asking I’ll have different answers to
the question where are you from if I’m
short for time I might just answer
Finland and Senegal but more often than
not I feel like that answer is met with
confusion they might say where are you
really from or aren’t Finnish people
meant to be blond with blue eyes well
clearly not I’ll respond I am what some
people call a third culture kid a TCK
and third culture kids are people who
have grown up the majority of their
lives in a culture other than their own
and they tend to mix and merge their
birth culture with their adopted culture
to create one of their own in my case I
was born in one country moved to another
and I’ve cherry-picked aspects from each
to create my own culture but what is
culture culture is described as a
combination of the way we act how we
speak how we dress and what we eat
culture is passed down through
generations and it’s form through our
peers culture doesn’t come to us
instinctively it’s a it’s an
amalgamation of patterns of behaviors
beliefs and values but what happens when
the lines of culture are blurred my
story goes like this
my mother is finished my father is
Senegalese I grew up in Finland
Luxembourg Belgium and I now live in
London but I don’t feel very finnish
Luxembourgish Belgian British nor do I
feel very Senegalese but I carry each of
those countries with me and they all
created me but whenever I feel like I
need to explain or prove my origins to
people I find myself skewing parts of my
identity and omitting parts of me to
make myself seem more palatable more
easily digestible more understandable
others I don’t do it to seem
disingenuous I just don’t want to stand
out or come across as aloof so sometimes
the simple answer of we moved around a
lot when I was a kid is all I can manage
but instead of asking where are you from
I much prefer the question where do you
feel most at home I think that’s the
question that’s able to peek into a
person’s deepest core and is able to let
them choose for themselves how they
define their their sense of belonging
and it leaves leaves a lot less room for
interpretation by others home is an
emotional place and home to me is where
I feel comfortable walking around
it’s where the man in my corner shop
laughs in my daily purchase of
pomegranates and cat litter it’s where I
can call my friends in the middle of the
day to go for a quick coffee
tazer lassie stated that home can
represent where we worked grew up or
live and she calls herself a multi local
and she rejects the the concept of
coming from just one country because she
believes that countries and borders are
just artificial concepts I often feel as
though I’m wearing different masks I
highlight parts of my identity depending
on what the situation is for example if
I forget an English word I might say
well I’m forgetting English it’s my
third language it’s not my fault but if
I forget a Finnish word I’ll say well
even if it’s my mother tongue I’ve not
lived in the country for two decades so
it’s not my fault but I have a dilemma
where do I belong Who am I really
and which of these masks is the true me
I don’t again feel that this is
purposefully to skew my identity but
it’s just to represent me as a whole as
we’re all products of our environment
I must give credit to the incredibly
multicultural environment that I grew up
in in Brussels where I went to an
international school my friends came
from several different countries and we
all spoke several different languages
fluently we were all poster children for
European integration and it seemed that
the more diverse we were as a group the
less importance nationality seemed to
have and the more we would focus on what
we shared and the less we would focus on
what made us different but to me the
idea of home is also a mythical place in
my mind one that I’ve never truly known
it’s a place where I can walk the
streets of the city I was born in
without a map it’s a place where the
kids I went to nursery with are still my
friends or a place where the home I was
born in and has door frames covering my
growth spurts and sometimes I get sad
thinking that I never got to experience
that but on the other hand I’m also
grateful because I know that I wouldn’t
be Who I am today had I not moved around
as a kid many tcks described feeling
ruthless but the sense of rootlessness
also brings with it a certain kind of
freedom it gives you a sense that
everything can be just as temporary or
just as permanent as you want it to be
when I was deciding on where to move to
study I remember at one point looking at
a map and thinking I can move anywhere
in the world so how on earth do I choose
where to go but a lot of the time I also
feel like I don’t quite fit in any box
sometimes literally I went to the doctor
once and had to fill in a survey and
under the race and ethnicity box I found
that my usual box which is mixed white
with black African was missing and I
told the nurse my box is missing and she
turned around looked at me and just said
just tick the afro-caribbean box perhaps
I was reading far too much into the
symbolism of the whole situation but I’d
never felt more concretely before that
there was no box for me I believe that
tcks are unique people who are able to
adapt and become part of multiple
cultures I returned back to the masks
that we wear they’re not to come across
as disingenuous but they represent a
storyboard of all that we are and it
represents our multifaceted identities
but as a TCK I’m also aware of the many
privileges I have I’ve had opportunities
handed to me I’ve had the privilege of
speaking several languages fluently I
also have a decreased sense of space
financial constraints aside I feel like
I can hop on a plane to anywhere in the
world and have the confidence to explore
the world and I think it’s important to
note that a lot of people in this world
do not have the same opportunities so as
tcks I think we must be mindful of our
privilege I’d also like to point out
that I’m in no way unique having spoken
to many other tcks I know that I’m not
alone with my feelings and with growing
numbers of global migration I’m sure
that hybrid identities will be
commonplace in the future so do I think
I’ll ever move back to Finland or one
day live in Senegal it’s impossible for
me to say but I don’t think so for me
it’s easier to feel like a foreigner in
a foreign country than to feel like a
foreigner in a country I’m supposed to
call my own I think finding my own place
in this world will be a lifelong journey
but for now I’m exactly where I need to
be I am black I am finished
I’m Senegalese I’m a Londoner
and expression was I’m a partner
daughter a sister and an auntie and
those are just some of the many masks I
wear and they all represent different
aspects of me but they all make up me as
cliched as it may sound I genuinely feel
like the world is my oyster and the
options for the kind of life I want to
carve out for my family are limitless
and I woke with brexit and the current
political climate in the world that
young people will still be able to
thrive and continue to explore the world
and I hope that borders will remain
irrelevant war less near imaginary
concepts and I genuinely believe that
exploring the world and living among
different cultures enriches your life
and I would very much encourage everyone
to do the same if you can