An Article by Supriya Harida Balakrishnan

The following article was written by Supriya Harida Balakrishnan, a student at Lewis & Clark. The article appeared in The International Indian, Vol. 7, No. 3 in the May-June 1999 edition. (The article uses British spellings.)

Third Culture Kids

Modern-day Nomads

Born in one country, brought up in another and studying or living in a third...Third Culture Kids or TKCs are the products of an expatriate lifestyle that their parents have chosen.

There was a light drizzle and I was standing before a sprawling edifice with a strange and unsettling feeling. A feeling of inadequacy, perhaps. Or was it the chill winds blowing across Portland? I stood gazing at the main entrance for what seemed a long time. Suddenly I was shaken from my reverie by a voice from nowhere. "Hi. I'm Roshan. You must be new to Lewis & Clark". I turned around and said "Hi". Roshan looked like a fellow Indian to me and she quickly confirmed that she was an expat Indian from Taiwan. I said that I too was an expat Indian, but from Dubai. "Oh, so you are a TCK like me." she responded. "What's a TCK?" I enquired. "It is an acronym for Third Culture Kids," she said. That's how I made my first contact with the term TCK.

The third culture kid or 'Modern-day Nomad' as some people call them, is becoming an increasingly common phenomenon. Being a TCK is a fact that people like me have to deal and come to terms with; born in one country, brought up in another, and studying or living in the third. It could also include a person of one ethnic origin who moves over to different climes and locations. How does all this affect us? Very positively actually. TCKs become adaptable to a variety of surroundings and usually have a secular and cosmopolitan outlook. This gives them the ability to mingle with any nationality with ease. They also have an international outlook and perspective on life which is refreshing.

Talking of the genesis of the TCK club, Greg Caldwell, director of international students, explained how during a visit with Ed Bernard the counsellor had inspired the formation of this club. The purpose of this club is to bring together all those students who have been shuffled around a lot, in order that they can help each othersettle in to a new environment, with the assistance of the TCKs already present in college. Caldwell says, "Being bilingual and bicultural, the TCKs are very accommodating and stand out as a trademark of international cross-currents." While many of these kids are inherently restless, this trait is not always true and often TCKs have no difficulty in forming emotional attachments to a place.

Caldwell has translated his ideas into reality very beautifully, and the beneficiaries of this are the TCKs in Lewis & Clark. The club organizes regular dinners that not only provide members with an occasion to visit several restaurants, but also an opportunity to share experiences with each other. Personally I discovered to my relief, that characteristics like my restlessness, an inability to stay in any place for too long, were common to many TCKs. Interacting with other TCKs I've realized that we're all in the same boat. I've gathered many useful tips from their experiences, learned to laugh at what are in fact common enough faux pas and developed a more positive approach to new experiences. Last January, for instance, due to an unexpected snow storm in Portland, a lot of us international students returning home (Lewis & Clark for us is home away from home) from the holidays were stranded in different parts of the U.S. During one of our subsequent TCK meetings we all admitted that during this entire episode, our thoughts were on getting back and sharing our experiences with each other at our next TCK meeting, a fact that made the whole experience more enjoyable.

The TCK club has provided me with an opportunity to understand life better, to appreciate and accept different customs and traditions with a more mature perspective and to recognise the different flavours of life that the TCK club allows me to sample.