I belong everywhere and nowhere. |
Like many TCKs [third culture kids] and persons of mixed ancestry, I have searched all my life for “home”. In late 2012 I relocated to the Los Angeles area after more than two decades in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City. L.A.’s a good place for in-between-ers like me. In this sprawling metropolis with no center, a place that’s in a perpetual state of fragmentation, disintegration, and transformation and whose population represents every culture and nation, I can enjoy a sense of internal and external spaciousness. But it’s a restless city and its vast size lends itself to tribalism. As a relative newcomer, it’s been challenging to find a place of belonging. But then I’m reminded that, as an adult TCK who’s moved over 40 times since my birth, I’ve always felt this way, no matter where I’ve lived. I belong everywhere and nowhere.
Mari L’Esperance, “Liminality as Inheritance: On Being Mixed and Third Culture,” Mixed Roots Stories, October 7, 2015. http://mixedrootsstories.com/liminality-as-inheritance-on-being-mixed-and-third-culture/.
Tags: Mari L'Esperance, Mixed Roots Stories