I Am A Tck, Or A Third Culture Kid

Am I Mexican,or am I American? One day, I was thinking about how I had to work twice as hard to embrace them both to please both cultures. I then realized that if I am working to please them both,then I am both. Speaking a language is not a due to pay to be who I am. There is no checklist to qualify for,and no test to pass,you are who you are. I am a bridge that has its beams planted in both sides of the Mexican-American border. When school began and I enrolled in honor level Spanish classes, I did it, not because people thought I had to,but because it will be beneficial to my life. People would sometimes tell me the stereotypical things they believed about hispanics,such as the beliefs that we are lazy. Instead of tearing me down, that only made my work ethic head into overdrive. Confining to others expectations was not what I wanted for myself. Like the bridge between the two cultures,I would stand tall and remain unaffected by the remarks people threw at me. Growing up as a Mexican-American has proven to have its challenges,but I am grateful. These trials have helped make me into the person that I am today,and has given me a different perspective on life than the average

Where are you from? It is a simple question yet; it is difficult to answer as an immigrant who has lived in multiple places. I was born in Lagos, Nigeria. A few years after my birth, my dad's job required my family to move to the United States. My family first "settled" down in Walnut Creek, California; however, less than a year later, we moved down to Houston where just like in California, we lived for less than a year before being catapulted to the beautiful yet cold country to the north of the border: Canada. After living in so many places and being exposed to many different societies, I never found a culture that I fully identified with. Instead, I now identify as not only a first generation Nigerian immigrant but also as a global citizen.

To be a part of two different cultures at the same time seems almost impossible. A wise man once said, “you cannot serve two masters, you either hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other”. Now those wise words weren’t talking about cultures and communities, but rather

What is it like to be born in one country and then grow up in another where people speak a different language and follow different traditions? And is it easy to grow up in another country where members of the native country pressure one to be "one of their own"? If anyone wishes to find insightful and interesting answers to these questions, one should go no further than read Lac Su's I Love Yours Are for White People. In this book, Lac tells the story of his child- and adolescent-hood, growing up in "urban" Los Angeles as a Vietnamese living with a "traditional" Vietnamese family. As Lac demonstrates in the book, he once was between two worlds, sometimes unable to figure out who he was, and sometimes rejecting one or the other altogether. After going through difficult and painful experiences, Lac learns to embrace his ethnic identity. He realizes that he is a Vietnamese-American who belongs to both cultures. He learns to appreciate his Vietnamese background but also acknowledges that he is partly American because some Vietnamese habits are so uncommon for him.

Unfortunately, the concept of identifying with a heritage group one is not born of can be looked upon with disdain by others. Two more points the author makes is that Americans appreciate their individuality, yet our unique backgrounds help to continually form our blended culture (Rodriguez 730).

I was born in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and live in the U.S. I went to Lowell High School and took all ESL because I didn’t know much about English. In order to succeed, I started to read and speak more English than my first language, yet I speak Khmer at home because my parent doesn 't want me to lose my native language. In America, there are a lot of immigrants that are trying to come and to get a better opportunity. According to Joel Swerdlow, in “Changing America,” “before 1965 more than three-quarters of all immigrants to the U.S. came from Europe, owing largely to quotas that favored northern Europeans.” (313). In 1965 Congress removed those quotas, and since then more than 60 percent of immigrants have come from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Latin America. However, do children of immigrants often feel they must lose their cultural identity in order to be American? Children of immigrants often feel they must lose their cultural identity because they are changing their own culture identity regarding three topics: Language, Dress, and Behavior.

Imagine you are an African Canadian, born in Canada but your parents are not. You grow up having Yoruba (a native Nigerian language) as your first language, but as you start school, you notice that your classmates speak English; no one basically understands what exactly Yoruba is, or even has the slightest idea where Nigeria is located. As time goes on, you learn how to speak English excellently and have lots of Canadian friends. Though, as you get older and mature, you find yourself at cultural ends with your parents and you come to a realization that you share minute cultural values with your Canadian friends and have very little things in common with them, background wise. You then begin to wonder, who do I identify with more?

My first recollection about my cultural background started in junior high school because this is when people start fitting into groups or cliques and people tend to be in groups with their friends. The different types of groups included the preps, jocks, band geeks, hoods, druggies, and bookworms to name a few examples. Of course, I was not into sports so much or band, however, I fit with many different groups because I had friends that belonged to different things, however, I was more of a bookworm because I was concerned about doing well in school. People that were considered outsiders were people that were loners, troublemakers, or anyone that did not fit with a specific group. In addition, sometimes it was difficult to be involved with other groups because sometimes I hung around with people that might be considered outsiders and that did not always work because people in my group were not so understanding.

I come from a Chinese-Vietnamese background. Though I do not have Vietnamese blood in me, my parents were born and raised in Vietnam; just like how I was born and raised in America. I grew up with the privilege of learning many languages such as Vietnamese, Cantonese, Mandarin, and even a bit of French. I grew up eating may different things such as dim sum, hot pot, Hong shao niu rou, and more. Growing up as a Chinese-Vietnamese-American was very confusing. I was a living contradiction. My family said one thing, yet American society said another. In Vietnam, I wasn't seen as a "true Asian" and in America, I wasn't viewed as a "true American". It was very frustrating, but as I grew up and learned about the world and myself, I am willing to

I was born in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and live in the U.S. I went to Lowell High School and took all ESL because I didn’t know much about English. In order to succeed, I started to read and speak more English than my first language, yet I speak Khmer at home because my parent doesn 't want me to lose my native language. In America, there are a lot of immigrants that are trying to come and to get a better opportunity. According to Joel Swerdlow, in “Changing America,” “before 1965 more than three-quarters of all immigrants to the U.S. came from Europe, owing largely to quotas that favored northern Europeans.” (313). In 1965 Congress removed those quotas, and since then more than 60 percent of immigrants have come from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Latin America. However, do the children of immigrants often feel they must lose their cultural identity in order to be an American? Children of immigrants often feel they must lose their cultural identity because they are changing their own cultural identity regarding three topics: Language, Dress, and Behavior.

I was born in Taiwan, when I was eleven years old, my family have immigrated to a small town in Eastern Kentucky. Moving from a mostly homogeneous society to a heterogeneous society was quite a change for our family, it has also open my eyes to culture conflicts. Growing up, I’ve define my race as Asian, and my ethnicity as Taiwanese-American, at home my parents speak mainly Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese, and we ate mostly Taiwanese food at home, however I have been socialized and adapted into the American culture in school, and with my peers. Consequently, as I grow older, I’ve identify myself with both culture and heritages. I have made an effort to not forget my native languages and my native culture values, instead, I’ve try my best to make the best out of both cultures.

Growing up with two different Heritages is like growing up in two different worlds, it was tough growing up being Native and Hispanic I would either get made fun of because I was Native or I was made fun of for being Hispanic. I guess you can say that I have somewhat of a different life, living with any Hispanic family but considering myself more Native, because just at home i just speak spanish, and eat amazing food made by my mother who isn’t even Hispanic who’s just Native American who didn’t consider herself Native American because she herself lived with my grandmother or she lived with a family friend who was Hispanic and showed her things about a culture that she didn’t know anything about.

Additional considerations may arise when the child’s ethnic identity is being developed by parents who come from two different cultures [or different from their biological family]. The child then has to face integrating these two cultures... The child’s struggle to adjust, and desire, to belong… can place them at odds with being different from their family members. (p.

For example, in high school I concentrated on my studies and then in sophomore year I finally got into honors math class. When I told everyone of my achieved statue, that I was now an “honor student” nobody cared. The responds that I often hear was “ of course your good in math your Chinese”. They all assumed that because I was Chinese, had Chinese parents, looked Chinese there were certain subjects that I was automatically good at. Those were some of the more common stereotypes that I personally have experienced in my middle and high school

My ethnicity plays a huge part of my cultural identity. My family originates fully from different parts of Russia and the former Soviet Union. I have been to Russia twice, the first time when I was about nine months old(I don't remember anything) and the second time is when I was seven. Usually when a person goes to a place that they have never been to the experience a cultural shock, but I didn't because I was raised in a similar culture as the one I visited. As a Russian I grew up having my parents tell me that I have to speak only Russian at home so then when I grow up and marry and have kids, I would be able to teach my (future) children their native language. My parents taught me to read, write and speak in proper russian, and the same is expected of me. I also grew up eating a lot of Russian food, the most common ones I had were borsh- a beet and cabbage red soup. Blini- our version of the French Crȇpe