SEPTEMBER 2019
AW AMONG WORLDS
Communication
OUR LANGUAGES AND LEXICONS
FROM THE EDITOR The red-golds of autumn are around the corner. Summer has almost ended, and with it, the permission I give myself to read more, play more, and just be. While I often come to the end of summer with a wistful longing, I also enter September with the anticipation of beginnings and gratitude for a life of seasons. How boring life would be without our life seasons, without change, and without the anticipation of those changes! Among Worlds September theme is Communication: Our Languages and Lexicons. There is much to say about communication. We communicate to exchange ideas, to present information, to express opinions and emotions, to offer advice, and so much more. While that has always been the case, the breadth and depth of communication options in our world make my head spin. From apps like Voxer, WhatsApp, and Instagram to the now 15-year-old Facebook, the world has never had more options for communicating. To use these options, we need language, and there is no lack of those. There are roughly 6,500 languages in our world today. Whether it be sign language, Braille, Arabic, Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, or any other of the many languages or dialects, these are our tools for communicating our stories. In the Third Culture and Cross-Cultural Kid community, we know all about language, communication, and connection. We are birthed into communities of change and face learning how to communicate across languages, borders, and nations early in our lives. While this can sometimes feel like a burden, I have come to see it as a gift that we offer to our world: a gift of communicating and a gift of understanding and empathy. What an honor it is to be able to hear someone’s heart and nod in understanding, to not interrupt but to listen in on their stories and
their words. Our languages and lexicons are the heartbeat of our communication. That is what is at the core of this issue of Among Worlds. In this issue we will take you from a multilingual expert to stories on the many ways communication can be misinterpreted causing offense. Mary Bassey brings us her first article as our Writer in Residence and takes us deep into the wardrobe of putting on and taking off accents. In our new “Spotlight” column we talk with Tayo Rockson and the journey that led him to use his difference to make a difference, ultimately ending in a book publishing deal. We have feature articles and poetry, quotes, and photographs, all to bring you into the world of communication from a global, Third Culture Kid perspective. In addition to this, we have our regular features that seasoned readers will remember and new readers will come to enjoy. I’m excited about this issue and I hope you are as well. For now, grab your favorite drink, head to a quiet spot, and dive into the Among Worlds September Issue - Communication: Our Languages and Lexicons. Thanks for reading! I deeply appreciate each one of you.
Marilyn Editor’s Note: While Among Worlds is currently published in English, we honor the many scripts and languages that represent our diverse readers. We use English, not because it is best, but because it is the language currently understood and spoken by all of us.
SEPTEMBER 2019 • VOLUME 19 • NUMBER 2 • AMONG WORLDS
COMMUNICATION OUR LANGUAGES AND LEXICONS
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ARCHIPELAGO Christine Kindberg
THE LANGUAGE OF COFFEE Marilyn Gardner
4 EXPATRIATE, IMMIGRANT, RACIST Rachel Pieh Jones
11 A TCK MOM DILEMMA Rachel Donahue
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WORDS DO MATTER Michael Pollock
THEY ARE NEVER JUST WORDS Mary Bassey
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SPOTLIGHT Tayo Rockson
23 THE GIFT OF MULTILINGUALISM Ute Limacher-Riebold
28 I SPEAK Miriam Ottimofiore
32 SOMETIMES OK IS NOT OK Michael Crandall
35 THE WHY & HOW OF A MASTERS IN INTERCULTURAL & INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION Megan Norton
GREAT READS BOOK REVIEW THE REPUBLIC OF IMAGINATION Cherly Skupa Editor: Marilyn R. Gardner Copy Editors: Michael and Kristen Pollock Graphic Designer: Laurel Fleming Digital Publishing: Bret Taylor
THE MISSION OF AMONG WORLDS IS TO ENCOURAGE ADULT TCKS AND OTHER GLOBAL NOMADS BY ADDRESSING REAL NEEDS THROUGH RELEVANT ISSUES, TOPICS, AND RESOURCES.
AMONG WORLDS ©2019 (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 AMONG WORLDS IS AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE ON THE ISTORE AND GOOGLE PLAY STORE. PRINTED VERSIONS OF SOME ISSUES MAY BE PURCHASED AT WWW.INTERACTIONINTL.ORG FOR $6 USD PLUS SHIPPING AND HANDLING. CONTACT US REGARDING INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING OR DISCOUNTS WHEN PURCHASING FIVE OR MORE ISSUES. THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN AMONG WORLDS DO NOT NECESSARILY REFELCT THE VIEW OF AMONG WORLDS OR INTERACTION INTERNATIONAL.
Archipelago
By Christine Kindberg
The other day I was trying to put up a notice on a community bulletin board in a café. I asked a café employee who was standing by the drink machine if my poster needed to be approved before I put it up. Just before I’d walked up to her, the woman was speaking to her coworker in Spanish, dishrag on her hip, but then she switched to English to ask me how she could help. My question was out of the ordinary enough that she was stumped for how to answer. She turned to her coworker and switched back to Spanish to ask her if she knew. “Para colgar un anuncio…” I said in Spanish, hoping it might help their confusion if I used the language they seemed most comfortable with. The looks they gave me were even more blank than before, as if my words wouldn’t compute—not when they were coming from me: a pale, blue-eyed American in an American suburb. What those women didn’t know—what no one can tell just by looking at me—is that I’ve been fluent in Spanish since I went to kindergarten. How would they know I was born in Peru and was raised in Chile and in Panama? Even if I carried my passport on my sleeve, one glance at the US passport cover wouldn’t tell them anything. When I was in sixth grade, our classroom held a history and geography bee to review the unit we’d just learned. I was in Kentucky, a year of transition for our family, sandwiched between Chile and Panama. I think the question was, “What is the geographic term for a group of islands?” I stepped forward, eager to gain points for my team. I knew this one. But the word that dropped from my brain onto my tongue was 2
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archipiélago—in Spanish. Even though we’d studied the unit in English, I was in a classroom where Midwestern English would have been foreign enough. Archipiélago. I associated it with the islands around the Straits of Magellan, where we’d visited fuzzy baby penguins on our family road trip a few months before we left Chile. The whole class was staring at me, wondering why I was silent if I knew the answer. I knew the word in English was close, but was it the same? And how was it pronounced in English: AR-chie-pe-la-go? A r-KEY-pe-la-go? Ark-ah-PE-la-go? Spanish spelling doesn’t lie like words in English. In Spanish I didn’t need to be afraid of sinkholes of fossilized spelling that has nothing to do with the pronunciation of the word. I debated stepping back, pretending I didn’t know, sitting down and disappointing my team. If I said what I knew, they might laugh at me for pronouncing the word incorrectly. Or the teacher might consider the answer incorrect anyway, if I answered in the wrong language. But I wanted to prove I knew the answer, even if I didn’t know the word. “Archipiélago,” I said, rushing through the slight curl of the r, the marked stress on the e, the almost swallowed g. The teacher blinked and nodded. The answer was right. No one noticed I’d said it in a different language. Being bilingual feels to me like my brain has two tracks. I can usually communicate something just as easily in Spanish as in English—can jump tracks without thinking about it, depending on the circumstances. Whether the conversation I overheard on the train is in Spanish or English, or whether a poster on the side of a building has an ñ or not, my brain unconsciously selects the track
that I need to process the words without me having to think about what language it is. More often than I’d like, I’ll try to say something in Spanish and the words will catch like the track got rusty. Sometimes, after a full day of editing and speaking and writing emails in Spanish at work, I’ll have trouble switching back to wish an English-speaking coworker good night. I get stuck in the no man’s land between languages, unable to think of the word I need in English or in Spanish. My brain—and the conversation— grind to a mid-sentence halt. I’m left beating my way through the bushes back to one track or the other, grasping at air with nothing but wordless images and emotions that I can’t convey. A friend from college who was curious about my upbringing once asked me what my heart language is. I had to think about it. English is what we spoke at home, the language my parents insisted we use when speaking to them, the language they wanted us to read in for fun, so we wouldn’t lose it even though we used Spanish everywhere else. Spanish was the language in which I memorized verses for Sunday school and in which I learned poems for school presentations, the language in which I learned to play and fight with friends on the playground. When my brother and I were growing up, we settled everything via “cachipún,” and only later learned it’s called “Rock, Paper, Scissors” in English. How to answer this friend? Does picking one language deny the significance of the other language in my life? When I go to a church that sings in Spanish, my soul feels like it’s crossed a desert and reached an oasis. But I’ve chosen to attend an English-speaking church instead of the Spanish-speaking alternatives around me. “Both,” I ended up telling my friend. Now I’d say my heart language is Spanglish. There’s a part of me that relaxes and expands when I can switch language tracks at will, grabbing whatever word is closest to mind at
that moment. It’s something that I can only really do when I’m around other people who, like me, are bilingual. There are times when it’s easy for me to think of all the hard things I’ve lived through because I grew up as a TCK. It was rough on me that I had to be the new kid so many times, surrounded by strangers and by a completely foreign environment, especially in fifth grade…and seventh grade…and eighth grade…and twelth grade. But then I think about all the people I never would have met, the conversations I never would have had, if I hadn’t grown up speaking two languages. I think of my monolingual friends here in the US, people I most likely wouldn’t have been able to joke around with over a table with halffilled beer glasses, unless I spoke English. I think of my recent trip to Argentina, and the people who invited me into their homes and shared a mate with me, welcoming me as a foreigner in a way they wouldn’t have been able to if I hadn’t been able to speak Spanish. And I think of the conversation I had today with one of my coworkers, switching into Spanish and into English and then back again, little caring what the “correct” word was, because we were communicating just fine. It was like language was building a bridge from island to island. And whether we called the group of islands archipiélago or archipelago really doesn’t matter. Christine Kindberg was born in Peru and grew up in Chile, Panama, Kentucky, and North Carolina. Now she lives in the Chicago area and works as a Spanish-language editor for Tyndale House Publishers. She recently published her first novel, a young adult historical fiction titled The Means That Make Us Strangers. You can find her on Instagram @Christine.Kindberg. SEPTEMBER 2019
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EXPATRIATE, IMMIGRANT, RACIST? By Rachel Pieh Jones
I’ve always assumed I’m an expatriate (this is not an ex-patriot or an ex-pat or an ex-patriate). A
few years ago, an article called this into question, and the conversation is ongoing. The Guardian
published Why are White People Expats When the Rest of Us are Immigrants? I regularly hear from people concerned that I call myself an expatriate. Considering the ongoing conversation, I increasingly felt I needed to dig into this.
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Is the word expatriate racist? Have white people appropriated it and are non-white people limited in their ability to claim it? There are two levels (at least) to this discussion: definitional and experiential. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary: the word expatriate is a verb or an adjective and means someone living in a foreign land. The word immigrant is a noun and means a person who comes to a country to take permanent residence. If we go only by these definitions above, I see one major distinction. Immigrants have an intention to stay, for the expatriates this intention isn’t mentioned and isn’t clear. According to Google, an expat is someone residing outside their native/passport country. An immigrant is someone permanently residing outside their native country. This idea of permanence is significant both in how it relates to the new country and the old country. An expatriate tends to engage less in the host country and maintains stronger ties to the old country. An immigrant might feel a greater sense of loss toward the old country and a greater sense of responsibility and intention in engaging in the host country. It’s kind of like renting versus owning. An expat is a renter, an immigrant is an owner. That is the dictionary discussion and by definition, I’m an expatriate. What about our experiences? The most diverse place I know well is the Protestant church I attend. There are people from Uganda, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Kenya, Egypt, Congo, Nigeria, Senegal, Burundi, America, England, Switzerland, Korea, France, Germany…I think of all of us as expatriates. Some have lived here for decades, some for weeks. I never thought of any of us, regardless of skin color or economic or social class, as immigrants. We are here for work, and we are expatriates.
Because none of us intend to stay forever. We might stay here a long time. We might even die here, though that isn’t our intention. But we maintain residency and passports and voting rights and tax-paying responsibilities, etc. in our home countries which is not this one. To me, that is an expatriate. We’re here but we’re also slightly not here. We’re renters. An immigrant is someone who comes, possibly against their will or preference, like a refugee, and goes all in. They will stay in this new country. They might go back, but that isn’t in the plan as far as they know it. They invest in a different way, a more personal way, weaving themselves into the fabric of the new country and letting it weave itself into them. They are owners. But that is just my experience, and in different parts of the world this is very different. Hana Omar commented on my Facebook page that in Europe there seems to be a strong class and racial component to which term is used. And, there are related words much more racially charged, like migrant worker, a person who is actually an expat. Or, in other places, the term Foreign Domestic Workers is used for people who are also technically expatriates. Both expatriate and immigrant are beautiful words and should be worn with pride by those to whom they belong. Expats are (generally) curious and open and passionate about two worlds. They are bridge people who can take the best of two places and cultures and blend them or use them to sharpen each other. Immigrants are (generally) curious and open and passionate about two worlds. They are also bridge people who can take the best of two places and cultures and blend them or use them to sharpen each other. But the terms matter; they aren’t conveying the same thing. For example, expatriates have the struggle of doing the splits, of keeping a toe in two countries, and the longer they live SEPTEMBER 2019
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abroad, the further apart the two countries become, the deeper they must sink into the split. This hurts. And immigrants have the struggle of grief. They have left behind a place they knew and instinctively understood and are straining to fit into a place that doesn’t inherently recognize them. This also hurts. We have something in common, but we are not the same. What do I conclude? Three things. One, I am an expatriate, not an immigrant. Two, the ability to use and choose this term is evidence of my privilege and not all expatriates have that ability, being labeled what others perceive them as, often solely on account of skin color. This is deeply problematic. Three, I can’t assume by looking at someone that they are an expatriate or an immigrant. I have to talk to them and hear their stories. Listen, ask questions, hear where they came from and where they are going and don’t jump to conclusions. Because whether expatriate or immigrant, we all have a story that goes beyond labels and skin color. Rachel Pieh Jones writes about life at the crossroads of faith and culture. Her work is influenced by living as a foreigner in the Horn of Africa, raising three Third Culture Kids, and adventurous exploration of the natural world. She has been published in the New York Times, Runners World, the Big Roundtable, and more. Her next book, Stronger than Death: How Annalena Tonelli Defied Terror and Tuberculosis in the Horn of Africa will be released in October, 2019. Rachel blogs at www.djiboutijones.com.
Among Worlds is delighted to feature original cartoon illustrations from the artist and communicator, Cath Brew. Cath is an Australian living in the UK. She works as a heritage interpreter, storyteller, and artist, and she is particularly interested in the way in which people make meaning through the intangible—the invisible layers of identity and belonging. You can find more of her work at her website www.drawntoastory.com In the future, we hope to be bringing more of her work to readers of Among Worlds.
Send your business “Among Worlds” by advertising with us. Enquire for information and rates: AWadvertising@interactionintl.org
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DIRECTOR
MICHAEL POLLOCK
Words Do Matter But So Does Effort
As I contemplated September’s theme, Our Languages and Lexicons, I thought of my personal struggle to acquire other languages besides my native English. Even as a child, I had a knack for listening and picking up accents and pronunciations. In Kikuyu church in Kenya, folks would compliment my excellent Kikuyu; compliments I didn’t understand until translated because I was just reading and imitating sounds. Still, I enjoyed the singing and ‘being a part’ but real comprehension of Kikuyu and Swahili eluded me. I studied Spanish in high-school and college and even used it throughout one summer working with Spanish speaking co-workers, seasonal workers from Puerto-Rico, and did okay. My well-known gaff was when I met my Spanish professor, Dr. Horst, who I deeply respected, on the quad one day and answered his “Hola, Miguel” with an earnest and embarrassing, “Jello”. No. Not ‘jell-o’. “Jello” pitch-perfect like Inigo Montoya says right before, “you killed my father, prepare to die!” I wanted to. As an adult, nine years in Tianjin, China, and I had about 60 characters locked in, which meant I was functionally illiterate. I developed certain ‘predictable’
conversations that felt comfortable; my family (yes, the small Chinese girl is my daughter; yes, her mother is Chinese; no, my wife is not Chinese), my job, (I’m really a school principal) my income (enough) and my body hair, (yes, the maopi -fur- on my legs is mine.) My coup de gras was making up several jokes that returned laughs from my Chinese colleagues—the only problem was wondering which of the Chinese laughs was meant; was it funny? were they embarrassed? were they saving my face? Hard to say. In almost all cases, however, it was the attempt to communicate, to reach out, to make the other person comfortable, to inquire politely about their health, family, or whether they had eaten, to wish someone in the market a good morning that mattered. These small exchanges were powerful and precious in building a sense of community and belonging. It was worth all my pained efforts. And once, a taxi driver in Chengdu complained that I sounded like a Tianjiner. I was so proud. I hope you take time to enjoy and learn from the stories, art, and poetry on how we communicate across cultural boundaries and then reach out for more. In these times of fearmongering and ‘othering’, we must choose courage and risk to cross lines and broaden our inclusion. It is worth the effort. Michael V Pollock SEPTEMBER 2019
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The Language of
Coffee By Marilyn R. Gardner
“We are the cream of the crop in China, and when we come here we don’t even know how to order coffee!” A Chinese friend said this to my husband one day a few years ago. She’s not alone in her struggle to figure out the seemingly normal. When we moved to the United States after years living overseas, a new language seemed to have become an ‘official’ second language. It seemed amazing that this could have occurred in a country full of “English Only” zealots, but it did. The language was “coffee” and came with its own vocabulary, syntax, and idioms. What made it more confusing were the many dialects that existed, sometimes in the same neighborhood. Coffee had ceased being a simple drink with one or two minor variations and had become a language full of politically correct pitfalls. These pitfalls and complex vocabulary resulted in two years of not getting the drink that I thought I had ordered. I was left with a feeling of stupidity and the belief that I would never master the task of learning to speak coffee. And because the language was most used in the context of tired people in long lines with morning breath and sweaters on their teeth there was little patience for someone who was a learner. While going through the language-learning process in both Egypt and Pakistan, my feeble attempts grew more powerful each passing day as they were met with good humor and encouragement. Little smiles, gentle corrections, sometimes outright laughter all 8
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helped guide me through verbs, adverbs, and adjectives, giving me confidence that Arabic and Urdu would indeed become easier. Not so in the land of Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts. The vernacular was serious, and there was nary a smile to go with it. But I had suffered bad coffee long enough. In a tearful moment I swore that I would win—I would triumph. I would learn how to speak coffee, and my coffee would no longer be too sweet or not sweet enough, too strong or too weak . It would be perfect because I would learn this language that had eluded me, the language of coffee. My strategy was simple. I would mimic. This had served me well in the past. I had a good ear and would listen. Then when it was my turn at the counter I would repeat verbatim what the person two spaces in front of me had ordered. One space in front felt too creepy and I didn’t want any to suspect that I had no clue how to order coffee. The first day I nervously waited, listened carefully and then repeated exactly as I heard: “I’ll take a grande triple shot soy vanilla latte.” Relieved I stepped away from the counter and waited. After what seemed far too long of a wait, my drink was ready, and I took my first sip. I promptly spit it out and realized I had just lost four dollars and sixty cents. This was coffee? This had to be a joke. Feeling defeated I consoled myself that I was only on day one. There was a science to this and sooner or later I was bound to get the perfect cup. My plan was to try this for two weeks. Surely at that point my language skills would have improved sufficiently to have decent coffee. To my fascination two weeks into this decision I realized with a little thrill that I had three good cups of coffee in a row. Not only that, I had been to two different language groups, so I knew both a primary dialect and
when necessary, a secondary dialect. More significant is that I was doing this without my voice catching, causing a little tremble that made me feel like a five-year old who isn’t completely catching on to Hooked on Phonics. My voice sounded strong and resilient, slightly arrogant and definitely knowing. The way the woman in front of me had sounded that morning with her perfectly coiffed hair and sophisticated black coat.
Who knew that a seemingly trivial thing like coffee would represent adjustment and effective living? The kind of angst it had evoked for such a long time was now over. What did it all mean? And though I didn’t want to read too much into it why did it feel so descriptive of my life? How shallow had I become? SEPTEMBER 2019
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scent of jasmine at night. Did it smell so strong and so sweet, our jasmine, because of the sun? (218, 219). This section of the book may have the most to say to Third Culture Kid readers. Azar describes her own feelings of isolation as a young undergraduate at Oklahoma University in the 1970’s, a time when there were few international students on the campus. And yet, there on the streets of Norman, Oklahoma, she met other “exiles” those who felt alienated even while living in their own cultures. What of them and the cast of lonely characters in Carson McCullers’ novel?
TITLE THE REPUBLIC OF IMAGINATION AUTHOR AZAR NAFISI PAPERBACK 352 PAGES PUBLISHER PENGUIN BOOKS REPRINT EDITION (SEPTEMBER 1, 2015) ISBN-10 01431277802 ISBN-13 978-0143127789
What is the nature of home or homelessness, of communication or its lack thereof (one of the characters in the novel is deaf)? Nafisi reminds us that “As human beings, we have a profound need for empathy. We need to be listened to and understood” (232). 18
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In the epilogue, Nafisi examines the writings of James Baldwin. He is an exile of sorts, a writer who believed that literature could provide the “social glue” to unite a divided culture. Nafisi describes a book festival as an outcropping of this Republic of Imagination at which Baldwin hinted. I love the chaos of book festivals, the way different characters, cultures, stories, and times all jumble together to the accompaniment of music, food and art, all the good things in life shared with gusto, but not too seriously. It is as if the abundant variety of human existence contained in the thousands of books under consideration spills over onto the sidewalks and streets of the host city (291). I’ve always instinctively felt that TCKs tend to be readers. I certainly am. Maybe it’s all those long hours in airports, train, and bus stations, the inevitable bureaucratic slowness of life in some countries, at least the ones I’ve traveled in. Or maybe I remember the angst in my own young life as I as I wiled away the afternoon hours in the back porch hammock, a treasured book in my hand. There was this inevitable sense of the preciousness of books which permeated my childhood among foreign missionaries in a remote location. I’ve often wondered if, in today’s age of instant communication, whether such things are still true for TCKs. Yet it could be that TCKs tend towards books in the same way Nafisi explains, as a way of reaching the worldwide community linked as readers. I certainly feel that draw—in and out of my porch hammock. Cheryl Scupa is an ATKC who has lived in Brazil, China, and the United States.
Spotlight Tayo Rockson
Communicator • Author • Change Agent
Welcome to Spotlight - a new feature of Among Worlds magazine.
Our goal in the Spotlight column is to highlight Third Culture
Kids in all ages and stages of life who are making a difference in the world. In this issue, we want to introduce you to Tayo
Rockson. I first met Tayo through an online conversation. His personality and positivity came through his online presence, and I was immediately convinced that this man would go places. We met in person in 2015 in Washington D.C. at a Families in Global Transition conference. The theme was Finding ‘Home’ Amidst Global Change. Tayo presented a powerful speech on How to use
your difference to make a difference. Since that time, Tayo’s career and
influence have spread exponentially. From Ted Talks to a book deal,
he is a compelling communicator with a message for our time. SEPTEMBER 2019
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Among Worlds spoke with Tayo and asked him about his journey as well as how his third culture kid background has influenced that journey. Tell us a bit about your growing up years, your family, and the places that shaped you? I had a pretty eventful childhood as I grew up in five countries and four continents. In addition to this, I spent the first nine years of my life living in and out of two military dictatorships. We moved around so much because my dad was a diplomat, so we would move every time he got posted out of the country. The five countries I grew up in are Nigeria, Sweden, Burkina Faso, Vietnam, and the United States. Nigeria has my heart. Sweden is where my middle brother was born. Burkina Faso is where my identity was formed. Vietnam exposed me to just how big our world is, and the United States always felt like an inevitable destination for me. Leadership and brotherhood were two principles drilled into me by my parents as I am the oldest of three boys. My parents wanted me to be able to set a good example for my siblings because they knew that they wouldn’t always be around given our unique schooling and life experiences.
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What was a pivotal point for you when you realized what you wanted to do with your life? August 22, 2012. I was driving to work in my burgundy Toyota Camry like usual. I got to the point where the road merged into the highway, and I stepped on the accelerator pedal until I got to 60 mph, when suddenly, my lane was cut into half. A neighboring car had lost control, and as a result of that, I was swerving all over the place to get out of the way. In the process, I hit the left guardrail then one car, another car, the right guardrail, then another car and back to the left guardrail. This time the car lifted up, and I thought for certain I was going to flip over. At this moment, aged 22, as my life flashed before me, I only had one thought: “Have you done everything you said you were going to do in life?” Have I done everything I said I was going to do in life? My survival instinct kicked in, and I slammed my brakes. I found a way to get out of the car in the middle of the road, and to my surprise, I was in one piece. My car was totaled, debris everywhere, and three cars all hit. But I was alive. I was in one piece. All of a sudden, I had clarity on what the meaningful things in life were for me. I decided then and there that I would now live life on my own
terms and pursue my dreams. I quit my job shortly afterward and moved to New York City to figure out how to do just that. All that led me to helping individuals and institutions communicate effectively across cultures. I do so by being a diversity and inclusion consultant, speaker, writer, podcaster, and coach.
me work my empathy and compassion muscles. Being able to see things from different perspectives helped me to create content in an intersectional and nuanced way.
How has your background as a Third Culture Kid informed your work and your passion?
Tell us more about your book - how did it come to be? What convinced you of the need for this book at this time?
It informed everything. Without the identity crisis I experienced growing up, as well as the incredible exposure I gained from living all over the world, I wouldn’t have realized just how deep the divisions are in our world. Being a Third Culture Kid helped
I wrote my book because I believe we need to learn how to cultivate relationships now more than ever. Today’s culture is defined by fear, uncertainty, intolerance, and reactiveness. It feels like a war zone sometimes because, in a world of nuance, we are governed by binary systems. In addition to this, we are losing faith in many of our foundational institutions (religion, education, government, family, the Internet, media). This isn’t just happening in some places. It’s happening all over the world. There simply isn’t any clarity on what we find threatening because we all
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feel things differently. Despite this, I’m filled with hope because we are also in the midst of an awakening of sorts. An awakening that allows us to see who we really are and where we can improve. The world has to awaken every now and then to the fact that we are responsible for the world we get. My objective with this book is to bring people who hold different beliefs together so they can get to know each other and create a path towards moral courage, empathy, compassion, and accountability. We live in an increasingly polarized world. What advice do you have for us in communicating beyond disagreements and differing world views? Educate. Don’t perpetuate. Instead, communicate.
Education involves education of self and education of environment. We need to be able to acknowledge our biases, live our values, and recognize our triggers. The more we make these things daily habits we will be more observant and aware of the people we live around. We will start to make sure more people feel welcome and safe enough to be themselves. Don’t perpetuate involves understanding how perpetuating stereotypes goes beyond just saying racist jokes and microaggressions. It also has to do with the information we spread and the history we teach. Are we complicit in spreading disinformation and revising history. Communication involves committing to having an open dialogue with people who think differently from us. Doing this allows us to move from an ethnocentric worldview into greater understanding and a wider worldview. What do you enjoy doing in your leisure time? I LOVE movies, sports, writing, and working out. My favorite sport is basketball followed by football (soccer) and tennis. I am also a voracious reader. I like to go through at least 100 books a year. Lastly, any dates for book release, book tours, and how to purchase the book. The book comes out September 4th and is available anywhere books are sold. You can pre-order it here: https://www.amazon.com/ Use-Your-Difference-Make-Cross-Cultural/ dp/1119590698 For upcoming events and book tours, head over to https://tayorockson.com/events as I will be updating the page with tour dates.
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Speaking more than one language is not only an asset, it is a need and the norm for more than half of the world’s population: “Bilingualism and multilingualism are a normal and remarkable necessity of everyday life for the majority of the world’s population” (Romaine, 2006). In order to become multilingual, one doesn’t need to be exposed to more than one language from birth and doesn’t need to attain native fluency in all the languages. A person is considered multilingual if she “uses more than one language (or dialect, [or sign language]) in her everyday life, either separately or together, for different purposes, in different domains of life, with different people”
The Gift of Multilingualism By Ute Limacher-Riebold
(Grosjean, 2008; Baker, 2011). SEPTEMBER 2019
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When you live between languages, the conversion of meaning is an arithmetic in loss. The transference of what I want to say pours from one container into an incompatible receptacle. Inevitably, something is lost. I am used to thinking of something in Spanish, for example, which then comes out strangely in English, or cannot be said in English at all, not in the same way. I am used to being understood sufficiently, rather than fully. The Paris Review Translation as an Arithmetic of Loss
SEPTEMBER 2019
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Where Will You Go Among Worlds? Among Worlds magazine is open to submissions for the following themes! Email your nonfiction stories, poetry, photos, and graphics to Among Worlds at AWsubmissions@interactionintl.org. We can’t wait to see what you have for us. Upcoming submission windows: Celebrations: What, How, & Where We Celebrate Submission Deadline October 15, 2019
Journeys: From Here to There and Back Again Submission Deadline January 15, 2020
Kintsugi: The Art of Repairing the Broken Submission Deadline April 15, 2020
Releasing: Living Fully and Letting Go Submission Deadline July 15, 2020