BYUH students and faculty share how living as a “third-culture kid” helped them with more knowledge, confidence and love for different cultures and opportunities to serve
Camilla Marie Fajardo said after growing up in 11 places across the world, she never felt like she had to choose one identity or culture over the others. “I just felt accepted,” said Fajardo, a political science junior. “The greatest thing I have learned through my experiences living in different countries is you don’t have to choose just one [identity].”
Fajardo lived the life of a “third-culture kid,” a term that refers to children who are raised in cultures other than their parents’ or their country of nationality for a significant amount of time, according to Merriam-Webster.com. Celia Omae, another BYUH student and third-culture child, along with Jaimee and Jim Neel, two parents who raised third-culture children, shared similar sentiments with Fajardo, explaining how growing up globally can positively shape a person’s identity.
Learning outside of her comfort zone
Due to Fajardo’s father’s job as a U.S. diplomat, she said she has lived in Utah, Washington D.C., Peru, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Costa Rica, New York City, Singapore, Germany, Uzbekistan and the United Arab Emirates. Her parents also share an intercultural marriage, she said, as her dad is from Utah and her mom is from Brazil.
Fajardo said she credits her mom as the reason she was able to have such a culturally rich childhood. “She loves learning about new cultures and cooking. She’s super outgoing and talks to everyone. She would always be talking with people outside.” She said her mom’s outgoing and curious nature helped her entire family immerse themselves more fully in the local cultures where they lived. Specifically, Fajardo said she recalls the many Muslim friends her mother made in Uzbekistan and how even though there were established bases in Germany for families like hers to live in, Fajardo’s mother insisted they live among the locals.
Fajardo said of all the places she lived, Uzbekistan helped her grow the most as a person. She said practicing speaking in a foreign language could be intimidating, and when her family first moved there, she “was scared to speak with people.” She added meeting English speakers among the locals was rare. “Taking the taxi alone, you have to know how to say where you want to go in Russian. [When] going to the market, you have to [know how to say] ‘I want two bread.’” Despite how hard it was at first, she said it ended up being a good growing experience for her. “[It] really helped with my self-esteem. Before, I didn’t like attention. I wasn’t as outgoing,” she said.
Another aspect of living in Uzbekistan that helped push her out of her comfort zone was attending church, she said. “In Uzbekistan, the predominant religion is Islam. For church, we didn’t have a building or a place to worship.” She added there were only three or four families of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints where she lived in Uzbekistan. Every month, she shared, one of the families would take a turn holding church in their home each week. She said she saw the contrast of their small meetings as opposed to large wards she had previously been in. She explained instead of spending time in church listening to and learning from more outspoken peers her age, she felt like she “had to take on more of a role of teaching other people and [her] siblings.” Though the church looked different in each country, Fajardo said attending church regularly helped her become more confident. Knowing she would have people to worship with each week provided her with a sense of stability during moves, she said.
One of the biggest lessons she said she learned by living in different countries was, “Heavenly Father wants every one of His children to return to live with Him. It’s not just one group, one religion or one people. He loves each and every one of us and each one of us has worth, potential and a role in His plan.”
Fajardo said she heard Muslim prayers daily, five times a day, while she was in Uzbekistan. She shared, “There’s someone who’s saying the prayer on the [mosque’s] speaker, and you can hear it all down [the streets]. It’s like this beautiful, almost music-like prayer.” She said though she did not understand the words of the prayers, it was “very peaceful.”
Fajardo shared her amazement at Muslims’ commitment to their prayer practice and how it helped strengthen her relationship with prayer. She said, “Even if they were driving and they couldn’t go to a mosque, they would pull over in their cars and put their prayer rugs down and pray ... That is just so beautiful.” She said their level of gratitude to God was inspirational because she felt like many members of the Church treat prayer as an item on a checklist that can be put off until the next day if too tired or busy. She said it is important to, “bring meaning back to prayer. It’s conversing with our Heavenly Father, showing gratitude for Him and all that He’s given.”
Finding cultural identity
Jaimee and Jim Neel, both adjunct instructors in the Faculty of Business & Government, said they believe the opportunity to live all over the world was a wonderful experience for their four children. They were both employed by the U.S. Department of State in the Foreign Service, so their family lived in Brazil, China, Kenya, Egypt, England, Greece and Oahu. Jaimee Neel said each move created conflicting feelings for their children. “We were always really excited because we were looking forward to the new thing, but it [was] sad to leave behind friends. [You wish you] could have done more in the country.”
Jim Neel said while leaving international school friends could be difficult for their children, knowing they and their friends would be moving about every three years, “set expectations. And I think it contributed to this resilience and making the best of the situation.”
However, Jaimee Neel said being members of the Church, a small community within the Foreign Service, created a unique situation where their family would regularly run into other member families. “There’s one family we served with three times,” she said. In fact, the Neels said two of their children have been able to reconnect with childhood friends at BYU in Provo.
Ultimately, Jim Neel said many third culture children they interacted with, like his own, wouldn’t be able to adapt well to growing up globally if they “didn’t know any different.” However, Jim Neel said he noticed young teenagers who had lived in America their whole lives and were uprooted suddenly to go overseas often struggled.
Jim Neel said it was a huge priority to them that their children grow up with a strong American identity. He said being associated with the American embassy provided them with a built-in American community. Though not all students at the international schools were American, teaching their children using American curriculum often drew in American teachers, other Americans in the community and American supporters. This created opportunities, “to do Halloween and trick-or-treating ... [Even non-Americans] were excited to do Fourth of July, and around the community there would be baseball, Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts.”
Additionally, rather than traveling around the world when their work gave them vacation time, he said they would intentionally return to the United States. Experiencing things like rodeos and visiting family in Las Vegas, Hawaii and Utah helped their children form a strong American identity, Jim Neel said. Jaimee Neel shared she was also grateful their family and friends were eager to travel to visit them. “We had a lot of milestones for our kids overseas. Like our son got his Eagle Scout award in Beijing and family and friends came out to support,” he added.
Jim Neel also said their children seemed to develop a strong identity while living in Greece because of their history lessons on the history of racism in the United States. He said this educational experience overseas helped them to develop a more nuanced sense of national pride. “[Our children] have a much more wide-eyed view of America’s problems with racism, gun violence, lack of universal healthcare, lack of welfare, lack of access to education,” Jim Neel shared. “For them to see those problems that America has and then still embrace it and have an American identity is a much more mature level of patriotism that I think most Americans don’t get to until they’re in college where they start to have critical theory about U.S. history.” Jim Neel expressed his pride for his children, nothing that for “[their children] to identify as American, they were viewing the most negative comments about America and then having to make their peace with it.”
Accepting other cultures
Celia Omae, a junior from Papua New Guinea studying psychology, said although living in Tonga and Fiji during high school was difficult, she was grateful for the opportunity to grow and explore different cultures. “It was a good experience in which I learned to put myself out there with them. How to mingle. How to live together,” she said.
Having attended Liahona High School and Fiji LDS Church College, Omae said she was exposed to different Pacific Island cultures throughout her adolescence. With a laugh, she shared her experience of feeling tiny among her Tongan classmates as she would walk the school hallway with her backpack. She added she enjoyed learning how gender norms can vary from culture to culture. Back in Port Moresby, she said women were expected to be independent and do everything by themselves, but she saw other cultures sometimes treat women as “queens.”
However, she said it was not all easy. Omae said learning to understand the Tongan sense of humor was difficult for her. She said she often felt offended and angered by her classmates’ comments. She explained, “They love to tease. It’s not common back home. If you tease, you tease to a certain limit, but if you go over that, that’s a totally different story.” Omae shared it was also hard for her to learn a new language. “I had to learn the [Fijian] language at some point because I lived with people who couldn’t speak fluent English ... I had to try my best to find ways to communicate with them,” she said.
Omae said she learned many lessons about cultural understanding the hard way during her experiences living abroad. Her advice to anyone moving to a new place with a different culture was to “put yourself in their shoes and walk ...You’ll better understand those different cultures, different people, their attitude, behavior ... Just embrace what comes toward you.”