Miss-Identity: Proud Third Culture Kid

I just read an article by Shuk-Wah Chung an Australian freelance radio/print journalist of Chinese heritage.  It was an article about how she has felt as a Chinese-Australian not fitting into the blue-eyed, blonde haired world of the Aussie nor fitting into the nietzeness of China.  Here is the link:  http://diaspora.chinasmack.com/2011/australia/shuk-wah-chung-questions-a-punky-asian-australian-girl-hates.html

What struck me most about this article was that everything she experienced were and are the exact same experiences I have had as an African-American.  The silly questions ("So you're from Africa" even though I just said I was born in CA and my mother is from FL, born and raised), the confusion of my last name ("huh...that's an odd last name), and the condescending tone of the righteous (We wouldn't have AIDS if it wasn't for Africans and their monkeys." What!?!.  All of those things plus the negativity and the constant fight to prove myself in any predominantly white arena whether that was during my pursuit of higher education, my work environment, or most recently, business dealings.

I naively believed that all of this would be over once I moved house and home to Ghana this past December 2011.  I was wrong. I had believed I would blend in with the natives so to speak especially if I didn't open my mouth.  I had believed that I would slowly pick up on one or two local languages, one of them being Ewe my tribal tongue.  I believed in a lot of fairy tales. 

First, my brother and I did not blend in at all.  We are constantly being stared at and harassed. Finally, I asked a few friends why this was happening and they said "well, you know, you look different." Of course my brother and I looked at each other in confusion and asked how so? "You just don't look like us." So on another continent, several thousands of miles away from North America, we found an even more dissociative culture.

I found a funny joke list on http://expatwithkids.blogspot.com about being a third culture person. Here are some of my favorites.

• “Where are you from?” has more than one reasonable answer.
• You've said that you’re from foreign country X, and (if you live in America) your audience has asked you which US state X is in.
• You flew before you could walk.
• You own personal appliances with 3 types of plugs, know the difference between 110 and 220 volts, 50 and 60 cycle current, and realize that a transformer isn’t always enough to make your appliances work.
• You fried a number of appliances during the learning process.
• You get homesick reading the National Geographic.
• You have the urge to travel to move to a new country every couple of years.

For those of you that don't know the term Third Culture Child. It's basic meaning is a child born of a "foreign" parent and a "domestic" parent. In my case Ghanaian father and an American mother. You are then raised in a bi cultural household usually enriched by constant travel to your foreign parent's homeland or other destinations. Now there are pros and cons to being raised this way of which I won't discuss at this time. It is too long a discussion for one posting.

I would be interested in hearing about anyone else's experiences as a TCC. Constructive and well thought out comments are always appreciated.