Words We're Watching talks about words we are increasingly seeing in use but that have not yet met our criteria for entry.Understand different cultures, understand one another. The term may still be a long way from popular use, but as global communities continue to cross paths it might just stick around for a while.

It's weird, I always liked saying that I was an immigrant because I felt like it was something that made me different. I was too American for the other West African kids, but then too West African for the American kids. Rudo Ellen Kazembe, Teen Vogue, 12 July 2016Īs an immigrant (and particularly a native Liberian person), I've always felt like a third-culture kid. Regardless of the challenges that you may have faced as a third culture kid, you've been shaped into a multi-cultural individual. Many current examples of third-culture kid in print and online media tend to frame the term with some kind of glossing information, suggesting that it is still being introduced to the English-speaking public:Īs a third culture kid, you've experienced cross-cultural transitions that have molded you into an adaptable individual. A 2013 BuzzFeed listicle by Rega Jha offers ' 31 Signs You're a Third Culture Kid,' among them 'You've spent an absurd and probably unhealthy amount of time on airplanes' and 'You're a food snob because you've sampled the best and most authentic of every possible cuisine.' Other well-known third-culture kids include basketball star Kobe Bryant, who was born in Pennsylvania but grew up in Italy, and the actor Viggo Mortensen, who was born to a Danish father and American mother but grew up in Argentina.īecause third-culture kids often belong to itinerant families, some grow up in a number of different places, and as a result often develop a scattering of contacts around the world. And like Obama, I threw in my lot with the American aspect of my identity once I came of age, and have now lived in this country as long as I lived in Asia. (The term sometimes used for such children is a “ third-culture kid.”) Like Obama, I attended a high school-mine an international school in Delhi, his a prep school in Hawaii-that was akin to a multiracial utopia. Like Obama, I spent my childhood in a culture other than that of my biological parents, thanks to my father’s job as a foreign correspondent: first in Hong Kong, where I was born, then Manila and New Delhi. Like Obama, I was born to parents of different countries and races: a Japanese mother and a white American father. President Barack Obama qualifies as perhaps the world’s highest-profile third-culture kid. Having been born in Hawaii and spent a formative part of his childhood in Indonesia as the son of an American mother and a Kenyan father, former U.S. Third-culture kid attracted notice in recent years as one member of that category rose to particular prominence. Since Useem's study, the term has expanded to include the children of refugee families and those displaced for political reasons, as well as anyone whose work or lifestyle causes a need to settle in another part of the world. This condition is exacerbated growing up in a country like Canada. They form a cultural hybrid, a blend of cultures that can be interesting, but also confusing and frustrating to them.

Unable to completely relate to their parent's culture and yet at the same time labelled as 'different' from the mainstream culture they are encouraged to belong to, they are basically cut adrift and left to float in a sort of 'twilight zone' state. They are confronted with cultural walls or pitfalls at every turn. Theirs is a confusing and quite often debilitative condition. Third culture kids have a unique place in any society to which they belong. While Useem first used the term during the 1950s, it was about forty years later that third-culture kid (sometimes spelled without a hyphen and often abbreviated TCK) emerged in the mass media: The 'third culture' to which the term refers is the mixed identity that a child assumes, influenced both by their parents' culture and the culture in which they are raised. Useem’s focus was on children whose parents had moved abroad for career purposes, such as diplomats, missionaries, and members of the military.

The coinage of this term is credited to American sociologist Ruth Useem (1915-2003), who used it in her studies of expatriates living in India. The 'third culture' is influenced both by their parents' culture and the culture in which they are raised.

Cultural notion definition