Life of a Perpetual Immigrant

I am an individual of perpetual confusion and supreme clarity. I will never be who others expect me to be or fit into any mold that I or others design for me. The only mold I have the potential to fulfill is the one that God designed for me. The difference between me and many persons who live similarly to those around them, is that I know I cannot fit this mold and instead of trying to fit someone else’s mold, I accept and excel within the one given to me.

I moved from the U.S.A. to overseas at a young age and grew up there. I cannot remember the time before this change, but I remember its impact on me growing up and the definition this has and continues to develop in the person that I am today. It is hard to say who I was before this as I was not old enough to develop perspective or remember them. I have only had the opportunity to observe mono-culture kids in order to investigate where I differ from the “typical” individual. When I visit places like South Korea, Mexico, Canada, Japan, Thailand, or others, I feel relatively comfortable because while I do not fit in, no one expects me to. I never fit in overseas or on my short visits to the U.S. either. And it was not until I came to the U.S. long term for college and I was thrust among mono-cultural-ism when other’s expectations changed of me, that the pressure to fit that mold increased.

My passport country and parental source is the United States. By appearance I am Caucasian. By voice I am primarily of mid US influence with slight accents from my other homes. My primary culture is that of the Third Culture Kid’s blender. Because I learned flexibility and intercultural thinking my entire childhood and on a regular basis got to know and invest in people of different thinking and perspective systems, this has never been a transition point for me. My personal cultural transition happened when I came from the rest of the world to the United States for long term. No longer was I constantly around people of flexible perspectives, but instead I was in a new society, some of inter-perspective thinking and acceptance and others who were limited to local understandings. I am a firm believer that nothing can be known until it is learned. We should not expect others to know something or mock them when they don’t simply because we have had the opportunity to be exposed to it. I believe that both cultural and mono-cultural lifestyles have value and purpose. I am however, exceedingly glad that I was raised with a broader context of perspectives and values.

When I moved overseas, I was getting ready to learn to read, but my parents went through a significant time of depression. Since they were adjusting to this new culture, and they were both mono-cultural kids, they were more focused on survival. This meant that we did not discover my disability until I was almost 18. The lack of predictability, stability, and security combined with the dyslexia caused me to develop continual anxiety and dysthymia. I was a fighter from the start. When we would visit America and people would say things like, “How does it feel to be home?” I had to smile and bury my pain. I have dealt with extreme loneliness and suicidal tendencies and still do. I have to seek continual help for these things. I sometimes think about who I might be if my parents had not moved us. My parents would not have been so depressed, we probably would have found out about dyslexia, and I could have been taught how to handle it healthily. But I would not change it for anything.

If I had not gone through the pain I did, I would not be able to empathetically relate to my clients. If I did not have my perspective, flexibility, and understanding of different views, I would not be able to observe and quickly respond effectively. If I didn’t grow up visiting nursing homes and orphanages and receiving certain levels of persecution, I would not have seen the deep need and developed my passion for people. And if I had not experienced this level of struggle I would not be able to persevere through the potential struggles that will come in the walk ahead.

I have personally been changed by my intercultural mindset. While there are certain universal understandings of right and wrong in things such as lying, adultery, murder, etc., certain countries may rank the values in a different order of priority. It is helpful to go in with this mindset, because you can observe their priorities, react respectfully, and integrate more seamlessly into their home turf instead of keeping to the surface level of perception and assuming that they have weak or no morals. This has a lot to do with understanding the difference between the concepts of good differences rather than putting people on a better or worse plane. This develops an attitude of open learning, non-judgmental reception, and informed decisions.

My understanding of these underlying concepts and my ever-developing skill of picking up on these subtleties helps me think of societies as a circular network or web of cultures. Instead of perceiving the world as a bunch of separate circles, I see them as all shapes and sizes overlapping in different ways the same way personalities do. There are people groups who have environmental and historical commonalities, families who have experience and habit commonalities, and groups of people who have things such as hobbies, extroversion, or careers in common. This is an advantageous method of interpretation, because instead of categorizing someone as Japanese, Korean, or American, I categorize them as an individual, work to see in which ways they overlap in relation to many categories, and actively seek to explore the personal traits that make them unique to the entire system.

This is not to say that I do not also have unknown biases, but I work actively to identify any, not to make assumptions, and to focus on this individual within thew global network. When I was 15, one of my closest friend’s dad, who happened to be the only person I knew with long hair, had an affair, hurt and left his entire family. I was unaware that I had tied this physical attribute to that time when my friend was hurt and left the country. My freshman year of college I had an acquaintance who had short hair. He was a guy so I thought nothing of this. He was a kind, polite gentlemen. When I came back my sophomore year, he had grown out his hair. When I saw him, I felt somewhat defensive. It was subtle, but I noticed it. I was both confused and surprised. I knew that neither he nor I had changed but that something wasn’t right in me. It was then that I correlated his long hair with my painful experience. Having simply realized this bias, I was able to completely release it and feel once again at ease with him. However, this is something that I try to monitor in other areas. I never want to send defensive or negative messages to someone when I meet them and lose the opportunity to discover the incredible person they are. This is the type of self-monitoring that allows me to use caution when assigning others with attributes or assuming the implications of said attribute. These perspective however, do not come without a cost.

Davis, Edwards, and Watson, (2015) investigate strategies for coping and recovery for third culture kids. They focus on the individual’s myriad of unresolved emotions. I would suggest that even though these elements are present and make for an increasingly intensive challenge, they actually are some of the greatest assets for an intercultural individual. These things caused by my cultural experience yield a harvest of passionate, calculated, and active decisions. This is another way that I differ from some though not all mono-cultural kids. While I in no way suggest or imply that a mono-culture individual has not grieved young or will not grieve later in his life, I do suggest that all third culture kids have. Therefore I also attribute this aspect of my perspectives and active interpretation of compassion to being a third culture kid.

When I came to America, it was not me or my adaptive levels that changed. Instead it was the realization that expectations of me had changed. I was not limited to individuals in the states who knew I was from elsewhere. I became a “hidden immigrant” to those around me, and it became a hidden grief within me. The challenges that accompany being a foreigner or TCK were no longer stamped on my forehead. Instead of being perceived as that foreigner, I was perceived as odd, unintelligent, or inferior to many of the individuals I encountered. This was the most challenging element of entering a “new” culture because of the different perceptions from others about how I fit into society. I learned to focus on what I already knew about integrating myself into societies but also to adapt in new ways. Instead of being excused for differences as I would anywhere else in the world, I had to learn to let it roll off my back and not be oversensitive about the local’s perception of or reaction to me. But these understandings are not what make me a TCK. It is the fact that I do not bind with either fully, but bind quickly no matter where in this world I go or with whom I engage.

I have grown up with an intercultural mindset, because as in the difference between learning a second language in adulthood verses childhood, the way my brain processes and looks at things was simply developed differently. So who am I now? The greatest conclusion that I have truly come to through all of this is that I am Heaven bound. While my physical and emotional foundation may not be typical, my spiritual foundation is solid. My past is blurred, but my future is set.

References:

DAVIS, P. S., EDWARDS, K. J., & WATSON, T. S. (2015). Using Process

Experiential/Emotion-Focused Therapy Techniques for Identity Integration and

Resolution of Grief Among Third Culture Kids. Journal Of Humanistic

Counseling, 54(3), 170-186. doi:10.1002/johc.12010