Paul Crowe, 27, lives in Hawaii, where he captains a boat and teaches scuba diving. He has thick blonde hair and a sturdy build and wears faded jeans, a red rugby shirt, and a deep copper tan. He is articulate, has a degree in marine biology, and is at ease discussing virtually any topic. He likes the Lakers, and tends to vote Democrat. His accent is sharp and smooth, his choice of words, careful. In many ways he fits the bill of a well educated twenty-something American.
Except Paul doesn’t know where he is from.
The child of American diplomats, he has lived, at various stages and for varying lengths of time, in Sri Lanka, Jamaica, Egypt, Switzerland, Thailand, Florida, New York, Hawaii, Indonesia, Oman, Malaysia, the Marshall Islands and Maryland. His nation is merely a term that exists on a piece of paper known as a passport, a document littered with stamps, visas and tacked-on pages that he carries discreetly in his jeans pocket.
“When I tell people where I’ve lived, where I’ve been, where I’m from, most of them think I’m either bragging or lying. So I keep it quiet,” he says.
Paul is not alone. He is part of an expanding group of young Americans who grew up in a smattering of countries, none of them necessarily the one indicated on the cover of his passport. These nomadic people have been given a name: Third Culture Kids (TCKs). Professor Ruth Hill Useem of Michigan State University coined the term in a series of lectures and papers. Loosely, the term applies to people who as children were lugged around to foreign countries by parents pursuing work in rapidly growing international fields. According the Wikipedia entry on TCKs, “third” refers to the culture created when a person integrates their parents’ culture with the culture (or cultures) in which they were raised.
Paul’s reluctance to let people into his life neatly illustrates Professor Useem’s theory that TCKs hide themselves in an attempt to blend into constantly changing surroundings.
“On the surface, most adult TCKs conform to what is going on around them in such a way that attention is not drawn to them,” Useem wrote recently in an article for the International School Services magazine. “As they meet new people and situations, they are slow to commit themselves until they have observed what is expected behavior. If what is expected is unacceptable or incomprehensible, they will quietly withdraw rather than make fools of themselves or hurt the feelings of others.”
Like Paul, they are rootless and malleable. Useem continues: “They are the most interesting people because their rich inner lives belie their often bland… and sometimes wary, presentation of themselves to others.” TCKs are also, studies now show, bright, and courted by employers.
In the early 90’s, Professor Useem conducted an extensive survey of some 700 TCKs. The results were instructive: as a whole this group is highly educated. 90% of those surveyed had bachelor degrees—four times the US average—and over half of those with BAs had graduate degrees. More than 80% were professionals, semi-professionals, managers, officials or executives. One-fourth worked in an academic field and close to 20% were self-employed. Few (2%) worked in large corporations.
These statistics show that TCKs have the desire to continue learning and the curiosity that comes with travel and exposure to new cultures, ideas, and ways of life.
On the flipside, argues Professor Useem, these same qualities may lead to what psychologists call a “prolonged adolescence.” Over 90% of the people surveyed report being out of step with people of their age group. TCKs change jobs frequently and marry and have children far later than the average North American. They continue to move around a lot. They have trouble identifying what they want to do with their lives and most attest to having changed their course of study numerous times.
“When you grow up seeing and experiencing so much, you realize how vast and enormous your options are,” says Paul. “This makes staying put and choosing things that will make it difficult to change, to move, unattractive. Decision-making can be tricky. You’re always wondering if what you decided was right, constantly second-guessing. There is often a tradeoff between exploration and stability.”
TCKs tend to live, at least as young adults, on low, insecure incomes. The have “champagne” tastes, but exist on “beer” wages. The bottom line is rarely their priority. And because they’re constantly on the move and are so good at hiding their backgrounds and interests, relatively little is known about them and how they contribute to the societies in which they live. They are rarely in one country long enough to be counted on a census; many TCKs, in fact, live in nations where they’re not permitted to vote.
In sum, a large generation of highly educated, curious, independent women and men—2 million in the U.S. alone, according to the TCK World website (www.tckworld.com) —go almost unnoticed by policy makers, sociologists and even, sometimes, their own friends.
At Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA)—a school spawned from the ideas and lives of what could be called the initial post-war TCK community—I recently met with a cadre of global travelers and thinkers who, using Professor Useem’s terminology, might more accurately be described as fourth culture kids. Most have lived a majority of their lives away from their supposed nations and some no longer claim a national identity. Some have never even lived in their parents’ countries. Others have parents who themselves are TCKs. And they have all come to Columbia to pursue a Masters in International Affairs, a degree that will serve to prolong the nomadic lifestyle they had as children.
“When people ask me where I’m from, I tell them whatever would be easiest at the time, or whatever response I think they’d understand best,” said Alexandra, a second year student of the program. Alexandra is from Argentina, but has never lived in South America. She grew up in Asia, and now lives in New York.
I saw living proof of Useem’s conclusions in this group of students. Of those I spoke with, all declared that living an international life was their career priority. All of them were unmarried and above the national average marrying age (25). Each person was acutely aware that her relationships suffered as a result of her past and current choices. Few knew where they would be in five years. Many attested to changing the focus of their lives repetitively and to constantly questioning larger questions of identity. Most didn’t know who to root for in the Olympics.
What is consistent from the stories of TCKs, however, is the assertion that having a peripatetic upbringing enriched their lives in myriad ways—adding new ideas, friends, and worldly perspectives.
“Above all I’ve learned how to deal with turmoil,” says Justin, a Columbia Masters graduate who grew up in Japan and California and now resides in Thailand. “I may have lost the sense of ever being settled but I’ve gained a fierce sense of independence and perspective.” When he’s going through a rough spot, Justin can draw upon a wealth of experiences and cultures; his extensive travels also allow him to measure his own concerns against the wider pool of human experience in a way that many of his peers cannot.
And what is next for Paul Crowe?
“My wife and I are thinking of moving to Belize, or maybe Costa Rica,” he says. He adds that Jessica, his wife, is a fellow TCK he met ten years ago while studying in the Overseas School of Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Chris Lenton was born in Delhi and raised in Sri Lanka, and has British and Argentine passports. He has lived all over Asia, Europe, and Latin America, but has settled (for now) on New York’s Lower East Side, where he is a writer.
Photo by Victor Cobo.
Call me naïve, but I’m an optimist. For all the persistence of nationalist and sectarian agendas, I see hope in the rise of a generation that is redefining traditional conceptions of identity—and a value system.
When I’m asked where I’m from, I hesitate for a split second, partly to judge the patience of my interlocutor and partly with vague hopes of reinventing my typical reply. But then I do it again – I’ll recite my itinerary. I’m French and American and grew up in England and Belgium. I’ve lived in Boston, London, Brussels, Oxford, Paris, New York and Washington. It’s longwinded, but then I’ve never had a single word for home.
I’m often asked next what that makes me—French? American? European? Would I prefer tea because my accent suggests I’m English? I respond that it depends where I am: in Europe, I miss America’s energy and optimism; in America, I long for Britain’s civility or the continent’s sense of history; in England, I wish for a pinch of Gallic insolence; and, when it comes to soccer, I’d support “Les Bleus” even from the moon. I’ve had trouble being more succinct because I can never fit my sense of self, with its multiple transplants and attachments, into definitions of identity still largely conceived of in mono-ethnic or -national labels. I’m a composite. To ask which part of me stands out more would be a bit like asking a mongrel to select its favorite paw.
Perhaps I ought to answer as Diogenes the Cynic did back in 4th-century Turkey. “I am a cosmopolitan,” he reportedly quipped when a Sinopean asked where he hailed from, thereby introducing the expression for citizen of the world into our lexicon, and leaving it to posterity to embellish the term with its veneer of glamour and worldliness.
But calling myself a citizen of the world doesn’t quite capture my émigré sensibility, with its mixture of detachment and nostalgia for things distant and half-imagined. It’s all very well having the protean ability to adapt to each new place or feeling as light and free as that species of duckweed that travels rootless along the rivers of South America or Asia.
Roots, though, will always carry grains of another soil, however hard one’s attempts to transplant them.
Mine’s a sensibility as old as the first migrants who were allegedly kicked out of Eden. It used to be the small preserve of diplomats, roving merchants, exiles and emigrants of all stripes. But as the number of my cross-cultural peers has swollen, well beyond the ranks of yesteryear, I’ve also encountered something novel and infectious—a shared global consciousness forged as much by day-to-day exposure to transnational diversity as by the opportunity to roam over borders.
I meet likeminded folk in all walks of life, a diffuse group of 20- or 30-somethings who migrate over borders or to some of the great metropolises to study or to work, armed with an affinity for adventure, a hunger for new opportunities or for a different perspective.
Woven into their itinerant tales is a common motivating sensibility—a humanitarian language of intolerance for intolerance and respect for difference without condescension. There’s the writer reared in California to Pakistani parents whose stories reflect the tense meeting point of her two cultures; the New York-based Singaporean filmmaker who traveled through rural China capturing the whims and attitudes of peasant women; the Connecticut-born Fulbright fellow who studied the plight of child soldiers in Sierra Leone; the Indian engineer who worked on climate-change in Bangkok; or the New England nonprofit worker who ditched a job in D.C. for a microfinance project in Darfur.
Between us, differences of nationality or language are conversational curiosities, not dividers. And while many of us have been favored by advanced education or relative affluence, ours is hardly an exclusive club. Access requires only broadmindedness, and the perspective and empathy that is often born of immersion in another culture. The pull of different worlds, or the curiosity to explore them, makes us more apt to appreciate the validity of other viewpoints. It also makes us attuned to recognizing shared human impulses for free thought, self-expression, self-determination, and democracy, iterated to fit the idiosyncrasies of each culture. Like the Third Culture Kids in our ranks (and that includes me), we are tied less by territorial or ethnic reductions than by a triumvirate of shared values—of pluralism, individualism, and universalism (not the theological doctrine, but recognition of the common traits that bind us all).
Ours is, in fact, a wholly cosmopolitan mindset.
Diogenes’ quip was at least partly intended to suggest he owed no allegiance to Sinope, his city of origin. Cosmopolitanism long had negative connotations of rootlessness and ultra-individualism, coupled with the denunciation of faith, family and community. The 1762 dictionary of the French Academy defined the cosmopolitan as “one who does not adopt a nation. A cosmopolitan is not a good citizen.” It was also a term of abuse leveled at the stereotypical wandering Jew, feeding hatreds and suspicions that would eventually lead to the gas chambers. Today still, cosmopolitanism in the guise of globalization carries in its wake a host of anxieties about the loss of national authenticity to an encroaching bland homogeneity.
But, in tandem, cosmopolitanism suggested a transcendence of obligations beyond the parochial bubble to wider humanity, a philosophy elaborated by the Stoics, and given modern resonance by, among others, Immanual Kant, who wrote that rational beings formed a single moral community. Out of such modes of thought grew the doctrine of rights of man, and its 20th century human rights equivalent, whereby individuals were entitled to certain claims by virtue of their common humanity and states were accordingly duty-bound to them as sovereign beings.
Members of my generation have of necessity come of age with a cosmopolitan sensibility. Our circle of empathy has expanded to encompass people beyond our borders—we grew up witnessing live TV images of Rwandan waterways choked with bodies, of concentration camp inmates in the Balkans or of swollen-bellied children in Ethiopia. We can tune out or tune in, but we can’t plead ignorance. Schooled in long-standing “one-world”-style campaigns from the likes of Oxfam, Greenpeace or the World Wildlife Fund, we’ve also grown up alongside a tide of nongovernmental and civil society organizations, which increasingly function to articulate our collective moral anguish on concerns from AIDS to global warming. Moreover, Digital Age access to information, music and movies from far afield adds flavor and nuance to our knowledge of the world beyond, whether the subject is the slums of Brazil or the mood for love in Hong Kong.
Or take this instance of bridge-blogging, a term coined by the founders of site-tracker Global Voices Online to describe thousands of individuals on every continent blogging about their countries or regions, often in English, for a transcontinental audience: Tehran-based blogger Lady Sun, the nom-de-Web of a then-25-year-old online editor, described in an April 2003 post how fear of arrest had compelled her to switch from Persian to English. Cue a reader from the Philippines, Joan Uy, who chanced on the site a year later – “I can relate to you,” Uy wrote in a comment on the post. “Here in the Philippines freedom of speech is guaranteed, but you pretty much can’t count on the government or even society to protect you from the consequences of exercising this right…”
The structure is in place to encourage the perpetuation of this global mindset. Study abroad programs are perennially successful and ever more competitive. Growing also are the ranks of graduates entering professions such as conflict resolution, international economics, or sustainable development—career paths that only in recent years have largely opened up, often luring the best and the brightest away from traditional government or private sector jobs.
But a wider global sensibility exists even beyond the growing international elite who accumulate degrees or work experience in several countries. A 2004 study of 66,000 people across 49 nations by the Pew Institute, revealed a pronounced openmindedness to global issues among surveyed youth worldwide. Results varied between regions, and are less pronounced in Asia and Eastern Europe, but compared to older generations, the 18 to 29 age cohorts in North America, Europe, Africa and countries of the Middle East were far more supportive of globalization (as understood to mean the world connected through greater economic trade and faster communication), less worried that their way of life was threatened, less chauvinistic about their own nation’s cultural superiority, and less supportive of restrictions on immigration.
It’s hardly a revelation, of course, to suggest that the technological developments and economic integration of the past decade could have led to greater international awareness and acceptance of diversity among a younger set. We are the best educated in new technologies and the most likely to adapt to new ideas and make use of new opportunities. But it is easy to understate the barely perceptible changes taking place at the level of generational thinking and focus instead on the shocking news that the tools once touted as the means to a borderless, more unified world have actually fractured communities.
Isaiah Berlin, the philosopher and one-time émigré from Russia to Britain, posited that that if pluralism were a valid view, and if respect between different value systems were possible, then toleration and liberal consequences would flow. He recognized the necessity of pluralism in the aftermath of two world wars, decades before the technological and economic forces that have had a hand in dissolving traditional barriers.
We’re hardly more saintly than the generations before us, but our more globally conscious choices and lifestyles will cumulatively impact on the evolution of our cultures toward a cosmopolitan and pluralist dawn. From increasing cross-cultural dialogue to channeling greater stores of creativity toward global problems, who knows how we’ll guide the Zeitgeist? So watch out for us. We’ll be watching out for the world. We have no choice.
Delphine Schrank is a writer at The Washington Post and will reside in DC until the call of the Wanderer sounds again.
Photo by Giada Ripa di Meana, www.giadaripa.net
Almost all the adults I know think that learning a foreign language in adulthood is impossible. “I’m terrible with languages,” they say.
Linguists agree, at least in part. Steven Pinker, for one, thinks the “language instinct” is lost somewhere around puberty. Children are linguistic geniuses, adults linguistic dolts. Pinker points out that Walter Kissinger (Henry’s younger brother) has no German accent, though sixty years after his emigration, Henry famously does. They came to the United States at the same time, in the crucial years around puberty. Walter’s advantage, Pinker surmises, was being a few years younger than his brother when they moved. This allowed him to absorb more English and kick his accent. (According to Pinker, the accent is as much a part of the language instinct as is grammar.)
Learning a language in adulthood is difficult—nothing can replace the childhood environment, much less the childhood brain. However, with patience and persistence, it can be done. To produce a foreign language requires more than lips, teeth and tongue—it requires ears, eyes and mental agility. You must listen carefully and then imitate.
Language is like jazz: both are spontaneous compositions derived from a finite set of elements (notes or words). But the jazz analogy may compel people to think that they simply don’t have the talent. What they don’t realize is how obsessively John Coltrane practiced, repeating scales and arpeggios over and over again to build up the skills he would need to make that freeform composition on the stage seem so effortless.
It is exactly the same way when composing a foreign language.
I’ve learned Spanish, German, French, Portuguese and Russian—all post-puberty. And recently, I started Arabic—by far the hardest language I’ve studied. Though I was frustrated at first, now that I have a better teacher and a good textbook, I’m making rapid progress. Every student of language is different, but here are some strategies that have helped me:
Slow and steady. Regular practice is by far the most important element in learning a language. Students often try to cram as much into their heads as fast as they can which leads to frustration and fatigue. If taking a class, they are exposed to the language only one to three times a week, plus the time they spend on homework.
It is far more helpful to spend five minutes twice a day, every day, thinking, reading and talking in the language. Where and when, though? As you learn, practice out loud whenever you are alone. While you walk to the train station, or sit in stop-and-go traffic, review to yourself. Start simple: “I go to work. I am in the car. I live in New York.” Repeat these basics over and over, and then vary the subject. “Steve goes to work. Steve is in his car. Steve lives in New York.” Repeat, repeat, repeat. You will then feel a thrill as you proceed to compound sentences, tenses, and modal verbs (should, would, must, may). “I am going to work, because I have to. I live in New York, and I love it here.” Those steps beyond baby talk are exciting.
Take a class. If you live in any medium-sized city, a foreign-language class is not hard to find. If you are in a big city, you will be spoiled for choice. New York University, for example, offers dozens of classes in a wide variety of languages from Norwegian to Yiddish to Persian, for around $450 a semester. Attending a class is the single best way to motivate yourself—the desire to impress a teacher and classmates will help keep you on task. If you have the means to get a private tutor, even better. But be sure to get a recommendation from a knowledgeable friend—not every native speaker is a good teacher.
Teach yourself. Learning a foreign language all by yourself is extremely difficult—and probably not a good idea if it’s your first one. However, if you decide to go the autodidact route, make sure to buy top-notch books, audio CDs, and computer programs.
A good book can get you far in a language with an easy spelling system, like Spanish or Italian. I’ve found Routledge’s “Colloquial” series to be fairly good. But for languages with irregular spelling (French or Danish, say), or unfamiliar sounds (Chinese or Hindi), it’s better to get a book that comes with audio CDs. The “Ultimate” series from Random House has a straightforward, building-block structure, with practical vocabulary and lucid explanations.
Computer software has something to offer as well. But don’t expect miraculous results. I reviewed the Danish version of the widely marketed Rosetta Stone series here. Short version: you will learn grammar and vocabulary surprisingly quickly with this novel (and expensive) software, but you won’t learn practical stuff at all. While focusing on grammar building blocks, the program sacrifices basic elements of conversation such as “hello” or “my name is” or “help!” Though you’ll be able to say, “There is not an elephant under the airplane,” I’m not sure you’ll ever have a reason to use this sentence in daily conversation.
Rosetta Stone has another drawback. Each lesson is structured exactly the same—identical exercises in the same order. This is bad practice—different languages pose different challenges. Also, many languages have structures Rosetta Stone isn’t equipped to teach: the Arabic dual number (words have singular, dual and plural endings), the Russian verbal aspect system, the Spanish subjunctive and so forth are all distinctive. Rosetta’s software does not address any of these eccentricities.
Surround yourself. Whenever possible, bring the language into your immediate world. The “10 Minutes a Day” series of books is generally useless, as if written for not particularly bright six-year-olds, but they do come with small stickers you can attach to items all around your house. This is an excellent vocabulary-building technique. If every time you reach for your coffee mug you see chashka (Russian for cup) and you say the word to yourself, it will stick in your head.
Nearly every language in the world can be found on the Internet. The BBC, in fact, broadcasts everything from Spanish to Bengali. (You can check out their 33-language menu here).
As you potter around the house, listen to the day’s news in your language of choice. You don’t need to understand everything, but this will both help you feel the rhythm and become accustomed to the accent. You’ll get a crucial psychological boost when you can make out a few words, then phrases and sentences, in a row. Do this every few days and you’ll be surprised by your progress.
Read. BBC.com also has written material that you can practice with. The news stories in each of those 33 languages are written in a clear, simple style for a worldwide audience. When you’re ready, try to read a news story a week, especially about something you’re familiar with. This is crucial—reading an article about unfamiliar material is distressingly complex. But if you know the subject, it can be pleasantly easy, since you’ll be able to guess many unfamiliar words. You’ll need to start out with a dictionary, but once you learn frequently-used words, you’ll be able to go without it and guess most of the things you don’t know.
You can also read books that have been translated from English into your chosen language—all the better if it’s a book you know. I have a copy of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity in German, for example. Hornby’s clear English is translated into similarly clear German, without some of the convoluted sentence structures many native Germans use. I know the original book and movie, so I myself can zip through it.
When you are ready to move to the next level and read unfamiliar books in this language, ask a native which authors write in an easy, clear style. If you were helping a foreigner try to learn English, for example, you would suggest Hemingway, not David Foster Wallace. Similarly, someone learning German would do well to start with Kafka rather than Thomas Mann.
Find a friend who speaks the language. This is obvious, but practice with a native speaker is enormously helpful. If you’re lucky enough to have a good friend who is a native speaker—or best of all, a girlfriend/boyfriend or housemate (someone you see all the time)—take advantage of him or her. Don’t wait until you feel totally comfortable, or you’ll never start. Make it fun, make it a routine, and do so early.
Relax. The biggest hurdle to learning a language is psychological. If you’re nervous about blundering through a new language in front of strangers, the best way to relax is to start slowly. At a local coffee shop staffed exclusively by young Polish blondes, I take my muffin and coffee away with a “dziekuje.” (Thank-you.) My pronunciation isn’t perfect, but it never fails to win a slightly surprised smile. Next step? I’ll order the coffee in Polish, too. Then, I’ll try “goodbye.”
When you’re ready and have the chance, smile and try speaking with your teacher in the corridor, your cute Russian co-worker, the man who sells you cigarettes, or the waiter at your favorite restaurant. See that grin? Most people love to see you make the effort, and they will be happy to see you break out new vocabulary and longer sentences.
If you kick yourself for every little slip-up (and you’ll make many), you’ll never progress. If you relax, simply communicate, and most of all enjoy, you can, with patience and effort, learn any language you want.
Lane Greene is an international correspondent for The Economist: he writes on American foreign policy and international politics for www.economist.com.
