I’m a Third Culture Kid, Not a 1.5 Generation Asian American

By Guest Writer | Wednesday, July 20, 2011 | 18 Comments

Thanks for visiting 8Asians, a blog about Asian American issues. If you find this interesting, subscribe to the RSS feed, visit our Facebook Page or add us on Twitter!

8a globe Im a Third Culture Kid, Not a 1.5 Generation Asian American

By Johnny C

Whenever people meet me for the first time, I come off as just another friendly neighborhood Asian kid who gives his seat up on the bus for the elderly and pays all his taxes. A little later during most conversations, people learn that I immigrated to the United States when I was 18, and are amazed I don’t have an accent. Usually my response is that everyone has an accent, but if they mean I sound like an American instead of a foreigner, then that’s because I went to international school growing up.

Wait a second, what?

Let’s take a step back. A lot of people assume that if you don’t come as a young child, you’re going to have a foreign sounding accent from whatever country you came from. Growing up between Manila, Hong Kong, and California, there’s an even bigger cause for confusion in my situation.

When I first posted about being a Third Culture Kid, I was gearing it toward my peers in the TCK community, and in light of the comments and confusion, I’m taking the opportunity to clarify some things.

I was born in the U.S., moved to Manila, jaunted back and forth fairly often between there and Hong Kong, then eventually moved to the U.S. I could be seen as a 1.5 generation American for being born in the U.S. and growing up overseas, on top of coming here when I was 18, which is technically correct.

At the same time, my values and culture are not Asian American or 1.5 generation. For starters, I don’t feel this sense of being torn between my Asian heritage and my American culture–I belong to both, yet feel connected to neither. I don’t feel this serious offense to being asked the notorious question, “Where are you from?” by people who assume because of my ethnicity, that I am a foreigner and not American. It’s not this micro-aggression that alienates me and singles me out as someone who can’t be included as one of the American people. As a Third Culture Kid, asking us “Where are you from?” usually ends up in either spouting off a mini life story and explanation, followed by an assertion that we’re not weird–or by a confused look and awkward search for words. Does it mean what my ethnicity is? Where was I born? What school did I go to? Where did I grow up? Where do I get my accent?

If a lot of people feel the need to belong to the American culture and identity, as a Third Culture Kid, I have no real value placed on being perceived as an American or a foreigner. As far as I and my fellow TCKs are concerned, we are forever foreigners anyway since we don’t even feel any belonging to our passport countries. An example is my friend, an Italian girl, has never even been to Italy, because she grew up in South Africa and the Philippines. A lot of Asian Americans can feel like they need to prove their worth and why they must be accepted, some even dropping what they feel is “too Asian” in order to be “more American” like it were a wardrobe to be worn and discarded for the occasion. I can just as easily move to Iceland or Thailand and not miss the states, not need to hang out with other Americans, or go to TGI Friday’s. Who are my people then?

I now bring you the long-awaited explanation of what being a TCK is. For starters, it’s not an ethnic group, a mindset, or a counter-culture movement. It’s an experience that comes in many different variations. Say you live in Lisbon, then move to Paris, and constantly move between the two cities. What point does the Portuguese end and the French begin in your culture? This is where the Third Culture begins: when you feel loyalty to neither city, but with the people in the interim: those in the airports, those on the road, and those in transition. It’s the people who can be coming from Marrakech, Toronto, Rio, or Los Angeles, whom you all meet while living elsewhere that you relate to more. Their nationalities and ethnicities are arbitrary–it’s the experience of moving between cultures and being tied to none.

Third Culture Kids can range from being refugees, missionary/military/diplomat children, and even a new category, the Domestic TCK, a person who stays in one country, but still moves around often, like another friend of mine who grew up in 13 states and doesn’t feel like he belongs to any single one of them, yet feels more ties to the international-oriented TCKs than to his fellow Americans.

A close friend of mine was born in Korea, raised in Granada, moved to the Philippines where I met her in high school, then went to college in the United States. Does it matter that she’s a Filipina? She didn’t have an easier time going “home” to the Philippines–if anything, it was even harder because she was expected to be a certain way due to the way she looked and for having a Philippine passport. Add that she has an international school accent like me (which to many people sounds American), and people assume she must be a Filipina-American, further categorizing her and ostracizing her. I don’t relate to her because we’re both Filipinos–I relate to her because when we talk, we laugh about the fact we just don’t know how to answer that irritating “Where are you from?” question.

We didn’t know that a visa was a credit card when we came to the U.S. for college, we drunk dial friends internationally, we memorized the different time zone differences so we knew when to contact our friends, we don’t feel the need to be American or any other citizenship, and we talk about traveling to different countries like they aren’t far-off, exotic lands, but just other places that are as easily accessible as a simple bus ride to the other side of town. We don’t see people as others, we see them as “like”, because we aren’t comparing one culture and elevating it above different cultures that some may see as inferior.

So a Third Culture Kid, I’m not tied down to any one country. I’m not patriotic, and I’m not nationalist. But the big difference as a TCK: I don’t have a home. I can’t settle in any one place forever, because I know there are other places I can live in just as happily. Sure, some 1.5 Generation people struggle to adapt to their new adopted homeland, but I know I’m not going to be here forever.

I’m not better than everyone because of my experience, nor am I a rich brat for moving between cultures and continents, I’m just different. It’s not about where I’m from, but where I’m going: what will I do with these experiences in life? Do I get angry at people for not understanding me? Or do I use these worldly experiences to realize that most people won’t understand, and thus try to make the effort to be more understanding of them, as well as more patient with them? People don’t care about where you’re from, what happened to you, or your life story–it’s whomever you choose to be at the present moment. Using that knowledge, I draw from the breadth of experiences I have to be a good person, a big brother, a globalist, and a friend to everyone. It’s easier to live by focusing on how I can use what I have to give to others that allows me to relate to everyone from everywhere, instead of coming off as an elitist and self-entitled brat scolding people for not understanding me.

ABOUT JOHNNY C: John “Johnny C” Chuidian is your friendly neighborhood adventure kid who grew up between California, Hong Kong, and Manila. When he’s not acting or traveling, you can find him jumping around buildings with other parkour enthusiasts or learning new martial arts styles. He is currently a graduate student at UCSD studying Human Rights and Sustainable Development with an emphasis on Southeast Asia.

[Photo courtesy of Milenamariposa]

Categories:

DiscriminationLifestyles

NOTE: 8Asians.com is a community, and we thank you for being a part of it. While we welcome and appreciate differences in opinion, if you're rude or you're promoting spam, we have a right to edit or delete your comment. Read our comment policy for more information.

If you see a comment that violates the 8Asians.com comment policy, you may flag the comment by mousing over the comment and clicking "FLAG."

Facebook Comments (Beta)

ChrisML

Johnny, I’m really glad that you’re writing these blog posts about TCKs, but I would just caution you to be careful in the way you characterize Asian Americans. In particular, I was bothered by the tone of this line — “A lot of Asian Americans can feel like they need to prove their worth and why they must be accepted, some even dropping what they feel is “too Asian” in order to be “more American” like it were a wardrobe to be worn and discarded for the occasion.” I sense in your tone you’re making a normative judgment about Asian American concerns, but conversations about identity and belonging among Asian Americans are a lot more complex than the way you describe them. Overall, I’m really glad that you’re out there writing about TCKs, but I don’t think it’s necessary to use Asian Americans as a foil in your writing.
http://thylacine.livejournal.com/ ErikaHarada

An interesting perspective I never considered…thanks for sharing your story.
yu888

@ChrisML Given the site that this piece is published on, and given the perspective closest to the hearts of most readers here, using an Asian American experience as its comparison is valid. While i agree that perhaps other experiences would be equally as valid, the author’s ethnicity means he is most often compared to Asian Americans, and sadly, I tend to agree than many of us do experience the identity issues he mentions. And while some may not have any of those insecurities he points out, and may feel alienated by those generalizations, his use of those comparisons actually makes sense to me as a perspective point.
ChrisML

@yu888 I do see the utility of comparing the TCK experience with Asian Americans, but there’s little utility in comparing TCKs with a caricature of Asian Americans. The thrust of my comment was that the portrayal of Asian Americans in this post is incomplete at best and unfair at worst. Articulating what it means to be a TCK does not require belittling the concerns of those of us who didn’t grow up as internationally mobile.
rahadyant

Thanks for this perspective!
johnklin

Interesting – your experience reminds me of a lot of college friends and classmates I knew while living at the International Living Center in college – especially my friend who was half-British and half-Japanese who had lived in both countries and had attended an international school, as well as a Japanese woman who was the daughter of a diplomat who answered when I asked where she was from said, “That is complicated,” as she had lived everywhere except in Japan.
min

i think one difference between TCK and American Born Asian is TCK value their US citizenships a lot more than ABA’s…
min

at least the ones that want to stay here… unlike the OP
mwei

@yu888 @ChrisML it’s a balance of width vs depth. as somebody who never lived in any place for more than 5 years all my life, I can sort of relate to the feeling of not being tied down to any place.

however, simplistically saying Asian-Americans are this or that simply dismisses the article itself as lacking any real comprehension of what it is to yet again being asked “Do you speak English?” the other day for me just chilling out at a cafe.

rather than thinking it’s a “melting pot” like from 20 years ago, people need to think of it as a “toss salad”
John’JohnnyC’Chuidian

Salutations, I don’t mean to offend, but this is the average of what I know from my own personal experience the past 9 years in the U.S. Granted, it works with the comparison I was making, but I am in no way trying to offend or present as fact that all Asian-Americans are likes this in my example. It’s hard to make a good basis for everyone, but again, I’m just drawing from my experience as both an outsider and an incidental member of the Asian-American community.
EmilyNakanoCo

Suzie and I are TCKs! WHOOT!
Mark Bantigue

This is a solid article on multiple-culture people, Johnny. I ask permission to feature it on P3.

P3, http://www.p-3.ph, is a crowd-sourced, progressive, online Philippine news magazine that features blogs with perspectives on modern Filipino culture, progress-minded, social responsibility, environmentalism, and tolerance. May I feature your blog post? I will provide all the necessary links and description of your blog. Thanks.

Mark J. Bantigue P3 220 Tomas Morato Avenue Quezon City 1103 Philippines http://www.p-3.ph Tw: @P3dotPh Fb: /P3dotPh +63 918 919 3660 markbantigue@p-3.ph Tw: @markbantigue Fb: /markbantigue
John’JohnnyC’Chuidian

Hey Mark, thank you for the praise, and I’m flattered that you want to re-publish it! Please send me an e-mail so we can talk about it before finalizing this! @Mark Bantigue@markbantigue
Pingback: July 2011 Summary « Hey it's Johnny C
http://youthnasia.wordpress.com/ tanya.maree

I love this article! I’m Australian, have been living in China 7.5 years, and working with TCKs here in Beijing for 6 years. This is a great window into the TCK experience and mindset.
John’JohnnyC’Chuidian

@tanya.maree Thank you for your kind words, Tanya. This isn’t meant to speak for all TCKs or Asian Americans, but there are definitely some parallels in my experience that my friends and other TCKs can relate to. If you’d like some more TCK articles, check out my blog projects: heyitsjohnnyc.wordpress.com and johnnycrockstheplanet.wordpress.org. Cheers!
Pingback: A window into a TCK experience « Youth in Asia
Pingback: CDC Study Suggests Low Cancer Screening Rates Among Asians in US | Health | 8Asians.com

8 Asians