Third Culture Kid is a term used to refer to individuals who were raised in a different culture from their parents and spent a large portion of their adolescence in a country different from their passport. Commonly, they are the children of expatriate workers spending their formative years living in a different country. For me, this included growing up in Saudi Arabia, having lived there for a total of eight years throughout elementary and middle school. This move was prompted by my dad, who was hired to work as an electrical engineer for the largest oil company in the world, Saudi Aramco. As a result, I grew up in a country completely different from my Hispanic roots.
Getting to travel the world at such a young age was easily one of the greatest blessings I have had in my life. My parents instilled in me that the most important form of learning was through appreciating and understanding other cultures. At only 19 years old, I have had the absolute pleasure of visiting 40 countries. But this international lifestyle does not come without its challenges, especially when the experience comes to its end.
Belonging
Belonging can be somewhat superficial; however, as a whole, it is constantly desired by humans. The feeling of belonging can be vital to one’s mental health and overall well-being. Being a Third Culture Kid, there is a constant lack of this feeling. It’s honestly quite difficult to describe; however, you don’t exactly belong in your home country, yet you also don’t fully belong in your country of residence. There is a constant feeling of in-between that I have not been able to rid myself of, even having left Saudi Arabia five years ago. Additionally, it creates a large difficulty when answering the most basic question: Where are you from? For me personally, although it is a question I love to ask, I absolutely dread giving my personal explanation. Although I was born in Houston, my parents are both immigrants from Venezuela, and my grandparents are immigrants from Spain, yet I feel the most connected to Saudi Arabia. Never feeling fully identified with just one culture is difficult to balance and just leaves you with large confusion.
This feeling of belonging has also arisen deep feelings of rootlessness and the lack of stability in my life. I have constant desires to just move again and chase that adrenaline that comes with a new physical location, yet it can be unhealthy. I never feel fully settled in a place, and I’m constantly looking towards when I can move yet again. Being in college has made this increasingly more difficult, and I know that by the end of my time as a student, I will pick up and relocate yet again.
Relationships
As a Third Culture Kid, relationships have also created a large struggle. Living internationally, people are constantly moving around and relocating, making goodbyes constant. Goodbyes become a normal part of life at a young age and continue to take a toll on your mood. Even having to maintain these relationships can be challenging at times, as it has been years since I last saw some of my best friends whom I grew up with. Although social media facilitates communication, it does not quite fully succeed at that feeling of in-person conversations and connections. I now have a persistent urge to meet up with my friends wherever I go.
In addition, making new friends who did not grow up with the same experiences can be difficult. I find the lack of understanding has left me with the feeling of being misunderstood. These feelings can be exhausting to manage and further supplement a feeling of loneliness. I have always prioritized the relationships that feed into my energy and leave me feeling whole, so I continue to place priority on the friendships that I created growing up. This has created challenges when attempting to foster new friendships in new places, yet I now have a greater appreciation for the people that I have met who can understand me outside of my experiences.
Adapting
Moving back or potentially to a new country can come with a large culture shock. Having lived in Saudi Arabia for eight years, coming back to an American society was largely difficult. There is a large need to adapt to your new surroundings, which sometimes does not come very easily. For me personally, going into a large public Texas high school, it took me a while to understand how things worked, and the differences in the society that I was raised in. I felt as though I had become yet another person competing for the same thing as everyone around me. I often felt alone, even though I was in a sea of people, and ultimately very isolated because of where I came from. I would often grieve my identity, the people that I had left behind, and the Middle Eastern culture that I had previously known and been raised in. It took a lot of strength and getting out of my comfort zone in order to feel like I “fit in” in a society different from what my parents and I had both grown up in. For this reason, I prioritized finding community in different places, to which I largely attribute a sense of belonging to my dance team. Yet all in all, moving at such a critical stage of my life also solidified my ability to adapt to a new location, which became largely helpful when going into my Freshman year of college.
Home
This style of upbringing had created a difficulty in relating to only one place. Although I now tie a lot back to Houston, where I was born and went to high school, it is not the physical location on this earth that represents me best. There is no one place that I can say is “home.” Emotionally, this term has large significance as home is a place of comfort, security, and ultimately deeply personal. Although Saudi was my home for so long, not having gone back since I left has left me feeling more detached everyday. Now, as I look to plan out my future, there is no one location that I can see myself in. It feels almost as though I have established a nomadic lifestyle, always on the move, and in a new location.
Although my experience came with its challenges, living in Saudi Arabia was easily one of the greatest moments of my life. It shaped me into the person that I am today, and the challenges that I faced only allowed me to grow greater as an individual. I continue to pride myself on my ethnic culture and the Hispanic roots that my parents instilled in me. Additionally, I now seek the excitement and adrenaline of visiting new countries and getting to learn more and more about the world. Ultimately, the world is what fuels my drive, and its endless possibilities propel my positive outlook for a bright future.