Third Culture Kidding
Third Culture Kidding
Instagram is pretty effing dope. I know how arbitrary that sounds, but just think about it: you follow people, sometimes they follow you back, and you get to watch, emulate, fawn over, covet, inspire and aspire to these people who a lot of the time ya don't even know! You can draw comparisons with people who are similar to you, and it's pretty powerful when you realize like damn, someone out there is Just. Like. Me. In my recent experience with Instagram, especially through the search tab (BIG shout out to the search tab *rap air horn*) I’ve been encouraged to have the conversations that I have begun to share on this platform. It’s inspired me to connect with other like-minded women, speaking their truth, living in parallel existences to my own. It has given me the bravery to speak up. An app was the catalyst to my own becoming.
So through my perusing, I stumbled upon a term that I have never labelled, but that I’ve felt through my own experience and the experiences of my siblings -- Third Culture Kids. This term is used to refer to children who were raised in a culture outside of their parents' culture for a significant part of their developmental years. It was something I knew I had lived through, but did not know was recognized or even had a name. It was cool learning about other third culture kids and their immigration experiences and essentially coming into their own and has been a great way for me to open up about my own experience with immigration.
My family immigrated to Canada in the year 2000 when I was 13 years old. Many people actually are surprised at that fact, because I'm so "well adjusted" and eloquent, as if to say that I only began speaking English at the age of 13 and had no social skills in Africa. The reality is that I went to some of the top international schools in the world, was well-traveled even at that age, and was asked to tutor kids in English when I was in Grade 8 here in Canada. In many ways I shattered many stereotypes of poor African girls who had no hope of a future. I was interesting and my story was unique and as a result I was popular all throughout high school and even into university. At times I resented the attention I got, because it was tough enough trying to adjust to a new life, without constantly being asked to share my past. Sometimes I felt like I wasn’t just liked for being me, Danai, but rather was liked as a caricature of myself or as an idea of who people thought I should be. Yet I absolutely had a story to share, and felt like I could educate people about the realities of being born in Zimbabwe or living in Botswana and how different and amazing and developed it was, in comparison to how it’s often portrayed in media. The dichotomy between trying to fit in and wanting to share my unique story was a tough place in which to exist.
The truth is, moving here wasn't easy. The idea of starting a new life was an exciting one, especially because we had hit the literal jackpot being accepted to live in Canada as landed immigrants. We even tried to apply for permanent residency in Australia and Switzerland but Canada was the winner. It was a big deal, because the process of immigration is a long and hard one, so it was a real gift from God for us to move here. Moving to a different country was something that my family had experienced before: we had moved from Zimbabwe to Botswana when I was 5. This was whole different thing. I always felt very much at odds because while Canada is so multicultural and liberal, adjusting to "Canadian culture" was profoundly more difficult than anyone could've anticipated. Although difference and diversity is so widely accepted, there is a level of assimilation that is required in order to feel like a citizen instead of an immigrant. I witnessed the hardships my father had to face finding a job, calibrating to cultural norms, and that transition in many ways broke his spirit.
Thankfully I was young and malleable, and I became accustomed. As a result, to compensate for the difficulties I witnessed my parents face with basic cultural nuances and colloquialisms, I inadvertently unlearned my African self. It still trips me out that I moved here with a strong foreign accent and lost that completely by grade ten. Looking back it completely made sense. It was almost a relief that I didn't sound different anymore, and I could just finally fit in. But I never really did, and still don't.
In recent years and through meeting people with this shared experience, I’ve reintroduced the African parts of myself again. I don’t worry so much about wearing my hair straight or in a weave so I can look westernized. Wearing braids - something synonymous to African culture - is a way I feel connected to my roots. I still mispronounce words when my old accent rears its head, and if someone catches on, it makes me self conscious, but I'm embracing it and am just more open about the journey I took to get there. That's what's really cool about living in the age of social media and being able to connect with women who live lives so similar to the one I live (in all parts of the world). In that solidarity I've been able to let out a huge sigh of relief and just say "...me too." There is something profoundly powerful about knowing that you’re not alone in your existence. Thanks Instagram.
My uniqueness is now my comfort, and not a burden I have to carry or something I have to be embarrassed about, but it's taken me a long time to really understand that.
Sometimes I still feel stuck between who I used to be, who I was born as, and who I am now and have amalgamated into. It's hard at times, and it's often easier to develop my Canadian culture because I am so physically far from my Zimbabwean culture. I remember having to explaining this while teaching young kids in Korea when they'd ask "Danai teacher, are you African?" and I'd say yes, but I'm also Canadian, and that's my home. They'd tilt their little heads to the side and the perplexed looks on their faces exemplified exactly how I often felt in my own life. But in those moments, I'd think, hmm, I was born Zimbabwean, but I hold Canadian citizenship, and I live in Korea, and because I'm free, I can live and do and create whatever I want to. How damn lucky am I?
Some days I identify so much with my Zimbabwean self: when I'm around my grandma, or laughing with my beautiful cousins, or listening to Oliver Mtukudzi and looking at photos of the beauty and wonders that country has to offer, or being brought to tears when I think about the disparity that my country is dealing with, and the family I've left behind. And other days, I still get butterflies like I did when I was 13 years old arriving at Pearson Airport on a freezing-ass winter night in almost disbelief at how this could be my life, every single time I see a Canadian flag, and how proud I am that I get to call this country mine.
Being a third culture kid has afforded me the opportunity to always have the perspective of "other" in a culture that has not seen or experienced something different from what they know. It's the reason I'm so empathetic to the immigration experience and how truly difficult it is moving to a new country while trying to maintain some of your old traditions.
And yeah, Instagram is a construction, but the sentiment behind the discovery I made about my identity through it is very much real. Perhaps the trick here is that I really don't have to identify as either Zimbabwean or Canadian. Existing in the in-between means that I have free reign to carve out whatever life I want to create, always remembering the journey my parents took to get me here, and being thankful that I get to create a wonderful future in this smorgasbord of history and culture.