Third Culture Kid

Art by Yelizaveta Rogulina

“Where are you from? What is your nationality?” The questions loomed before me as my mind failed to recognize the difference. The last thing I thought I would struggle with when taking a pre-SAT test would be my own personal information. 

Like my parents and grandparents, I was born and raised in Indonesia, but I’m always aware that I will never truly be “Indonesian.” My great grandparents moved from China to make a living in Indonesia, so does that make me Chinese or Indonesian? I finally wrote down “Indonesia” for the first question and “Chinese” for the second. Still confused, I went home that night and asked my parents, “What am I?”

Do my squinting eyes and yellow skin define who I am? Or does the tropical island where I grew up define my culture? My Indonesian passport and ability to speak Bahasa Indonesia were not enough for people to stop discriminating against me for my looks. To add to my mess of cultural identities, I grew up in a school where I was taught to think in English, setting me even farther apart from the people in my country. 

Still determined to find my spot in society, I began to explore my Chinese ethnicity. I started taking my Chinese lessons more seriously, watched more Chinese movies, and even went to Taiwan for summer school. But as I tried to embrace my Chinese background, I saw that I could never be fully myself if I identified only with my Chinese side. Yes, I celebrate Chinese New Year, eat Chinese food at home, and practice Chinese mannerisms, but I have never lived in China, nor can I speak the language as fluently as I should to be considered fully “Chinese.” I have been, and always will be, an outsider. 

Journalism major Chisato Iversen ‘22 is half Japanese, a quarter Spanish, and a quarter German. She explains experiencing a similar challenge. Despite her diverse ethnic background, she feels most in touch with her Japanese origins. “I don’t feel like I’m really European because, in my household, we’ve stuck with Japanese traditions,” she says. Nevertheless, because of her facial features, she continues to face challenges when she visits the rest of her family in Japan. “They expect less of me, almost… they’re surprised that I can use chopsticks, or that I can speak Japanese.” Iversen says this confining nature of her culture is summed up by an old Japanese saying: if the nail sticks out, hammer it down. 

Journalism major Tiana Pérez ‘22 is from Puerto Rico, but has lived in New England since her freshman year of high school. Despite having spent the majority of her life on the Caribbean island and maintaining a Puerto Rican household in Connecticut, her short five years in the U.S. have set her apart from her friends both in the states and on the island. “I did not fit in with my American friends, but I [also] didn’t fit in with my Latinx friends that had been born and raised in the U.S.… And when I was finally able to return back to the island, as much as I wanted to feel like I was like everyone else, I wasn’t,” she explains.  

To grow up with different cultures is amazing and extremely eye-opening, but it can be difficult when society puts a standard on who fits in and who doesn’t. People who identify with multiple cultures are expected to act a certain way, speak a certain language, and know certain things all because of the way they look or the country they live in. 

My “very American” views at home fell short as I went to college. I thought my ten years of learning at an international school would allow me easier transition to America, but I was wrong. Even though I am expected to, because my English is “so good” and I “don’t have an accent,” I rarely understand the underpinnings of American culture, even simple jokes and sarcasm.

Everywhere I go, I am supposed to pick just one cultural identity. But why choose one when I can have both? Or three, or four?

I am who I am because of both my ethnic background and the place that I grew up: both Chinese and Indonesian—Chindo, with a hint of Western thinking. And although I can’t fit perfectly into the mold society holds for me, I am proud of who I am, even if it’s a messy mixture of cultures.