Third Culture Kid: A Stranger to Myself
“I discover that one and one is three, yes means no and, despite all my efforts, I’ll always be a stranger in this land.” -Glen Heggstad, One More Day Everywhere.
I had come to the place where these words were becoming my own. Although I had traveled for months at a time throughout the mainland United States, I had never lived here. Aside from two years in Hawaii (the reason I call the continental United States the “mainland), I had lived in Mexico. And not as an authentic Mexican. I realized now I was a stranger, not only in this land but to myself.
Let me backtrack.
Grade school was a jumble- a happy, innocent jumble. My memory begins in bilingual kindergarten. I befriended a kid from the United States who spoke only English. I went to church in Spanish, but it was a growing church established by Americans. Then I spent first through third grade in an international school where I spoke only English. My American friend, Griffen, and his brother, Graham, followed suit. Mornings we spent in school and afternoons at each other’s houses. Griffen and I still hung out with a Mexican friend from our kindergarten. And for those years, the two cultures melted together around and within me, unnoticed.
Then came our move to Hawaii. At first, I thought I heard a different language, but I soon realized it was Pidgin English. It didn’t take long before I was as comfortable with the language and with the ocean as I was with Spanish, Midwestern English, and the Mexican highlands.
When I returned to Puebla, Griffen and Graham had moved, and my other friends stuck to their junior high cliques. And now there was another predominant culture in the school: Korean. It took a rough year or two to find my slot among the other third culture kids. Constant travel during summer and school breaks to rural Mexico with my dad only made it harder.
High school meant home-school for me. I had almost weekly sleepovers with my American best friend. I took classes at school with Korean, Mexican, and American friends. I spent weeks or months with Mexican friends. We were working with youth or exploring caves, rivers, and forests. And traveled on several-month-long furloughs throughout the mainland United States. While high school life was chaos, it was a happy chaos. And because it was chaos, I didn’t have time to slow down and dissect it.
Now comes my move to the United States for school.
I’m now immersed in American culture with many American friends. While I have a few international friends, the ones I see the most are American-born and raised. All my profs but one are American. And I am finally forced to decide who I want to be.
The curse of being a third-culture kid is a feeling of alienation from any one culture and its people, which can haunt one forever, if left untended. The blessing of it is the opportunity to choose an existing culture or create a hybrid of cultures for oneself. And to accept change as an adventure rather than a discomfort.
I hadn’t had to decide for myself who I was before coming here. I was between cultures as were most of my friends. I could pick and choose what I liked from both, without committing to anything. I could blame all on confusion because we were all confused. When I came here, I realized how odd this seems to first-culture people, but I couldn’t make myself fit in. Now, I realize first culture kids have trouble fitting in too or finding acceptance, especially during the teenage years. But at least they can have a general sense of understanding or belonging as a backdrop. At least, that’s the way it’s been for my close, first-culture friends. I suddenly saw that I didn’t have that, and I understood how much I loved my home city, Puebla, with its cracked roads, street food, and open windows that let in noise, dust, birdsong, and wind. There, people walk to get to places, and dinners are long family affairs. Fresh seasonal fruit costs chump change, and café doors open to the sidewalk, letting their scents and music drift outside
While discovering this, I came to accept that I am not entirely Mexican, despite my strong attachment to Mexico. Nor am I altogether American- not in blood, not in culture. I grew up as both and as neither, which leaves me clueless about specific nuances in both worlds. But it also gifts me with a deeper insight into the hearts behind those worlds. I grasp that people have the same basic desires regardless of skin color, latitude, or citizenship. I no longer see this as a trite cliché but as a proven conviction. I discovered I can find people who understand me in Mexico and the United States, where I speak the languages, and in Switzerland and France, where I don’t. And there will always be people I never get, as much in France as in my own dear Puebla.
Rather than try to adapt to where I am, I strive to know individuals for who they are while embracing what I know I love. I make close friends and let them know me as I am, without feeling the need to adapt to what they know or like.
I live in small-town USA right now and have for four years. I still don’t get a lot of things here. But, I’ve come to accept that there will always be things I don’t understand. I don’t even get the way a few of my closest friends here think or the things they want. And they don’t get me and my constant yearning for change and travel and unpredictability. But we love each other and enjoy each other’s company, and for now, that’s more than enough.
So, back to Glen’s quote: “I discover that one and one is three, yes means no and, despite all my efforts, I’ll always be a stranger in this land.” Now I find truth in it in a more hopeful tone. Now it doesn’t mean I’ll be ever restless or lonely, but rather, that I’ll be ever on an adventure. I know now I’ll always find someone to love me and someone to love. And I’ll always have bits of different cultures that I make my own, whether that be German-Swiss straightforwardness or Mexican enthusiasm or Hawaiian hospitality. It doesn’t matter if I don’t understand a lot of things. It doesn’t matter if I’m a stranger. Most people welcome a stranger that comes with an open mind and a smile. And even if the stranger feels like an alien, he can find home and comfort in people, while thinking of his present location as an adventure.
I grew up with constant change, which oftentimes bears separation and heartache . But that only makes future meetings with those people that much sweeter. And it leaves me with a continual thirst for adventure. Adventure can be as rich when visiting a new city as it can be when climbing a 17,000-foot mountain.
If you ask me now where I’m from, I’ll tell you I’m Mexican. But I prefer Japanese tea over coffee, I love celebrating Thanksgiving, and I usually write in English. And I’m okay with it all. That’s the magic: not trying to fit into the stereotype of any one culture. Then I’m more at peace with whom I am regardless of where I am or who I’m with. I am not a country. I am not a culture or a language or a tradition. I am not a title. And while my heart always yearns for Mexico, it’s no longer pained. I no longer need Mexico to define myself.
