Struggles of a Third-Culture Kid

A third culture kid (TCK) reflects on the feelings of being torn between two nations and realizes the importance of accepting the lack of belonging.

I rush out the door, drive at a 130km/hour speed while pulling up my dupatta (an Urdu word for scarf carried with attire), not wanting to miss the National Day celebrations. I forget to change out of clothes that smell of onion and desi spices within this chaos.

Every year, the National Day fireworks leave me entrenched in confusion, apprehension, and nostalgia. The feelings reoccur from time to time as life throws similar discussions. As I pay the cashier the AED 5, he stares at my hurriedly-wrapped abaya. Leaving the store, I mumble ‘Shukriya’ (thank you in Urdu).

Stunned, he asks, ‘Where are you from?’

Nowhere. I am a third culture kid (TCK). A TCK is someone who reaps the benefits of local life but originally belongs to another culture. An immersion occurs when the person faces a cultural void as they return ‘home’.

I first read the definition when I was 14. I couldn’t explain the attachment I felt with UAE, nor could I understand the concept of calling Pakistan home. I did not connect with anyone in Pakistan because the UAE was where I had everything, ever since I was born.

It was and is a constant push-and-pull between being an outsider and a resident. A TCK’s problem is we don’t entirely belong anywhere. We aren’t fully rested in the place we call home, nor do we belong to any specific place. Imagine standing on one end of the Earth and someone pulling your hand towards the other side of the globe.

A Sudanese-American poet Safia Elhillo’s words put it perfectly, “where I’m from is where I’m from & not where I was put.” Back “home” is the smell of rain, roadside puddles, desperate vegetable hawkers, and the fighting of drivers. It is not just the uncivilized roads but the colorful flair of the fabric, a mother’s aromatic tea, and the lively yet unrefined chaos. But all this doesn’t seem home. There is an unattachment that lingers.

A longing for what you and I call home builds out on us. What is home to you and me is the nation that groomed itself from sand to civilized roads, skyscrapers, and posh restaurants. Home is the school’s gates, the diverse nationalities of teachers, and the aromatic Arabic coffee pouring out of glimmering gold thermoses. Home is the majlis’ comfort, steaming hot Mandi followed by melt-in-the-mouth Kunafeh. To me, home is a systematic way to documentation and a civilized manner of literally everything. Home is where the word ‘expat’ is associated with my name and we reap its benefits.

But we don’t belong anywhere. Back home, we are called the so-called ‘modern children’ who have forgotten the traditional ways of life. The guilt of an escapist and the feeling of getting away with better starts to build up. When someone has spent years somewhere else and goes back home, the feeling is worsened when people say ‘you don’t know how things are done here anymore!’

I believe third culture kids’ love extends beyond their culture and origin. They take a part of each culture and way of life everywhere they go. But the feeling of disconnection and loneliness remains. We coexist with the longing for belonging and the feeling of not entirely being from anywhere.

A piece of many cultures travels with people like us. Perhaps to fit in and live the life we want. We turn on a cultural radar to be accepted in that culture—a story of a TCK.

I have not entirely checked all boxes of my cultural values and traditions, but as I continue to raise a third culture kid of my own, I can only instill cultural values that fit in with the place we call ‘home’. I can only explain to the little child I raise that no specific geographical place is home. Home is the acceptance of living as an outsider even if you are among homely people “back home”. Family is home. Acceptance is home.