The student-led Global Student Association at the American School of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil is a mix of Third Culture Kids (TCKs), cross-border citizens and cultural nomads. Some of them have penned glimpses into their lived experiences and reflected on identity, belonging and displacement. As global citizens, they’ve grown up navigating the space between countries, customs and selves. This four-part series highlights youth perspectives at a time when cross-cultural empathy has never been more crucial.
Rebecca Guida Valente — Metamorphosis
(Rebecca Guida Valente was born in Brazil. Her family is entirely Brazilian, but lived in Saudi Arabia for three years, followed by Scotland for five. They returned to Brazil five years ago.)
I’m from Brazil, I live in Brazil, but I don’t feel Brazilian. Strange, huh?
I feel Scottish… Nah, not quite that.
I feel sort of Arab… No, that’s not right either.
A bit of both, maybe? Neither of the two?
I feel… like everything. Multinational.
But for that reason I’m also nothing in particular.
I’m not decisively Brazilian, Scottish or Arab. In Brazil — my own home country — I’m not Brazilian enough. In Scotland, however, I’m too Brazilian and not Scottish enough. The same with Saudi Arabia.
Essentially, those are the three places I’ve lived during my life: Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Scotland and back to Brazil, chronologically. Having the opportunity to embed myself in different cultures is undoubtedly the greatest privilege I’ve had. It’s for that reason that I’m so fluent in English — the language of the world — and where I consider my open-mindness to majorly originate from.
But, it also meant that I lost my fluency in my patriotic language, Portuguese, for example.
Sometimes, the beauties of a third-culture life are at the expense of developing an identity related to your national culture; whilst you broaden your perceptions of the world, it’s at the cost of feeling like your Earth citizenship doesn’t quite correspond to anywhere.
I was born in Brazil and raised there until I was 4 years old. I can only describe the memories from that time as nostalgic: a blurry visual of moments, and a bittersweet taste in my mouth.
I wasn’t yet a Third Culture Kid until my family and I were in the Rio airport, each holding a one-way ticket to Saudi Arabia: my home for the next three years.
I was so young when this occurred that I didn’t have the intellectual capacity to process it — nowadays, if I were to move, I’d definitely overthink it more (What about my friends? What about everything that’s not coming with me?). But, back then, I thought it was just my family’s way of life, our particular lifestyle.
Everyone always asks me specifically what I thought of Saudi Arabia; Scotland is often disregarded since it’s Europe. Instead, it’s the Middle East that’s exotic and interesting. And I always reply that my childhood during those three years in Saudi was golden.
Since we lived in a compound, I could do absolutely anything I wanted: walk anywhere I liked, go to the playground, a friend’s house, rollerskate, bike, you name it! After all, it was secluded and protected, so I’d always be safe.
Nowadays, Saudi is not much more than a chaotic, yellow mosaic. Yellow because of the happiness and naiveté of my childhood (but also because everything’s bathed in a yellow-brownish color due to the sand).
Like I said, I was so young that I didn’t even comprehend that moving to another place involved assimilation and/or adaption. For that reason, I never felt like I had to change or conform myself to the environment.
However, during my time in Edinburgh, my family visited much less our home. In Saudi, we made two visits each year, yet, in Scotland, it was every two years that we made one visit. With that, I adapted a lot more to British culture than developed my own.
For example, I lost my fluency in Portuguese. There were only three things I ever said in my mother tongue: “mamãe” (Mum), “papai” (Dad), and “o que tem pro jantar?” (what’s for dinner?). Everything else was in English, because my life revolved around that language. My school, my friends, the online content I was exposed to.
And so, when my family and I would visit Brazil, I really struggled with expressing myself. I’d just avoid conversing too much because I was afraid I’d make a grammar mistake and everyone would laugh. And for the longest time, that was my biggest embarrassment.
Every time we visited, every time my Mum was asked by our family whether my brother and I speak Portuguese at home, it was the biggest humiliation to me that my Mum invariably replied with “No, no, no, they only speak English.”
“Really?” my family would ask.
“Oh yeah,” my Mum would continue, “they never speak Portuguese.”
That said, for most of my life I felt so restricted by who I was in Brazil around my wider family. Since I could never express myself adequately, I could never have extended, meaningful conversations with them, nor articulate my humor, appreciation or simply convey my personality.
When my family and I would visit Brazil, I really struggled with expressing myself.
Thus, I never felt enough of something. In this case, I never felt Brazilian enough, when in Brazil.
But, in Scotland, I’d feel too Brazilian, despite being much more culturally intertwined with Britain than Brazil.
It’d make me question whether my identity could ever match the location I’m in.
BACK ‘HOME’
I’m now back in my country, and I am truly, so very grateful that I was able to come home. The longer I lived abroad, the stronger the desire of someday being fluent in my mother tongue and being closer to my wider family became.
It’s been five years now since my family and I were in the Edinburgh airport, each holding a one-way ticket to Brazil.
Since then, I’ve developed my Portuguese to the point that I speak it comfortably; I’ve been able to construct significant memories with my cousins because I’ve had deep, funny, delightful and all-the-emotions of conversations with them!
I’ve been able to learn about and strengthen my connection with my patriotic culture.
For most of my life, I felt like an outsider, not really fitting into any group. There still isn’t a group that I truly belong to, but that’s just a result of being such a unique collection of cultures and experiences. In other words, it’s really a hidden message of how privileged of a life I’ve lived.
Charlotte Saltel: Tigers in Zoos Change Their Stripes
(Charlotte Saltel was born and raised for six years in France. Her mother is Portuguese-French and father is French. Her family moved to the United States and lived there for nine years before moving to Brazil.)
When tigers are in the wild, their vibrant burnt orange color stands out against their dark ember stripes. However, research shows that away from their homes and peers in zoos, they begin to look faded, their beautiful fur becoming a blotched copy of what grew there before.
When I moved to Brazil, I thought the same thing would happen to me. I was split between the hope for a new beginning and the fear I’d end up all alone.
Having grown up in Texas, U.S.A., I had grown used to the daily patterns of my life and had started building something for myself. Then suddenly everything flipped upside down as my family migrated to South America.
It hadn’t been the first time we’d made a big move; in fact, I was born in the city of Rennes, France and we only relocated to the United States in 2014. I was extremely shy as a child, but it was there that I was able to blossom into my own, surrounded by my friends and community. However, I was worried that being in a new environment and country would make me that reclusive girl once again.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Third Culture Kids are something I only found out about recently, but it really resonated with me, as someone who struggles with answering the famous “So where are you from?” question.
Although my situation is not a unique one, it is a little different than the normal adolescence other teenagers typically experience.
When we found out that we’d be moving to Brazil, my mom was probably the most excited. Her mother hailed from the small village of Eiras, Portugal, but never had the opportunity to pass down things like her country’s food, music or even language to her five daughters, so we were largely disconnected from the culture. Going to Brazil would at least force us to learn Portuguese, although it wouldn’t exactly be the same one she’d heard growing up. In fact my cousin, after visiting us, decided to move to Portugal for her gap year.
My little brother, despite being able to speak it flawlessly after one and a half years of living in Rio, vehemently refuses to, in support of a move back to the United States. During the first six months of us being in Brazil, I harbored similar feelings and resented my parents for dragging me away from my home. These feelings made me an angry person, and for a while prohibited me from enjoying my life here to the fullest.
Third Culture Kids are something I only found out about recently, but it really resonated with me, as someone who struggles with answering the famous “So where are you from?” question.
It was only once I visited Texas that winter that I found the closure I had maybe been waiting for and was able to have an open mind about the move. My brother, though, still hasn’t been able to do that, which may explain why he feels so strongly about the language. It’s strange to think that neither he nor my sister have any notion of what a French childhood is, because they were born on U.S. soil.
My sister was 6 years old when we relocated here — the same age I was when we left France. I sometimes wonder if she’ll have regrets about her life in Brazil and wish she could go back, or simply see it as a small chapter in the story of her life, like I sometimes think about Rennes.
Looking back at a memoir I wrote in 10th English class with the same name as this article, a 15-year-old me mused: “Maybe, by the time I graduate, my experiences here will completely change who I am.” And I can say with certainty that they have, making me grow as a person and develop skills I might not have had the chance to in a big high school like the one I attended back home.
For example, in a school with more than 200 kids per grade, it was hard to run for things like student council or be close with the teachers. Being at a smaller international school, I do have these opportunities. However, I do miss things like Friday night football games or my theatre program, which in my time there brought me a community I felt safe in.
In that same memoir, I talked a lot about my nagging wonder about whether I would have ended up being a completely different person had I grown up in France instead. Well, I’m someone who truly believes that everything happens for a reason, even though I don’t always realize it in the moment.
As I sit here writing this article, it is truly dawning on me that I love the person I’ve become, even though she’s got a long way to go. And that person wouldn’t be here without all the places I’ve been, people I’ve met, and things I’ve experienced.
I’d say that’s a pretty good reason.
