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I love watching people learn and help them to become their best selves.

Being a TCK teaching other tcks I feel immense passion and I try my best to help kids navigate situations I struggled with in school. (plus a perspective of a future for them)

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The perspective of being a global citizen rather that stuck in one rut has come with feelings of empathy and emotions for all members of the world.

It's a global community and we all suffer when one is suffering. I guess it's just greater compassion for the world and your own narrow perspective not being able to capture everything.

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I actually was the person who stayed.... Which almost had the same effect.
My friends would leave every 2-5 years and it was almost like being stuck...

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My mother had been gifted the TCK book and it was a term I latched onto in middle school as a way to combat the awfulness of middle school girls.

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1994- Born in Hong Kong
1996- Moved to New Delhi, India
1998- Moved to Chennai, India
2012- Moved to Holland Michigan (Uni)
2016- Moved to HCMC Vietnam
2017- Moved to Cairo, Egypt
2019- Moved back to HCMC, Vietnam

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I didn't get to make friends and learn skills like you guys did. My whole tck experience was lonely and traumatic and I am not a fan of life in general.

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I am stuck with this stupid English when there is a whole world of other languages out there. I'm stuck with the language of a dying empire.

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I have always been judged for the way I speak both English and Spanish, but am learning to fall in love with the way I speak both. I remember one of the best positive experiences I had speaking English was meeting someone through an app in Tampa. I sent them an audio in English and he automatically recognized me since we took a class in college together. In Spanish, I don't believe I have an accent unique to me. People say I sound Venezuelan and I'm not sure how I picked up that accent exactly but I roll with it hahah. However, the way I speak it is unique in the sense that I use slang terms not just from Colombia, but from some of the other cultures I have been surrounded by growing up.

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I started listening to podcasts about a year after moving back to Colombia and found one called Modern Immigrant. The first episode I listened to was an interview with a Venezuelan who grew up in various countries, including France and the United States. She explained what a TCK was and. verbalized exactly what I live culturally: being in the middle of two or more cultures.

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2001 - born in Hialeah (Miami) 🇺🇸
2001-2003 - Weston 🇺🇸
2003-2004 - Barranquilla 🇨🇴
2004-2009 - Tampa 🇺🇸/Barranquilla 🇨🇴 (traveled back and forth)
2010-2021 - Tampa 🇺🇸 while only going to Barranquilla once every year to visit family
2021-present - Medellin 🇨🇴

My mom is from Barranquilla 🇨🇴 and my dad is from Ohio 🇺🇸. They met in Miami. My mom arrived there after being publicly fired since her boss at the time blamed her for his fraudulent activity. My dad arrived to Miami for better job opportunities and for a change of environment. I was born in Hialeah, a city on the outsides of Miami. I grew up in between both the Colombian and American cultures. I did not migrate to many countries growing up. Apart from Colombia and the US, I have only visited one country: Panama 🇵🇦. However, I grew up surrounded by people of various countries, principally from Latin America, and culturally, I feel like I have the best of both Latin America and North America! In 2021, I decided to move back to Colombia, but this time to Medellin, where I currently reside today.

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As a young kid, it was difficult moving all the time. We moved for my stepdad’s job and luckily, I was close with my two younger brothers so I always had playmates. We often moved mid-year which was unfortunate, and I still remember having kids throw rocks at me when I was the new kid walking home from school when I was eight years old!

Moving to Taipei American School (TAS) in 1982 when I was in 10th grade was the first positive moving experience of my life (once I got there!). The expat experience at TAS was fabulous. The students were very friendly and it was easy to make life-long friendships. I learned a lot about myself during the three years I was at TAS, developed leadership skills from the many opportunities available through sports and student government, and gained confidence. Moving to the US for college was a bit of a culture shock as initially I was not able to replicate the relationships I had in high school, but over time, I was able to take the skills I had developed in high school, interacting with people from all over the world and apply that to whatever environment I found myself. From that point on I have found every move an adventure and an opportunity to meet new people and learn about a new place. Though initially I am sometimes a bit nervous stepping into an unknown space, I find that having moved SO many times I am able to make a connection with just about anyone.

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1967 – 1975 – Washington DC, USA

1975-1976 – San Francisco, CA USA

1976-1977 – Washington DC, USA

1977 – 1979 – San Francisco, CA USA

1980 – Washington DC, USA

1980 –1982 -  San Francisco, CA USA

1982-1985 – Taipei, Taiwan

1985-1989 – Santa Barbara, CA USA

1989 – Orlando, FL USA

1990 – Idaho Falls, ID USA

1990 – 1993 – Seattle, WA USA

1993 – 1995 – Monterey, CA USA

1995-1996 – Groton, CT USA

1996 – 1997 – Seattle, WA USA

1997 – 2000 – Washington DC, USA

2000 – 2006 – Boston, MA USA

2006 – 2009 – Taipei, Taiwan

2009 – now – Melbourne, Australia

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for me, multilingualism means freedom and pressure at the same time. on the one hand, I am free to express my feelings and thoughts in so many different ways and can get different perspectives through each language. on the other hand, I feel the pressure to be equally fluent in the three languages that I learned growing up which I'm not sure is even possible. The concept of translanguaging has helped me overcome this a little more. It's made me realize that I am not three monolinguals combined, but that the way I use language is its own unique way that uses all of the languages I have in my repertoire. (insert Kanako's froyo analogy). therefore, I don't have to hold myself to the high standards to be 100% perfect without accent in my languages because it is just not realistic all the time.

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Growing up at international schools - French and English - were my safe space. Everyone understood the life you live and why, some more so than others, so it was mostly about finding your people in a new place. The education received was undeniably better than what my parent's passport countries could provide.
Sports or an extracurricular activity usually help since you can play/do said activity at each school. I even had the chance to play basketball at 1 school, for a coach who was the PE teacher at my previous school - it was wonderful to see a familiar face on my first day.
It's been a long time since I thought about International Schools and their place in my journey, but I don't know who I'd be without them. I received an incredible education, along side amazing individuals. I didn't realize how lucky I was until I went to college. Freshman year was a little too easy at a state university despite being accepted into a specialized program (HTM). It was in university when I first stepped outside my safe space, it was hard to understand others, they didn't understand me. I was the odd one out now, with no place to return over the holidays, no car ( didn't even know how to drive), no idea grocery stores had so many options, never been to in n out. I was the one being asked "where are you from?" "why isn't your family coming?" "how do you speak English so well" etc... it took a toll on my mental health.
And I guess I didn't understand my safe space until I was without it.The teachers, the teams, the counselors who showed me what safe space meant, the teacher who was my mentor and became my friend (to this day), the life long friends I've made around the world, the scandals that brought us back together to grieve, the terrifying stories that still make us laugh inappropriately... Safe Space.

(Sorry about the long ramble <3)

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1990-1991: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia & Khartoum, Sudan
1991-1993: Brisbane, Australia
1993-1995: Barnes, England
1995-1997: Pointe Noire, Congo
1997-2002: Tiburon, California
2002-2006: Moscow, Russia
2006-2008: Caracas, Venezuela
2008-2011: San Diego, California
2011-2013: San Diego,CA, Bangkok, Thailand, and Hua Hin, Thailand (flew back and forth over summers, holidays etc for internships or school)
2013: Dubai, UAE (6months)
2014-2016: Koh Samui and Hua Hin, Thailand
2016-now: Bay Area, California

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I discovered the term TCK in 2021 when I was looking for like-minded people and wanted to find out more about cross-cultural childhood. I'd heard it before but maybe misunderstood it or thought it wouldn't relate to me 🙊 I'm not sure where I saw it again, probably instagram or YouTube. I read more and more about it and couldn't ignore the subject anymore because I felt so seen 😊

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Talked about issues and provided support to children AND parents 

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Talked about issues and provided support to children AND parents 

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https://internationaltherapistdirectory.com/

This is how I found the therapist that helped me work through a lot of unresolved TCK grief and loss. The value of a therapist that understands our experience is invaluable.

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Families in Global Transition is a welcoming forum for globally mobile individuals, families, and those working with them. We promote cross-sector connections for sharing research and developing best practices that support the growth, success and well-being of people crossing cultures around the world.

https://www.figt.org/

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1995 - 1997: Osaka, Japan
1997 - 2000: Tokyo, Japan
2000 - 2005: Yokohama, Japan
2005 - 2010: Taipei, Taiwan
2010 - 2013: Osaka, Japan
2013 - 2017: Boston, USA
2017 - 2022: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
2022 - now: Chiang Mai, Thailand

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Thank you for contributing to this collection of TCK stories. The teachers taking my course will go through these videos to learn from real life experiences of TCKs, then brainstorm some ways in which they can prepare, support, and maybe even prevent some of these issues.

You can post as a writing, a video, an audio clip... whatever format you are comfortable with. I appreciate any and all contributions to this page.

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1995 - 1997: Osaka, Japan
1997 - 2000: Tokyo, Japan
2000 - 2005: Yokohama, Japan
2005 - 2010: Taipei, Taiwan
2010 - 2013: Osaka, Japan
2013 - 2017: Boston, USA
2017 - 2022: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
2022 - now: Chiang Mai, Thailand