Libby's Blog
Where Am I?
- Third Culture Kids
- Monday, 14 October 2013 21:22
Today's fantastic blog post is a guest post courageously written by Third Culture Kid, Sabrina Omar. We are reposting her piece unaltered, just as it features on her blog. Thank you Sabrina, for being willing to share your thoughts with our readers. Your words and your vulnerability are so powerful.

It’s October 2013, marking the three month anniversary of my shattered sense of belonging. Yes, I am exaggerating. And yes, I may even continue to do so throughout this post.
Here’s to us all and our thick skins and our elastic hearts. Three months in, we haven’t snapped yet.
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- Third Culture Kids
- Thursday, 01 August 2013 21:07
I posted this fantastic TED talk by Third Culture Kid author Pico Iyer the other day to my Facebook wall. Some TED talks are really that good, that you want to share them again. So, here it is. Enjoy!
Pico really puts into words what so many of us feel about the concept of home, travel and identity.
I love Pico's observation that "there is one great problem with movement and that is that it is really hard to get your bearings when you are in mid-air" and how this leads him to the search for personal reflection and silence. In his words, the joy of traveling is perhaps only matched by the joy of staying still.
What do you think about this statement, TCKs?
A Creative Third Culture!
- Third Culture Kids
- Monday, 15 April 2013 12:20
Third Culture Kids are well-known for their creativity in literature, art, music and film (as I pointed out in a recent blog post). Whether through blogging, singing, painting, photography (or whatever the medium), so many TCKs I have met find it therapeutic to use these vehicles to share their story, their love of the world or their multicultural identity. Today, following a bit of a hiatus, I want to share with you two wonderful YouTube videos that were passed on to me recently. I love each of these for the richness of the experiences and emotions that they represent. Enjoy!
I'm a TCK by Declan Lowell
National Anthem Mashup by Grant Woolard
Third Culture Kids, how do you share your TCK experience and why do you think you do so?
And what are some of your favorite Third Culture Kid films, art, songs or books you have come across recently?
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4 Third Culture Kid Films Worth Your Time
- Third Culture Kids
- Wednesday, 28 November 2012 15:42
Third Culture Kids (TCKs) are no longer a marginal culture. We’ve known this for a long time now. Once known almost as an oddity, today, TCKs are one of the most rapidly growing populations. TCKs from almost every combination of nations imaginable are taking up office in nearly every industry around the globe. It’s no wonder that the film world is forced to recognize the existence of TCKs. Some films are even focusing their whole storyline around Third Culture Kids. Here is a selection of four recent Third Culture Kid films worth your while if you want to understand, reflect on personally or get a group discussion going about the Third Culture.
1. Somewhere Between (2011)
Type: Documentary film (88 mins) NR
Director: Linda Goldstein Knowlton
Trailer:
Storyline: Somewhere Between tells the intimate stories of four teenaged girls. They live in different parts of the US, in different kinds of families and are united by one thing: all four were adopted from China because all four had birth parents who could not keep them, due to personal circumstances colliding with China's "One Child Policy". These strong young women allow us to grasp what it is like to come-of-age in today's America as trans-racial adoptees. At the same time, we see them as typical American teenagers doing what teenagers everywhere do...struggling to make sense of their lives. Through these young women, and their explorations of who they are, we ourselves pause to consider who we are - both as individuals and as a nation of immigrants. Identity, racism, and gender...these far-reaching issues are explored in the documentary. And with great honesty and courage, these four girls open their hearts to experience love, compassion, and self-acceptance.
Third Culture Kid themes: Pursuit of identity, adoption, belonging
2. The Road Home (2010)
Type: Documentary Short (21 mins) NR
Director: Rahul Gandotra
Trailer:
Storyline: Sent by his parents to an international boarding school in the Himalayas, Pico grapples with his identity as he escapes from his boarding school in search of the road back home to England.
Third Culture Kid themes: Belonging, pursuit of identity, “home”, school, Indian-British TCKs
3. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011)
Type: Drama/Comedy (124 mins) PG-13
Director: John Madden
Trailer:
Storyline: British retirees travel to India to take up residence in what they believe is a newly restored hotel. Less luxurious than its advertisements, the Marigold Hotel nevertheless slowly begins to charm in unexpected ways.
Third Culture Kid themes: Not directly a TCK film but deals with culture shock, India/Britain, thriving cross-culturally
4. Neither Here Nor There
Type: Documentary (35 mins) NR
Director: Ema Ryan Yamazaki
Trailer:
Storyline: "Neither Here Nor There" is a 35 minute documentary that explores cultural identity for people who have grown up in places other than their home culture, known as Third Culture Kids. Through the stories of six subjects, the film investigates the often overlooked effects on adults who had international upbringings, their struggles to fit in and an eternal search to belong.
The film is also a self-exploratory journey for the filmmaker, a Japanese-British raised bi-culturally and in an international school system, who now lives in New York. In her last year of college, she attempts to figure out what she is in the context of the world.
Third Culture Kid themes: Asian Third Culture Kids, international school TCKs, identity
What are some of your favorite films on the subject of Third Culture Kids that you would recommend watching?
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TCK and Pregnant: Facing the Tension
- Third Culture Kids
- Friday, 15 June 2012 22:25
When I returned to my passport culture a few years back, I was forced to face my webbed closet of pent up prejudices and questions surrounding both my identity and resettlement. Working through our move for several years, combined with being married to a monocultural American, had me thinking that I had most definitely aced that class of knowing who I am as a Third Culture Kid. Then I found out I was pregnant.
I am quite thankful pregnancy is a long journey of nine months (technically ten!) because I spent most of those months wondering if our children would grow up to love the world or to “just” love their town. Would they inherit my gift of languages or remain monolingual? Would they ever become TCKs themselves or would they, in fact, detest air travel?
I recall at least one painful discussion with my [normally patient] spouse after having received our first American football jersey gift for our son. For me, little newborn boys dressed in sports apparel represented American values I deeply disagreed with: to be the biggest, fastest, greatest. Knowing that so much more was hidden under the iceberg of that innocent jersey, my husband told me that, by the way, he simply wasn’t prepared to withhold our child from watching American football or playing it if he wanted to (oh Lord, no!) just because his mother was a TCK. This was coming from a man who despises American football – but this wasn’t about football. He went on to explain that there was nothing wrong with giving our son exposure to each of our cultures but that our child wouldn’t simply become our clone. If, down the line, our child wanted to take part in a 4th of July parade, papa would let him do so. “What!? Don’t you prefer to promote global family values in our home??” I protested.
As I continued to toss and turn, wondering how on earth I could raise a global-minded child in the middle of America, especially with the realization that we wouldn’t withhold chintzy Americana from our child, I came to realize that I actually still didn’t fully accept certain parts about living here. Somehow, all this time, I had actually been able to live in my comfy foreigner bubble with very little contact to people who live in my town. As my pregnancy progressed, I was forced to wrestle with the tension I felt, because I could think of nothing worse than for me to pass on my own emotional baggage to my child before he even had a chance to speak. Instead of teaching him how to be a cynical, unpatriotic citizen, would it not be so much more beautiful to teach him how to become a global citizen – with the ability to thrive in each of the cultures that make up our family, without exception?
That conversation around baby sports apparel got us thinking about how we would intentionally weave and embrace both of our diverse threads into the intercultural fabric of our child’s world. I came to realize that by shutting out my passport culture altogether, I had deprived myself of real friends and any benefits of living in this country. How did I find that out? Well, as soon as I allowed myself to open up the doors of acceptance, I instantly made lifetime friends in our same life-phase. I also was forced to admit that even if we are only here for a season, it is a great place to be with young kids.
Don’t get me wrong, I still wouldn’t dress my newborn in sports apparel and don’t expect me to have any tears flowing on the 4th of July – but I no longer feel I must guard my children from experiencing these things. Instead of constantly having to fight for which culture is most welcome in our family, we are both committed to intentionally raise our children to embrace all facets of growing up in a multicultural and multilingual home.
Practically speaking, papa will speak English to our child and impart the fun things about his culture: being pulled in a little red wagon, selling lemonade on a street corner, or enjoying great customer service. I will speak my languages to our children, sing nursery rhymes in my language at bilingual mama groups, celebrate national holidays and ethnic foods, and the joys and frustrations of the Third Culture. Together, we have chosen to give our children the gift of living free from our own cultural prejudices and to value what each parent brings to our family, knowing that each facet our children receives will make them passionate lovers of this world. Wait, isn’t that what I wanted in the first place anyway? :-)
How about you ATCK parents? Did you have an identity crisis when you became a parent? How does being a Third Culture Kid change your parenting? What are some specific Third Culture values you have been able to impart to your children? What are some tips you would give new TCK parents like me?
Blog post by Esther (a TCK blogger).
All images used with permission from guest blogger. Lemonade stand credit: Flickr Creative Commons Robert S. Donovan
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