Among Worlds - Vocation - December 2020

DECEMBER 2020

AMONG WORLDS

TCKs and Careers

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Vocation

Vol. 20 | No. 5

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When I grow up, I want to be...

Editor’s Letter Vocation: TCKs and Careers

Contents Discovering My “Not only... but also” Ute Limacher-Riebold

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Interviewing: How to Tell Your Story Amanda Bates

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Monachopsis Rachel Hicks

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What’s Next?

Michael V. Pollock

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Finding Your Niche Jen Mohindra

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Spotlight Interview: Danau Tanu, PhD

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Finding My Calcutta Marilyn R. Gardner

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Who Are You Really?

Tim Sanford

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Airport Coffee Anna Oken (poetry)

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December 2020 • Vol. 20 • No. 5 Editor: Rachel Hicks Copy Editor: Pat Adams Graphic Designer: Kelly Pickering Digital Publishing: Bret Taylor

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If you are reading this, you have (almost) made it to the end of 2020. I don’t know that there is any one of us who has made it through unscathed, unshaken, or unaffected in a substantial way by the events of this strange, tumultuous year. We at Among Worlds and Interaction International sincerely hope that you and your loved ones are weathering these storms and finding the support, strength, and hope you need to keep going.

The end of one calendar year and the beginning of another is a natural time to reflect on the past and re-evaluate the path we’re on. For some, the worldwide pandemic might lead us to cling to security and stability in every area of life we feel we can control. If we’ve managed to keep our jobs, we are grateful and try not to do anything to “rock the boat.” For others, whether we’ve lost our jobs or not, the pandemic has afforded us an opportunity to ask ourselves, “Am I in the right career? Is this the best fit for me?” We might find ourselves spending extra time searching for new opportunities or daydreaming about a different career path.

You’ll notice that our theme for this issue is Vocation: TCKs & Careers. I want to point your attention to the word vocation. It comes from the Latin vocare, which means “to call.” This is where we get the idea of a calling—some type of work (paid or unpaid) to which we feel called. In this sense, a vocation is something we feel we were meant to do or be. Sometimes we call it finding our niche.

Though people often live out their vocation through a chosen career, a vocation transcends a career or profession. For example, someone who is a natural caregiver may be a nurse, an occupational therapist, or a mother caring for her small children at home. While her vocation is caregiving, she may or may not be employed as a caregiver. As another example, someone may be employed in a service job by day, but his vocation is writing. His day job pays the bills, but he comes alive when writing poetry or fiction. He cannot not write—it is who he is. My guess is that most of us find the greatest fulfillment when our vocation and career align, or at least when we are able to operate within our vocation for the majority of our time.

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The mission of Among Worlds is to encourage adult TCKs and other global nomads by addressing real needs through relevant issues, topics, and resources.

Correction: In our September 2020 issue, we neglected to mention that Ae Hee Lee’s poem “Barley Tea” first appeared in Ruminate magazine. We regret the error.

As you live through this enforced pause in “normal” life, I would encourage you to consider whether or not you have found your vocation. Rather than starting with the question of career options, back up mentally and take a wider, deeper look at what you feel meant to do or be. What makes you come alive?

What activities or types of work feel natural to you?

How might the TCK experiences that helped to shape you play a part in your vocation? Is there a narrative your life might be trying to tell you that you haven’t yet heard?

Many adult TCKs tend to find some connection to their international upbringing, whether through our jobs or through activities, hobbies, or service outside of work. There are the obvious types of international careers that ATCKs tend to pursue, such as business, nonprofit work (like public health or development), education, and ministry. But many of us—contrary to perception—do “settle down” in one place, put down roots, and engage in work that does not necessarily have an international component. However, we might also surround ourselves with friends from different countries, eat at restaurants that remind us of “home,” travel often, or volunteer in some type of crosscultural service.

In this issue you’ll hear from life coaches and counselors who work with globally mobile individuals and families. They remind us of our

“TCK superpowers” and give us advice on how to tell our complicated stories to interviewers. Other contributors remind us that sometimes what we’re looking for vocationally is not “out there,” but right in front of us. Michael Pollock, executive director of Interaction International, leads us through a series of questions to help us discover “what’s next” if we feel like we’re on the verge of change. Finally, in our Spotlight interview, Dr. Danau Tanu tells the story of how her TCK background led her into her current field of research—one that shines a light on marginalization and cultural power structures at international schools.

As you transition from 2020 to 2021, we would love to hear from you! Your stories are important to us, and we hope that you will share them with us. Please engage with us on Instagram (amongworlds) or write to us at amongworlds@interactionintl.org. If you have comments about the articles in AW, or ideas for what you’d like to see in our pages, we would love to hear from you! And as always, consider submitting an article, story, poem, piece of visual art, or book or film review for an upcoming issue (see the back cover of this issue for upcoming themes and deadlines).

May you find reasons to celebrate and be thankful as 2020 winds down, and as you look ahead to 2021.

Love,

Rachel AMONG WORLDS ©2020 (ISSN# 1538-75180) IS PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY INTERACTION INTERNATIONAL, 1516 PECK ST, MUSKEGON, MI 49442 USA. NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE PRIOR PERMISSION FROM THE PUBLISHER. WE LOVE WORKING WITH INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS AND NGOS AND WILL NEGOTIATE A RATE THAT WORKS WITHIN YOUR BUDGET. CONTACT US AT AMONGWORLDS@ INTERACTIONINTL.ORG OR CALL +1-630-653-8780. THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN AMONG WORLDS DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEW OF AMONG WORLDS OR INTERACTION INTERNATIONAL.

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Discovering My “Not only…but 3

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By Ute Limacher-Riebold

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hen you are an adult third culture kid, a foreigner since birth like me, who has never lived in her parents’ country of origin (Germany in my case), you find ways to make every place your home. About 15 years ago, though, I decided to refuse being labelled as “neither…nor” and opt for a much healthier “I am not only…but also” attitude in all domains of my life, including professionally. Sometimes we only realize later how we ended up where we are today.

Growing up as a German in Northern Italy in the seventies and eighties was nothing exceptional— it felt normal for me, as many of my friends were experiencing the same kind of childhood. I grew up at the intersection of a highly international and very monolingual local community.

also”

I was neither Italian nor German, neither local nor foreigner. In Germany we were the Italians, and in Italy we were the Germans. No matter how much we tried to fit in (my sister and I are natively fluent in Italian), people kept trying to make us fit into their boxes. I always found those boxes too narrow, stiff, and limiting. Experiencing a sense of “in between” from the start shaped me, and the feeling of being “neither…nor” burdened me for more than three decades across several countries.

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Since I was a little child, I enjoyed the flexibility of switching between all my languages and cultures. I was fluent in five languages at age 18 and have added many others since.

I remember when others, who weren’t that fluent in cultures and languages, found the otherness difficult to understand, I laid out the many reasons why “other” and “different” were normal, acceptable, and valuable. Building bridges between cultures is something that comes naturally to me.

their various voices across centuries, their history, the values and beliefs that helped me to understand their many facets and their underlying connections.

Those who experience life in a different culture have the opportunity to gain a broader understanding of that culture, and sometimes end up embracing the other culture. When I moved to Switzerland for my studies, I discovered the many facets of this new Swiss culture on my own. I learned, for example, to appreciate the advantages of a more linear perspective of time (see Erin Meyer’s The Cultural Map). Punctuality, which seemed very intimidating and limiting to me at the beginning, quickly became a value and virtue I ended up embracing. What some might consider to be inflexibility can be interpreted as an expression of respect for other people’s time, a trait that renders you trustworthy.

This particular habit came in very handy when I moved to the Netherlands more than 20 years later, where people value punctuality in a similar way. Nevertheless, the flexibility of last-minute decisions that determined my way of living in Italy as a child and later as a researcher is a cultural aspect I still maintain—I just decided it better suits my social life than my professional one.

As a lecturer of Italian historical linguistics at the University of Zurich, I taught students about the origin and the changes of the Italian language, and the way language is used to communicate effectively. Knowing dead languages like Latin, Old French, and Old Provençal, as well as many dialects and languages “on the side,” is a great pleasure and passion.

In the same way I switch from one language and culture to another, I switch from one habit to another.

During my studies in Italian and French literature and linguistics, I dove deeply into these cultures and languages, explored 5

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Literature and linguistics—the way we use language and the way language changes over time—have always been my passion. I perfected my skills, graduating with a PhD in medieval French literature and pursuing extensive research in Italian medieval literature.

Colleagues in academia didn’t understand how I could be interested in collaborating in very interdisciplinary projects, like the works of Italian minor poets of the fourteenth century on one hand, and linguistics (namely lexicography—the study of dialects and minority languages), on the other. I assume the main issue was that they didn’t see the deeper connection of these disciplines! Once again, I was considered ne carne ne pesce, i.e., “neither meat nor fish,” whereas I was bridging the connection between literature and linguistics as a philologist.

After spending four years in Italy for my research on an Italian minor poet in Florence, returning to Switzerland was not an option. I intended to continue my path in academia, but it was “the wrong moment.” Bad timing. There was no job available, and as my husband and I needed to maintain our little family of three, we decided to accept my husband’s job offer in the Netherlands.

I changed from being the sole bread winner to being a housewife within 48 hours.

“Language and culture are the frameworks through which humans experience, communicate, and understand reality.�

- Lev Vygotsky

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This switch not being planned, and the academic landscape in the Netherlands turning out to be different from what I expected and needed at that time, I struggled to find affiliation. I spent years grieving a career I had been looking forward to. Es hat nicht sollen sein… (“It was not meant to be…”)

As much as I enjoyed spending more time with my son and my twin daughters, who were born a year after our arrival, I am not someone that likes to depend on her partner. Like many other accompanying partners, I had to make sense of what was happening and try to make the best of it.

So, I kept on writing—scientific articles first, then posts for my blog. Studying and writing are my basic needs. They keep me sane.

“Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere.”

- Jean Rhys I trained as a coach; perfected my English and Dutch; worked at a Dutch project; studied about raising children abroad, third culture kids, resilience, and interculturalism; and volunteered up to 20 hours per week at my children’s school.

When I was finally ready to steer my boat in a new direction, I re-assessed my skills and adjusted them to the new context. My degrees and specializations, the skills and languages I had acquired and learned along the way, were like pieces of a puzzle I was about to complete.

It was mostly through observing and listening to other international families that I found my vocation. Their struggle with accepting the local culture and language, the difficulty

of understanding the “other”, and that what each culture considers “common sense” is not universal, led me to design talks and trainings that aimed at making cultures and languages more accessible, and finding strategies to communicate effectively in international settings. This was my why.

When I saw some of those families struggling to maintain their home languages whilst their children were schooled in another, I knew I could help. My knowledge about language acquisition, language learning, language shift, and language loss during my studies and with my students, as well as my ability to translate research and make it accessible to everyone, led me to develop another training about raising children with multiple languages successfully. I offered it to parents’ groups and schools and held talks and workshops.

Cultures can collide, but they are all connected at a deeper level. The same applies to languages.

Cultures and languages are deeply intertwined and I found a way to link them in my services as an intercultural language consultant.

Ute Limacher-Riebold, PhD, is an expert in intercultural communication and is a language consultant for multilingual families. At Ute’s International Lounge she helps international families adapt to other cultures and languages while maintaining their own, and become effective communicators in international settings. She offers all her services in English, Italian, German, French, and Dutch. Ute has lived abroad since birth in Italy, Switzerland, and France, and she currently lives in the Netherlands with her husband and three children.

Website: http://www.utesinternationallounge.com Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/utelimacherriebold Blog: https://www.expatsincebirth.com

I found in multilingualism and intercultural communication my ikigai, my reason for being, my vocation. Once again, it is at the intersection of my interests and skills that I find my place: I’m not only a philologist, I’m also an interculturalist; not only a consultant, but also a trainer; I thrive not only in the German and Italian languages and cultures, but also in the French, Dutch, SwissGerman, and all those I explore thanks to my friends and clients.

At Ute’s International Lounge I support multilingual families, helping them maintain their languages and cultures whilst learning and integrating new ones into their life, and I help internationals communicate effectively within their family and the societies in which they live.

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Interviewing: How to Tell Your Story

By Amanda Bates

Be Concise.

pplying for employment is quite frankly hard work. You’re trying to parse out the job description and figure out how to make your qualifications relevant to the employer. But when you’ve had a life filled with constant change, it can be even harder to know how to do this.

The more moves, the more complicated the story.

Trying to distill what key pieces to share in the job hunt can be overwhelming. Especially if you are applying for a job that, at least on paper, doesn’t seem to have a particularly international bent.

Some of us have really convoluted stories, like the ones that start with, “Well, I was here from this time to this time. Only because I originally was over here, but then this happened and I had to leave to go there before I got here.” Although interesting, your story may leave the listener with a glazed look, because you lost them halfway through the plot.

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However, as you look for opportunities you have to remember you have one goal—to deliver a cohesive professional story. Your focus is to highlight what parts of your vibrant story make you a great candidate for the job ahead. Allow me to offer some guidance on how to make your story relevant.

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Even with a fascinating story, your main purpose in the job search is to share how your experiences relate to the position you are applying for. You are not just telling any story, either. You are telling a cohesive, professional narrative. Growing up internationally may be an integral part of your story, but it’s not the only part.

You need to determine what is relevant to the employer and then share it in an efficient

“Even with a fascinating story, your main purpose in the job search is to share how your experiences relate to the position you are applying for.”

manner. Whether it’s on a resume or CV or in an interview, you have precious little time to get your point across. Your resume might be read in under 30 seconds. Your interview with key decision-makers may be between 30 to 45 minutes. You need to zone in on what’s going to get you to the next step. An employer may ask for information to fill in the blanks as you share your story, but don’t get so caught up in it that you forget the mission.

Bring the Context.

In many ways, the job hunt process is like dating.

It’s cool you want to talk about you. That’s awesome. But at some point you need to be able to find the commonalities with the other person, if the relationship is going to go anywhere. The relationship needs to have a shared mission.

Same thing with employers.

It is often hard for those who haven’t had your experiences to understand the value of those experiences. When you talk about life in rural Ethiopia, you might as well say you’ve lived on another planet to an employer who has been in the same location their whole life. Take the most relevant part of your nomadic life and make it relatable to the receiver. This means understanding what it is they are looking for and utilizing examples from your life to connect the professional dots. Now your proverbial dots may lead to Addis Ababa, but if you can relate the experiences to Lincoln, Nebraska, you might be onto something. Identifying your experiences and correlating them to the listener’s cultural context can help them to better understand how you can work in that job role. Even better, if you can show your experience is a solution to a job-specific issue, that will make it more obvious to the employer you could be a good fit.

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Champion Your Skill Set. Everyone has various skill sets and abilities.

Some are naturally given, while others are learned. You have built and strengthened your personal inventory of skills as a result of your cross-cultural life. And while this may not seem special to you, it may be desirable to an employer.

As an ATCK (adult third culture kid), you need to think deeply about what aspects of your thirdculture-kidness make you a standout.

lasting impacts of the recent Covid-19 pandemic will be the heightened need for employees who can flex quickly in dynamic work environments.

Can you speak multiple languages? Make that known. You may help a company reach a new subset of customers. Your diverse blend of skills should be at the center of your story.

By telling a concise but relevant story, you help an employer understand your potential in the context of the professional position. While you may have to leave some of your TCK story out, you will strengthen the chance to tell more of your varied background‌when you are hired for the position.

Make a list of what you have learned and developed while crossing borders and add those to your list of qualifications.

Leverage what you know. For example, did your childhood give you insider knowledge about particular communities and cultures?

That insight might help inform the decisions a marketing company might make in their next branding campaign. Did you develop the ability to be adaptable? Highlight that; one of the

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As a third culture kid, Amanda Bates’ interest in navigating cross-cultural spaces and identity started young. Her American-born, African-raised perspective continues to influence her as she leads the creative direction of The Black Expat . A trained counselor by profession, Amanda also manages Bates Consulting, a career consulting practice that helps clients build the careers they love.

"Take the most relevant part of your nomadic life and make it relatable to the receiver."

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Monachopsi

(or, How I Stopped Worrying about Being a P and Learned to Love My Loc

By Rachel H

Rachel E. Hicks was born in the foothills of the Himalayas and spent the bookends of her childhood in India, with moves to Pakistan, Jordan, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Hong Kong in between. As an adult she’s lived in Arizona, China, and Maryland.

Rachel is the editor of Among Worlds.

Website: rachelehicks.com

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is

Poser cale)

Hicks

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wo points for you if you just pegged me as a Gen-Xer by my use of the word poser.

Two more points if you know what midtwentieth-century satirical American movie I just referenced in the subtitle.

Now let’s tackle monachopsis since you’re wondering what the heck that is. Actually, it’s not a “real” word. It’s a poser word. It’s not listed in The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, but you will find it in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. Monachopsis (pronounced “mo-na-kopsis”) is a noun, and it is defined as “the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place, as maladapted to your surroundings as a seal on a beach—lumbering, clumsy, easily distracted, huddled in the company of other misfits, unable to recognize the ambient roar of your intended habitat, in which you’d be fluidly, brilliantly, effortlessly at home.”

Ahh, you’re saying now, I see where she’s going with this…

I honestly don’t remember where I first came across this word, but it was recently. I jotted it down in my notebook where I keep a bunch of my writing ideas. Whoever first came up with it joined the Greek monos (solitary or alone) with opsis (appearance or semblance). As I pondered the word, I asked myself, Are TCKs—especially those of us who have moved a lot—doomed to perpetual monachopsis? In other words, do we ever stop feeling like posers?

That question prompted several others, which we’ll explore together here. The first is this:

How do we know when we’re “invested” enough in a locale (city, town, community) to work on its behalf?

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In late 2013 my husband, kids, and I moved to Baltimore, Maryland (US), after seven years in southwestern China. We felt called (vocare—"to call”; root of “vocation”) to live, work, and worship in the city. Baltimore is a majority African American city, and as a white family we are minorities in our neighborhood.

Our multi-ethnic church is focused on serving its neighborhood and engaging in urban and justice issues. My husband Jim works for the city government in community development. Even though this is our context, it’s necessarily taken a long time to begin to feel like I have a “right” to come alongside others who have been here much longer and are heavily invested in the city, to serve, work, or advocate.

Moving here has meant we have had to take the posture of learners, as we did when moving internationally. As we try to live consistently within our calling to be good neighbors and bridge builders, it’s been humbling to realize how ignorant we’ve been about something as fundamental as race relations in our “home” or “passport” country. As a TCK I’m used to the oddity of not being local, of feeling like an outsider, of not having a recognized stake in that locale. I’m used to not being as familiar as an insider with a city’s history, issues, and community stakeholders. But while it can be tempting to use that as an excuse not to “get my hands dirty” in local issues, being a good neighbor means that I must put in the time and energy to get to know those around me.

The more I learned about the history of racism in this country and in Baltimore in particular, including how it literally shaped this city (for an eye-opening look at this, watch Dr. Andy DeVos’s presentation, “Understanding Racial Disparities in Baltimore: A Framework for Empathy”), the more I wanted to share with others like me who were ignorant about these realities.

Just before we moved into our new home, Michael Brown, an unarmed black man, was shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, and people all over the US took to the streets

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in protest. Every morning as I walked around the lake near our new house, I passed people who were talking about it, their voices filled with pain, anger, and fatigue at yet another incident like this. The pain was palpable. It was everywhere around me.

As the only white family on our block, I longed to show that we were grieving with our neighbors. One morning I decided to make a “Black Lives Matter” sign and put it on the windshield of our car parked on the street in front of the house. It felt like such a small, token gesture, but I felt I had to do something to let our neighbors know that we cared.

Later, as I sat at my dining room table eating lunch, I noticed through the window that our neighbor from across the street, Kevin, paused by his truck to look at our car. He then hobbled over (he’d broken his leg and was using crutches), read the sign, hesitated, and began to walk away. Suddenly, he turned, came back and took the sign, folded it up, got into his truck and drove away.

I was flummoxed and anxious. What was that about? Was he angry? Did it offend him—did

he think we were “virtue signaling”? Maybe he didn’t even want us there, especially at this sensitive moment in time. All sorts of thoughts ran through my head. I was worrying that I had read everything wrong and overstepped my bounds.

My monachopsis was in full-throttle mode. You’re jumping in on the BLM movement late in the game, aren’t you? You didn’t even grow up in this country!

Who do you think you are?

Jim and I talked about it later when he came home. We’d talked with Kevin and his wife Kelly on several occasions and had met their sweet little daughters. They had seemed friendly and happy to have us as neighbors. But maybe Brown’s killing and the hurt and furor it had exposed and ignited were too much and Kevin had wanted to send us a signal that our presence and sympathy were not welcome.

and more committed to push past monachopsis whenever it reared its head.

Can we learn to live with the ebb and flow of monachopsis? Can we make our peace with it?

When we hear that accusing voice saying, “You don’t belong here. Stop pretending this community is your community,” what do we do?

For many adult TCKs, whether engaged in career work or volunteerism, I believe we probably won’t ever be entirely free of feeling like we don’t belong. We may have good long stretches when we’re active and engaged, working with others, and enjoying the comradery—but then out of nowhere we feel that sense of inner exile. We look around us and think that everyone else is “local” and has more ownership, more of a stake in what we’re doing together. Poser, we hear in our heads (or whatever the boomer, millennial, or Gen Z equivalent is).

“It’s taken a long time to come alongside others who have been here much longer and are heavily invested in the city.”

When we experience that self-doubt, we might end up “hanging back” and resisting investment in a place, people, or community. Do you ever do this (intentionally or not)? Do you wait for someone to give you permission or license to jump in and work or serve?

We decided to just let it go and not say anything.

However, a few days later, Jim happened to engage in conversation with Kevin, who seemed as friendly as before. As they were parting, Kevin said, “Oh, hey, a few days ago, someone stuck a Black Lives Matter sign on your car. I don’t know who did it, but I took it off. Just wanted you to know that around here, we’re not like that, man.

We’re all neighbors here.”

When new to a locale, it is both prudent and honoring to your host community to enter

Jim was stunned. Kevin had thought someone put that sign on our car to intimidate us or make us feel unwelcome. He had removed it to spare us pain. Jim didn’t know what to say—he didn’t want to sound ungrateful by telling him the truth, that I had put it there—so he just thanked him warmly and left it at that.* I went to bed that night heart-warmed, grateful for our kind neighbors,

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“ You’re going to have to ignore the itchy-feet feeling the word ‘invested’ gives you, tell your monachopsis to shut up, and get busy alongside others.”

When new to a locale, it is both prudent and honoring to your host community to enter humbly and with a learner’s attitude. Following the lead of and learning from local leaders, community members, and those who have been on the job or project far longer than you is wise and necessary for relationship building.

But at some point, you are going to have to decide that this place, this people, is “home enough” for you to live there as an invested member of the community. You’re going to have to ignore the itchy-feet feeling the word “invested” gives you, tell your monachopsis to shut up, and get busy alongside others.

Speaking of itchy feet, my family hit the sevenyear mark of living in Baltimore in November of this year. We spent the first seven years of our married life in Phoenix, Arizona, followed by seven years in southwestern China. But guess what? I’m actually pretty content here right now.

The stability has been good for me, good for my kids, good for all of us. My kids tell me they’re grateful we live in Baltimore—they’re grateful to have a close-up experience with issues of race, to experience life as a minority in the United States, and to know our beautiful friends and neighbors who have become in some ways like family.

Being somewhere long enough to build relationships, a bit of a history, and a strong sense of community is pretty amazing. Yes, I still experience monachopsis—I know it will continue to come and go. There are still times I daydream about where else we might live internationally, where else we might be called in the future. Am I “fluidly, brilliantly, effortlessly at home” here? No, but I’m learning—and maybe during this crazy year we’re all learning—that I can be sure I am called to this moment, to what and who may be before me today.

Speaking of calling, I’ll end with a scripture verse that Jim and I feel is the heart of our vocation, no matter where we find ourselves: “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.” (Jeremiah 29:7) When I asked their permission to use this anecdote, Kevin and Kelly were amused to learn who really put the BLM sign on our car. *

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What’s Next?

By Michael V. Pollock

Executive Director of Interaction International 7

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rowing up in a milieu of ongoing change, adult TCKs can be haunted by this question. Sometimes we feel driven to keep changing things up because we simply have no life models for staying put or because we are addicted to the rush of new experiences.

At the same time, our globalized world has moved into faster cycles of change: jobs and careers flip more quickly and more often than even ten years ago. And some people are just built for adventure, seeming to thrive on changing life-scapes.

There is not just one right way to think about a life of job and careers, but there are some questions to ask that help us consider our options and our motivations. Making space in life to reflect and then move ahead intentionally can make a significant difference in our outcomes.

In my 10 years as a life and transitions coach and 30 years working with TCKs, I am a witness to how powerful questions help uncover and clarify next steps.

When confronted with restlessness or an opportunity for change, we might ask ourselves some key questions to bring more clarity.

“ There is not just one right way to think about a life of job and careers, but there are some questions to ask that help us consider our options and our motivations.”

1. Can I stay and am I willing to stay?

If we feel we cannot stay put because we are “just restless,” it is important to drill down to the why. We might need some help digging deeper if there is pain involved or if it just feels like we are hard-wired that way. It is possible we are running from something. This might require help from someone who is trained to walk through a life excavation process with us to uncover and help us to deal with the root issues.

2. Can I leave and am I willing to go?

If we are able to make a change but not willing, it can be revealing to ask ourselves why not? It might be that we have a basket of reasons that are all good, such as relational roots, satisfying work, and life-giving options like access to mountain hikes or great international cuisine.

But it might also be fear—of the unknown, of the risks, and ultimately, of growth. It is possible to become comfortable in our discomfort and at home with our sense of not belonging.

3. What might I gain and lose in making this decision? Am I willing to count those costs?

Doing a personal cost analysis can be eye opening and might go hand in glove with a risk analysis. Some of us carry a gut sense of foreboding until we can identify the source, put it out on the table (figuratively speaking), and consider it objectively.

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4. Which of my values am I living out by pursuing my various options?

Considering our own values in life, such as deep relationships or opportunity to make loads of cash, may easily be overlooked in the logistical questions of a job or career decision. List the values honored in a column under each option and clarity may come in a snap.

Whatever our process, it helps to know ourselves well: what we are passionate about and where we are burdened for the world. It matters to look outward and understand what the world needs and what we are good at that we can offer. And it helps to know what we can get paid to do. Simply put, the world is in a great state of flux and we still need to eat.

The point is to be intentional along the way. In the immortal words of rocker Bob Seger, “The years rolled slowly past And I found myself alone Surrounded by strangers I thought were my friends I found myself further and further from my home, And I guess I lost my way There were oh-so-many roads I was living to run and running to live Never worried about paying Or even how much I owed…” (“Against the Wind”)

We need to take the time to know ourselves, our context, our motivations, and our options.

We can’t lose our way. With intentionality, we can choose to run toward goals that will integrate our lives even if we remain rooted in place geographically.

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“With intentionality, we can choose to run toward goals that will integrate our lives even if we remain rooted in place geographically.�

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“Because we spent our childhoods fitting into new places, new schools, and new systems, we’re used to having to assimilate information quickly.

It was part of our armour as children and it’s now a great weapon in our adult arsenal.”

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Finding Your Niche

Understanding Career Choices for TCKs

By Jen Mohindra

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s a TCK coach, I work with adult TCKs to help them leverage their TCK experience so they can find their place in the world.

That place is sometimes a physical location, sometimes a career path (or paths), and sometimes simply a feeling of being settled.

TCKs often come to me for coaching because they find themselves feeling stuck in their career. They may move through an organisation to a particular level and then find themselves at a point where their work has become lacking in challenge and they’re bored. Worse, they feel a sense of dread that this might be a place they get stuck, that they may end up here forever. To a TCK that’s just the worst thing, isn’t it?

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Being a TCK is a superpower.

We TCKs Like Change TCKs are particularly good at change. There are several other skills we TCKs take for granted—we don’t realise that they are unusual skills. To us, it’s just who we are and what we do, so we don’t think of them as anything special.

The skills I’m referring to include: • our intercultural awareness • our ability to fit into an organisational culture ---quickly and seamlessly • our ability to pick up new skills with ---astonishing speed • our ability to get along with everyone • the fact that we automatically look at things ---from several perspectives Let’s look at these one at a time.

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Intercultural Awareness

Being interculturally aware is an unusual skill and one which TCKs have in common. In addition to our intercultural awareness is an innate ability to pick up signs of discomfort in others when cultural boundaries are being crossed.

Examples of the kinds of things we either know or quickly pick up on include: • Eye contact (acceptable or confrontational?)

• Being direct (state your case directly or spend ---time ‘softening up’?)

• Finger pointing (perfectly acceptable in the ---West, a no-no in the East) • Allowing the other person to save face (very ---important to some cultures) • Understanding how negotiation works in ---different parts of the world

Fitting In

The new employee who just fits into a team is a rare thing, yet it’s something we TCKs do automatically. We are used to being the new kid on the block, so we are very competent at fitting in. It may be that inside ourselves we take longer to feel settled, but from the point of view of our team, we are round pegs in round holes.

Skill Acquisition

Because we spent our childhoods fitting into new places, new schools, and new systems, we’re used to having to assimilate information quickly. It was part of our armour as children and it’s now a great weapon in our adult arsenal.

Getting Along with Everyone

TCKs get along with everyone, on the surface at least. As we spent a good deal of our youth moving around, we had to get good at building relationships quickly. It may be that these relationships don’t last very long (which is a whole other article), but they are strong enough to oil the wheels of our working lives.

As an aside, TCKs often find it easier to get along with those from other cultures than the one we live in. Monocultural people (those who have lived in one culture their whole lives) don’t really understand us in the way that those who move around do. For example, monocultural people simply don’t understand the massive number of brain calories we use when we’re asked the perennial question Where are you from? Our instant scanning of both the audience and the mental catalogue of pre-prepared answers can be exhausting, and monocultural people don’t understand that.

Looking at Things from Different Perspectives When you grow up in several different cultures it stands to reason you have several different perspectives of the world. We TCKs have an automatic response to situations that involves us examining them from multiple perspectives.

We do it quickly and often without consciously thinking about what we’re doing. It leads to a very tolerant approach to things and it’s unusual. Employers like it.

Many TCKs tell me they have been complimented at work on how quickly they learn new processes and procedures. For them, they just get on with what they need to do, but to their employer they’re amazing!

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Real-Life Conversations

I was talking to a TCK client the other day about her career. She hadn’t really considered that she has a lot of TCK positives she brings to the table as an employee or as a potential employee.

What she did know however was that—like all of us—she likes change. She certainly didn’t want to spend the rest of her life in the same company, even if she did have the opportunity for promotion.

She was worried that employers might think she was flighty or couldn’t stick to one job for any length of time. We had a coaching conversation and she came to the realisation that four years might be the perfect amount of time for her to spend in a role/organisation before moving on.

Four years was, she felt, enough to establish credibility without being long enough for cobwebs to set in.

One thing to consider when worrying about whether or not you might appear flighty is the fact that the jobs for life our parents and grandparents thought of as normal are no longer the norm. It is no longer unusual for people to have several career changes in their working lives; and so rather than being considered flaky, career changes can actually be seen as an ability to adapt and be flexible.

What Are the Best TCK Careers?

What do TCKs want to look for in a career? In my experience careers that seem to be attractive to TCKs are ones that offer one or more of the following as part of the package: • Opportunities for travel within a position ---(preferably international travel) • Chances to work with people from different ---countries on a daily basis • Chances to use second (or third or fourth) ---languages

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I’ve recorded a podcast for my show People Like Us in which I interview TCKs. This week’s guest was a teacher who became certified in one country and then hit the international school circuit. A perfect career fit for a TCK. My first job in the finance sector was at ABN Amro, the Dutch bank. I spent my days monitoring data submissions from 60 countries.

I loved it!

I got to speak to people from all over the world all day every day. Some of them could speak English; some of them couldn’t at all and then I’d use my French, if possible, and it was fun.

I organised meetings across many different time zones, something many monocultural people find mindboggling, but those of us who are used to calculating when we can chat to our friends in other countries think nothing of it. Virtual travel can be just as enjoyable as actual travel.

“ What she did know however was that— like all of us—she likes change. She certainly didn’t want to spend the rest of her life in the same company.”

Industries to Consider There are several industries in which TCKs find a natural home. Below is a list, which is by no means exhaustive.

• Finance • Hospitality • Education • Medicine (or healthcare) • Sales (particularly for global companies) • Travel (pandemics not withstanding) • Media • Diplomatic Corp • Journalism • Anthropology Of course, within each of these industries there are many different roles and career paths which may be open to you.

Your Superpower Being a TCK is a superpower. However, as we all know, being a TCK is not without its challenges.

As TCKs it is easy for us to become bogged down in the problems our nomadic childhoods have left us with and to forget the incredible skills we have—skills that employers love.

Jen Mohindra is a TCK who grew up between the UK, Australia and Kenya. After a career that included hospitality and banking, and another move from Sydney to London in her 30s, Jen found she was struggling with feelings of restlessness and rootlessness. The work she did with a coach was so profoundly successful in enabling her to settle and find peace that she retrained to become a coach herself. Jen works with adult TCKs, to help them leverage their TCK journey and find their place in the world. https://jenmohindra.com/

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Danau Tanu 29

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Spotlight Interview

“How can we expect TCKs to build connections anywhere if they are not encouraged and taught to build connections in the country where they live?”

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ur December Spotlight interview with Danau Tanu, PhD, coincides with the publication this month of her book, Growing Up in Transit: The Politics of Belonging at an International School. Danau, like many TCKs, didn’t know until young adulthood that there was a “label” for people like her. In this thought-provoking and timely interview, she explains how she first rejected, then accepted, then finally outgrew (to some degree) the term third culture kid as an identifying label for herself. Danau unpacks the ways in which Western culture is most often normative in international schools and how that tends to marginalize non-Western students’ experiences, even though they, too, are TCKs. Her insights here, as well as those in her book, are particularly helpful today as we have more honest conversations about how race, language, and culture play out in norms and power structures within international schools and communities.

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"A TCK is an individual who, having spent a significant part of the developmental years in a culture other than the parents’ cultures, does not have full ownership of any culture. Elements from each culture are incorporated into the life experience, but the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar experience."

- David C. Pollock

Tell us a bit about your experience as a TCK. Danau Tanu 31

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I was born in Canada to an Indonesian father (of Chinese descent) and a Japanese mother. My sister and I grew up speaking four languages. We moved to Indonesia when I was around three, where I attended an international school for most of my life. But I also went to an Indonesian kindergarten for a year and a Japanese primary public school for 5th/6th grade (that was a difficult year), and an international school in Singapore for my last year of high school. The TCK literature often talks about repatriation, but I wouldn’t know which country would count as repatriation for me since my passport (Canadian), ethnicity (Chinese and Japanese), and parents’ passports (Indonesian and Japanese) don’t match up. I’ve also never moved due to my parents’ work because they were more like serial migrants who, to this day, can’t seem to stop moving.

While I did some moving when I was younger, the longest string of moves was starting from age 16 when I moved around 12 times in 11 years between six countries for varying reasons.

I was emotionally exhausted by the end of it.

I’ve since tried to stay put in one place with mediocre success. It took me a while to realize that I hate moving!

One of the experiences that had the biggest impact on my life as a TCK has been attending an English-medium international school while being from a non-English-speaking family. I was living in my father’s country (Indonesia), but I felt like an immigrant kid living in a Western country when I was at school. For the life of me I couldn’t understand why everyone else’s mom knew how to bake brownies while mine didn’t, or where my classmates bought their Cabbage Patch dolls and those Nerds candies. We only had one department store in Indonesia in the early eighties and I had never seen any of that stuff there. Back then it wasn’t like you could Google it online to find out, right? So, I’d often feel out

Spotlight Interview of place because I didn’t understand the cultural references at school even though I was with other TCKs.

“I’d often feel out of place because I didn’t understand the cultural references at school even though I was with other TCKs.” grow up with this peculiar feeling that the nonEnglish-speaking part of you is somehow inferior.

At age six or seven you instinctively know how to “code-switch,” or switch languages depending on who you are talking to. You know that you have to speak English at school and that you have to speak Japanese to your mom and Indonesian to your neighborhood friends. But you don’t fully understand why. You don’t understand why the American teachers and American classmates at school seem to “get” each other while you don’t, even though you speak English like they do. As a kid you don’t understand that there’s this thing called “culture” and “cultural difference” even among people who speak the same language.

So, you end up thinking there’s something wrong with you.

So when I started reading about TCKs, I already knew that it wasn’t just international moves that affect a child’s identity. I knew that education and the school environment have a profound role in shaping a child’s identity and how they feel about it. This is why I ended up researching international schools.

Also, I learnt what a penny was before learning about the rupiah because Indonesia, the country in which all of us at school were living, didn’t exist in our textbooks. And back then nobody in the storybooks that we read had black hair like me.

It’s as though people like me didn’t exist or were just not important enough to mention. And you

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Talk about when you discovered that you were a TCK—when did you apply that label to yourself?

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Spotlight Interview The first time I heard the term “third culture kid” was around 2007. I was already in my early 30s and I was catching up with an old friend from one of the international schools I had attended.

She casually said to me, “Do you know that we’re called third culture kids?” I was like, “Huh?” I think she explained that the term describes “people like us” who feel in between cultures or something like that. At the time, the thought of having a label struck me as weird. And I don’t think I was convinced that anyone could possibly understand what it felt like to have such a complicated background like mine. So I left it at that and didn’t think much about it for about a year, until I decided to apply for graduate school.

I knew I wanted to do my doctoral dissertation on identity and education, and that’s when I remembered about that curious term my friend had mentioned. I started researching it and found out about David Pollock and Ruth Van Reken’s book, Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds (now in its third edition, which Michael Pollock contributed to and revised), and went to my university bookstore to look for it. The thing is, I was living in Australia—in Perth, which is one of the most isolated developed cities in the world, and not a very big one at that. I was 100 percent sure that my tiny university bookstore (this was before online bookstores took over physical stores) would not have a book about international mobility and the mixed identities of some obscure group with a funny name. But I walked down to the store to check anyway, you know, just to be sure. And guess what? I found one brand new copy of the book on their shelf. I was so stunned that I still remember which part of the store and which shelf it was on. I might not have paid attention to the “third culture kid” concept when drafting my research proposal had it not been so easy to find the book.

So, I read the book. The current, third edition is much more diverse, but the one I read was the first edition. There was a lot in the book I could relate to, such as restlessness, rootlessness, and so on. But I couldn’t shake off the feeling that it was written more about the white expat kids I had gone to school with than about me. I did an internet search of the term and only a handful of websites that mentioned it came up back then. One of them was TCKid.com, founded by Brice Royer. I was still not personally sold on the concept, but I signed up for their mailing list and blog access anyway, thinking it was “for the sake of research.”

Immediately I received an automated response with a PDF attachment. It was a short article Ruth Van Reken had written on “TCK Relationships and Grief.” I read it, and that’s when it hit me. I cried as all the unresolved grief washed away. I cried so much that my neighbor came to check on me to see if I was okay!

Ruth’s work was a godsend. It’s hard to explain but I think it spoke to the sense of alienation I had been carrying around for a long time. But it’s gone now, and that’s when I began to use the term.

I don’t go around saying “I’m a TCK” anymore.

I think as you get older you learn to connect with others in many other ways and not just as a TCK. But I still use the term as a shorthand for the third culture experience when talking to others, because I think it’s helpful for those who haven’t yet processed their mobile or culturally-mixed upbringing.

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What do you think about the term TCK? Is it sufficient to describe and include all those who grew up in a different culture or country than that of their parent(s)?

That’s a good question, but difficult to answer in a few paragraphs. Many people who the book refers to as “CCKs” or “cross-cultural kids” are already using the TCK label to describe themselves because they can relate to the “third culture” experience of cultural mixing. In that sense, I think the third edition of the book has really helped to incorporate a more diverse perspective of the third culture experience.

Others feel as though the focus on international mobility makes the term seem like an exclusive club and, therefore, they avoid it. Then there are those who argue that the term should focus exclusively on international mobility. And these debates can sometimes get emotionally charged when someone feels as though any reinterpretation of the term infringes on their sense of identity.

As researchers, however, we need to be able to separate our personal identification with the term—or the way it is used as an identity label—from its conceptual usefulness. As I see it, there are two separate factors that shape the traditional TCK (expat kid, missionary kid, etc.): being culturally mixed (third cultured) and the experience of (international) mobility. But there are many who feel culturally mixed without having moved while growing up, such as children of minorities, mixed marriages, immigrants, and deaf adults, to name a few. So, to say that only children who experience international mobility are third cultured does not make sense. In fact, John Useem and Ruth Hill Useem originally used

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the term “third culture” in a much more flexible way in the 1960s, which I talk about elsewhere.

By their definition, the third culture wasn’t just about international mobility.

Can you share about the key themes and discoveries of your research into TCKs? What does today’s TCK community need to know?

I wanted to bring a more diverse perspective to the TCK conversation. Discussions about TCKs often sound as though we live in a utopian world where social, economic, and racial hierarchies don’t exist. And so we don’t talk about it or we act as though it doesn’t affect TCKs. In reality, the experience of a TCK from a developing country who has to spend two weeks applying for visas every time they want to travel as a tourist (and needs a pile of bank statements and sponsorship letters to prove they are not going to become an illegal immigrant to get the visa) is very different from someone traveling on an American passport. Once a Ghanaian

Spotlight Interview TCK repatriates, they may never be able to earn enough on a Ghanaian salary to ever leave the country again.

The majority of research on TCKs tends to gloss over issues of language, race, and so on and presents the international schools many TCKs attend as neutral international spaces.

But they’re not. The experience of an African or African American TCK at an international school where she’s the only black person among 300 students and staff is different from a white kid who has plenty of adult white role models at school among the teachers, other staff, and all the historical figures in their textbooks and main characters in the novels.

Or for international school students who are not from English-speaking backgrounds, especially those whose families have not lived in the West, it is like being a child of an immigrant in a Western country. They have to integrate into the dominant school culture without having their home culture (and identity) affirmed apart from pictures of flags hanging on the classroom walls. And at home you might have to translate the letter your school sent to your parents because they don’t understand English; or you might behave differently at home than you do at school. It’s like you are Western by day and Asian by night.

“ The majority of research on TCKs tends to gloss over issues of language, race, and so on and presents the international schools many TCKs attend as neutral international spaces. But they’re not.”

You’ve talked with many TCKs. Can you share a story you’ve heard that really stuck with you, that perhaps gave you a new or deeper insight into TCKs? There was a white American TCK—let’s call him “Tom”—who was a “stayer” at his international school in Indonesia. Tom had been at the same school since kindergarten. I met him when he was in his junior year (11th grade). Tom’s friend introduced him to me as the guy who had recently started taking private lessons to improve his Indonesian. I was a bit puzzled about why Tom wanted to learn the language so late in the game. Tom explained that he realized he would soon be repatriating to the US for college and had very little to show for the years he had spent in Indonesia, which made up most of his life.

Living in another country for many years and not learning the local language is quite common for both TCKs and expats. Local language classes are often treated as unimportant by international schools so students don’t take it seriously. There is this unspoken perception that having a taste of local culture, which usually means food and dances, makes you “international,” but becoming too familiar with the local culture (such as becoming fluent in the local language) makes you too local and not international enough. (In her upcoming book, The Global Imaginary of International Schools, Dr. Heather Meyer writes that it happens at international schools in Germany, too.) This was not surprising to me, but what struck me was that Tom thought this was problematic and tried to change it. If we want to help TCKs learn how to belong, we need to help them do

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what Tom did—make meaningful connections with the places in which they live.

This type of TCK experience has rarely been talked about because we’ve been too busy congratulating ourselves on how international and open-minded we are. In our celebrations of internationalism, the focus is usually on mobility and crossing borders—airports, jet lag, number of countries lived in, school field trips overseas, etc. It may vary across generations and on the types of schools you attend or why your family moved. But generally, I find we spend very little time talking about building meaningful local connections. At international schools we focus on the new students and new teachers who just moved from another country, as though the “stayers” are somehow less international or not TCK enough. But how can we expect TCKs to build connections anywhere if they are not encouraged and taught to build connections in the country where they live?

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Your background as a TCK seems to have strongly influenced your career path.

Can you share your hopes for how your current work will help other TCKs? Also, what do you imagine your future work will look like?

Reading Ruth Van Reken and David Pollock’s work, as well as other works about identity, such as postcolonial studies, really helped me sort out my own identity confusion. There is something healing about seeing your own story told back to you as you read, after having spent so many years thinking that you are imagining it all. So when I wrote my book, I pictured two audiences in my mind. The first were TCKs from non-white, non-English-speaking backgrounds like myself.

Spotlight Interview

I thought that if they could see themselves in the book, it would help them spend less time struggling with identity issues and get on with their lives. I had one reader write to me saying she found it in her university library and read it in two nights—like, who does that with an academic book unless they can relate to it? Second, I wanted to write for the white, Anglophone educators who shape policies and curriculum in international schools. I know many of them are committed to internationalism and diversity but may be unaware of their blind spots.

I felt that if I could reach them, they could help change their schools so children don’t have to feel like minorities at school or struggle with identity.

As for the future, I’ve tried to move on to other topics since I finished my PhD. But for some reason, I can’t seem to get away from the TCK topic. I want to do more research and write more. I want to use the insights we’ve gained about TCKs to contribute to the bigger-picture discussions about identity and multiculturalism beyond TCK circles, and vice versa.

I think we can learn a lot from studies done on other populations, too.

Danau Tanu, PhD, is a Visiting Research Fellow at Waseda University, Japan, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia. She also authored Growing Up in Transit: The Politics of Belonging at an International School, the first book on structural racism in international schools, which will be released as a paperback in December 2020. Danau is co-chair of the Families in Global Transition (FIGT) Research Network and co-founder of TCKs of Asia and Third Culture Stories podcast.

To receive a 25% discount on Growing Up in Transit in paperback, purchase directly from the publisher and use the coupon code TAN958. www.danautanu.com Twitter: @danautanu IG: @growingupintransit

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“Day 30 came, and I got the doctor set.”

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Finding My Calcutta

By Marilyn R. Gardner

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hen I was four years old my mom gave me a doctor set. She didn’t actually give it to me—rather, I earned it.

We were living in a small city in Pakistan and I was a thumb sucker. My mom was rightly concerned about the germs that were finding their way from the world around me into my body by way of my thumb. She was desperate for me to stop this habit. Finally, she told me that if I could stop sucking my thumb for a month, she would buy me a doctor set.

A real, live, fake, plastic doctor set! My fouryear-old self could not contain the excitement.

But when you’re four years old, a month is an eternity. Resolute, I pushed forward. I would get that doctor set! Each day, I would set about my chores and play and just as I was ready to put that thumb into my mouth, I’d remember and I’d dance away, eyes shining. The reward was going to be so much better than this temporary pain.

The story goes that even at night as my mom peeked in at my dark hair, tousled on the pillow, she would see my thumb right beside my cheek, but it never went in my mouth.

Day 30 came, and I got the doctor set. My mom relays the story to me with a certain look in her

eyes, a look I now know since becoming a mom.

It’s a look of incredulous admiration and wonder.

Even at four years old, I showed a stubbornness that has served me well through the years.

Interestingly, I had no intention of ever using that doctor set to be a pretend doctor. From the beginning, I wanted it so I could be a nurse. I would bandage the wounds of my dolls, take their temperatures, and listen to their hearts with a red plastic stethoscope. My imagination soared as I listened to symptoms, consoled sad and sick dolls, and made them better. It was a wonderful world of excessively bandaged dolls who resembled mummies and stared at me, glassyeyed, with undying devotion.

Perhaps this is why, when asked about my vocation as a public health nurse, I’ve looked at people, paused, and then responded, “I’m not sure if I chose nursing, or if nursing chose me.” All I know is that as I grew out of the play stage of dolls, I wanted the dolls to turn to real people. I wanted to be a nurse. I wanted to sit with people in their illness, walk them through their pain.

The dolls proved to be perfect patients for my growing passion.

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immunizations to children. It was no surprise to anyone when I was accepted into a nursing program in the United States and moved forward in this career that had so clearly chosen me.

Suddenly the place I was located in felt like a mistake, a hindrance to effectively living and working the way I longed to.

It was during that time I made a job change and discovered public health. Gone were the individual patients and the bedside nursing; instead as I moved into public health, I was able to use my clinical skills as well as my creativity in working with communities to develop public health. I learned more about the big picture of At first that worked well. But after birthing five health and why it matters. It allowed me to focus kids on three continents, and working as a nurse on underserved communities that lack resources in the same three, I found myself in the United and public health education. This included States, struggling to make sense of how my cross- immigrant and refugee communities and other cultural background and my love of the nursing communities of color. I began to understand profession fit with my current reality of living in a more about working with people who have the small town in Massachusetts. greatest need and where, with the least amount of money, you can make the biggest impact. As I was miserable. The noble goals of sitting with I learned more about the diverse communities patients and bearing witness to their pain was throughout Massachusetts, I realized I had a amazing while I was living overseas, but in my natural connection with these communities passport country I was lost and confused. based on my cross-cultural background.

One of the reasons I wanted to be a nurse was that I knew one thing well—in my future I would not be living in America. My nursing background would give me the perfect vocation to use in places around the world.

The vocation I had held to for so long, that had served me so well, now felt stifling. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t seem to connect with others in my office or with my patients.

I would make mistakes based on the cultural norms and health systems of the countries I had lived in previously, instead of realizing that the United States was a different place with different rules.

My years spent overseas and the earned fact of both my formative and adult experiences uniquely equipped me to work with these communities. Developing a Muslim Women’s Health Program around breast and cervical health had me entering local mosques and working with Muslim leaders to serve these communities. My past in Pakistan and Egypt, along with the more recent trips I had taken working in humanitarian aid in Turkey, Lebanon, Did my background even matter? It didn’t seem Jordan, and Iraq, had equipped me well for to, and it felt far more like a burden and obstacle navigating this work. I engaged in both formal than a gift. I was restless. I knew that clinical work and deep friendships in the foreign-born nursing was only half the picture of what I Muslim communities around Massachusetts. wanted to be doing. In between tears of longing for what I’d left, I felt waves of discontent.

From there, I steadily found my niche in a space Why did I experience such a strong sense of where I began educating community health disconnect with a profession that had served workers and patient navigators that came from all me well in the past? As long as I was overseas, over the world, finally settling in Massachusetts.

I could see place and my vocation within that I watched as bilingual and multilingual men and place as somehow sacred. It mattered. When women suddenly found they could work as I was in the United States, that all changed. health leaders in their own communities and

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“One of the reasons I wanted to be a nurse was that I knew one thing well—in my future I would not be living in America. My nursing background would give me the perfect vocation to use in places around the world.”

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“My Calcutta was working with others who had left places they loved, places they longed for; it was connecting with communities and being a small part of making these communities healthier.

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affect change. They, like me, struggled to find a place where those skills mattered. They, too, were looking for work that mattered, work that used cross-cultural backgrounds.

Despite this, there were times when I felt deep discontent in the gifts that were so clearly within my grasp. I envied those whose jobs took them overseas regularly, more so those who got to live overseas all the time.

toward my default of restless longing. But the stubbornness of my childhood that had me determined to get that doctor set continues today as I work to find ways through public health to connect with others who are disconnected in their current reality, as I work to live effectively in my Calcutta.

It was during one of my moments of restless discontent that I discovered the book Finding Calcutta: What Mother Teresa Taught me About Meaningful Work and Service. The author, Mary Poplin, writes about the many who wanted to come to work with Mother Teresa when she was alive. They, too, were desperate to find meaningful work. Instead of welcoming all of them, Mother Teresa said this: “Stay where you are. Find your own Calcutta. Find the sick, the suffering, and the lonely right there where you are—in your own homes and in your own families, in your workplaces and in your schools.

You can find Calcutta all over the world, if you have the eyes to see. Everywhere, wherever you go, you find people who are unwanted, unloved, uncared for, just rejected by society—completely forgotten, completely left alone.”

Marilyn R. Gardner is a public health nurse and writer who has lived and worked in four countries and birthed five babies on three continents. She currently lives in Boston, just a 15-minute drive from the international airport. She is the author of Worlds Apart: A Third Culture Kid’s Journey and Between Worlds: Essays on Culture and Belonging available wherever books are sold. You can find her writing at Communicating Across Boundaries and the A Life Overseas Blog.

In the midst of reading that quote, I had the startling realization that I had found my Calcutta. My Calcutta was working with others who had left places they loved, places they longed for; it was connecting with communities and being a small part of making these communities healthier; it was sitting with my Muslim friends and talking about their struggles living out their faith in a foreign context; it was welcoming those who found Massachusetts cold and foreign. My heart was so filled with restless longing and focused on those places far away I couldn’t see that Calcutta was right in front of me.

I still tend toward forgetting and heading

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Who Are You Really?

By Tim Sanford, with Michael Pollock and Darci Nealeigh

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Among Worlds

You arrive at airport security.

“May I see your ID?” You show the agent your passport, right?

“ID” means identification; it proves you are you, not somebody else. But what is your full identity?

What “identifies” you as you?

“I’m a TCK (or fill in the blank)—that’s my identity!”

But is it? I grew up with a third culture kid experience, too. It is our shared experience and it helps mold our identity, but it is not our identity.

human being fits that exact description: you.

This is your raw identity—who you are when you became a human being. This is your nature.

And, like it or not, you do not have any control over your raw identity. God, or nature—call it what you want—dictates this element of your identity. Your hair color and even your citizenship can be changed; however, those changes indicate a movement away from how you began.

Your Developing Identity

Early on in your life, key people and events began chiseling away at your marble block of raw identity. This is how the “you” began taking shape; the nurture side of the nature/ As a licensed psychotherapist with over 30 years nurture balance. This is where your TCK of experience, I realize identity is a critical issue experience developed and molded you deeply for each of us to understand and come to terms and permanently, even neurologically. As with. I have come to see our full identity as others chiseled away at you, they may have having three elements. You need to include all cooperated with the statue inside your block three if you want to be a complete, integrated of marble, or they shaped you into what they person. wanted you to be or thought you “should” be.

The more those people and events cooperated with the natural “grain” of your raw identity, the better foundation you acquired to finalize Your Raw Identity an integrated and complete identity. The more they attempted to force their idea of who Michelangelo said, “Every block of stone has a you “should be” into the marble, the more statue inside it, and it is the task of the sculptor scratches, gouges, and pain you endured. And, to discover, not create, it” (italics mine). Think once again, you had little or no control over of it this way: we each start off as a block of your developing identity. marble, and while your block may have the same dimensions as every other block in the quarry of These two elements are largely ignored in humanity, each block has its own unique color Western, but particularly American culture, “grain.” Your raw identity is what you are when thinking about identity. This is mainly because the you are born: the combination of your biology American mindset believes in having total choice (homo sapiens; sex: male/female; natural eye and control over everything impacting us. That is and hair color), your sociology (location you were a nice illusion, but it is just that, an illusion… a lie. born, ethnicity, specific family, birth order), and We all can get pulled into this illusion. psychology (temperament and aptitudes). When you add up all these specific features, only one

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Your Lived-Out Identity

Finally, we come to the element you do have choice and at least a good degree of control over; how you choose to live out the identity called “you.” Who you connect with and how you choose to present yourself to others is yours to choose. From a mental health and integrity standpoint, it is critically important your lived-out identity is as consistent and congruent with your raw identity as possible.

This is what is meant by the word integrated: having all the pieces of your being fitting together in the way they were designed to fit.

I am citizen of the United States of America, from the family of Sanford, white, an only child and male (pieces of my raw identity). I am a TCK from Ecuador (and proud of it) and moved 26 times before graduating from high school (developing identity). Whether I like it or not, that is “me.” That is my identity. There is nothing to brag about, but nothing to be ashamed of either. I had zero choice over any of these pieces of my identity. So today I continue to discover the “statue” inside me. I accept how I was born and shaped, and choose to behave as wisely, humbly, and as open-mindedly as I can (lived-out identity). That is the complete me, that is my real identity: Tim Sanford.

during those years? Embrace all these as part of the story of how you developed.

Finally, is your lived-out identity—your choices, your worldview, your everyday living, your selfperception—congruent and consistent with your raw and developing identity? If not, figure out what you are trying to “disown” about yourself and why; otherwise, you will be living with a disjointed sense of self and autonomy.

Discovering your identity is a journey—a quest— to understand who you really are. Be patient with yourself and the process along the way.

Know too, there are skilled people who are willing to walk alongside you as you become the real you. When these three elements are understood and woven together, you are fully “you,” and you will have a sense of inner balance and completeness.

So, the next time somebody asks, “May I see your ID?” think about your full identity as you hand them your information. Hopefully, it will bring a smile to your face.

What’s Your Identity?

If you lived—or are living—the TCK experience, you are so much more than the collection of your experiences.

So, who are you… really? What is your raw identity? Not sure? Write out all the pieces of your raw identity so you know where you began.

It might surprise you. Accept your raw identity as your starting point, like it or not.

Your TCK experience was a huge part of your developing identity, just like it was for me.

What key people or events chiseled away at you

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Among Worlds

Tim Sanford is a TCK from Ecuador. He is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Colorado with extensive training in areas of communication, trauma, attachment theory and application, and experiential therapy. Tim has authored several books and published over 100 articles in the United States and other countries; his works have been translated into 10 different languages.

Questions to Ponder do I start embracing the 1. How difficult or painful parts of my developing identity?

can I assess my lived2. How out identity and identify if I

am actually living out my true beliefs?

do I become more 3. How authentic and truly myself

when it feels scary and maybe even unsafe to do so?

people in my life could 4. What I turn to and ask for guidance in becoming the truest form of myself?

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Among Worlds

Airport Coffee

By Anna Oken

The airport tastes of plastic wrap On artificial sandwiches; it smells Of cheap coffee (and notice: airport coffee Boasts an aftertaste found Nowhere else on Earth.)

It makes the hairs stand stiff on end: the Serious babies, crying men, The very old on motorized Carts, being shipped very slowly, cleaving crowds Apart; the floor here is eternally Sticky, the bathrooms doomed always To run out of soap; your shoes cursed to walk Crushed at the back of heel, from hurriedly jamming them Back on your toes; the wheels of your bag, cursed to Squeak; you run ruled by numbers on Enormous screens, condemned for always to Minute lettering.

Yet here only You sleep easy.

The seats here are utterly Cast off by God, being the Hardest things that can Hold sleep so long; the kids here Run faster than any alive, the parents sweat more Than good Joan as she died; no carpets are more Definitively cursed, to be cleaned so often yet Hold so much dirt; no air is as stale, nor Filled with as much breath; nowhere do your Legs beg so frankly for death; In no other place can you listen so hard, yet Find your ears completely deaf; and fight Bravely for window seats, as Prometheus Fighting for men.

Yet here only You find good rest.

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Nowhere, as the port, is such a

Battle-ground, where all bonds of love Face their test before crowds: matrimony Strained as in no other world, and the friendship Of siblings, forever unfurled, by one great Betrayal, a scandalous cheat, as Betsy cries out: Tom took my window seat!

And all hearts nearby share a Collective beat, as young hearts boil over in Treacherous heat, and Tom rallies near All the gumption of God, as he cries out, in Socratic defense: Did not!

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The food in this special world surely costs more Than all noted depressions, and every world war; either Pay your next rent, or buy that stale croissant: you stand There for ten minutes, then the thing is bought.

No place has been so surely doomed, for nowhere else Is so much lost; your bag, your kid, your favorite sock Float somewhere in this flying dock, this landmark Kin to Plymouth Rock, where mostly tourists Disembark, full of strange meals and on Wrong clocks.

Yet here you have Most often walked.

The first time is wondrous! You enter this world As a fetus newly birthed! Upon your entry to this place, your growing-old Neatly reversed! The carpet, so grey! you said, tears in your eyes; and the lines, So artistic! Such long compromise! And the walls, you continued, bursting with surprise, A polychromatic canvas of beiges and whites!

Now, a veteran, you drag your battered bag, And labor to prop up your eyes; noting only that all airports Become the same, their hundredth time.

Yet here you live Most of your life.

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The ground, here, groans under so many New feet; for nothing stays long, not a single thing!

Pardon Me, I see I misspoke, for one thing stays: the tired groan, And two things! Stickiness remains! The eyes, the floor, the shoes, the Face; in morning, night, through time, through space; no one Living can say quite why the place turns all things Sticky grey, except for a newfound theory That it does so to make them stay.

Yet here you’ve been On many days.

Nowhere else in life are the living so close To entering so easily to the realm of ghosts; their faces turn grey, eyes Long in stark light; their legs bend under The weight of carried life; their luggage follows, squeaking Loyally on; they forget the time, place, the night, and the dawn; Truthfully, to be ghosts would be no leap at all; not here, where they float In a befuddled pall, coming from a world that sends them Distant calls, and wandering lost in Innumerable halls.

Yet here only You have belonged.

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The water here does not taste like Any water you’ve been used to; which begs the question, how does water Taste in such an orphaned state? When no one’s drunk it Long enough to become friendly with The taste? The employees here have the patience of God, for even a saint Could not stay here so long; people shaking fingers, My ride is delayed! And saints keeping on An acceptable face.

Yet here only You feel in place.

You find a corner with relative silence, and sink your weight Upon the floor; you slide your bag between your feet, (one Foot now existing sans-sock); you hold Cheap coffee like an arm, the chosen god of Accursed ports: For the grains of the carpet, here, Send vacuum cleaners straight to court; drive bored children Straight out their minds; send stressed mothers To life support. Here the endurance of man Is tested for all worth; And coffee here, my friend, tastes like No other drink on Earth.

Anna Oken grew up traveling constantly as a third culture kid. She lived in several different countries, primarily in Hungary.

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Journey with us!

Among Worlds magazine is accepting submissions for upcoming issues. We are looking for original, high-quality writing, poetry, photography, and visual pieces. We invite you to share your stories and talents with us!

March 2021

Trouble I’ve Seen: Crises, Upheavals, and Disasters Submission deadline: January 30, 2021

June 2021

Code-switching Submission deadline: April 30, 2021 If you or your organization would like to advertise in or sponsor Among Worlds, please contact amongworlds@interactionintl.org.

“ Where your talents and the

needs of the world cross, there lies your vocation.”

- Aristotle