCKs to form their own value system rather than conforming to the institutionalized morality of any one country or society.
Check, check, and check.
But for the past few years, I have also noticed that people my age who have led a lifestyle similar to mine all go through some sort of conflict when faced with the heavy and deep question of their identity. Not only have I never struggled with this internal conflict, I have never really questioned my chaotic upbringing. Once I came to Georgetown, after having labored through my five-minute background story, I surprised myself by understanding most pop culture references that my American acquaintances made.
Reading these articles made me question their generalizations about my amorphous status as a TCK. Not because I disagreed with any of the conclusions they made about the personality traits I supposedly demonstrated—I do have those traits—but because I didn’t see what was so unique about being a TCK. My classmates at Georgetown may not have physically seen as much of the world as I had, but most seemed well-educated and well-versed in global issues, especially those in the SFS. Many adolescents do not form opinions quickly and are wary of commitment; they don’t need to travel the world to become that way. Quite a few people who read and learn about different faiths or belief systems adopt some of the teachings into their own values, a characteristic that, again, is not exclusive to TCKs. And, the question of self-identity is the theme of every John Hughes movie I have ever seen—it’s already ingrained into the American psyche.
All this research on TCKs begs a question: Why was there a separate term for people with a similar background to mine and why has there been so much research on this topic? The answer lay in the question. There is a universal quest to compartmentalize oneself. Most people, maybe even unknowingly, look for a box they fit into, and when nothing fits, they create a new one. It isn’t that I don’t have a home, it’s that I have the privilege of calling four places in the world home, and I most certainly intend to add more.
But I don’t understand the reason for this new identity crisis. As I walked through the front gates over a year ago, I was a new Hoya, an international student, a South Asian, an SFS-er and a person utterly confused by how these tags were to combine over the next four years. In order to encapsulate all that I am, I feel compelled to find some way to describe myself. Though it may not be a good thing, I cling to the tags, and don’t know what we would do without them. There is something very neat about being able to label oneself: a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, or a criminal; a TCK is just another option.
