Being a Third-Culture Kid: Is It Cool?

When I first went to Armenia, it was with a volunteer organization for diasporan Armenians to reconnect and give back to the “motherland.” The initial departure, leaving the US—what was known and familiar—and entering a new country where everything felt unexpected was exciting, but scary. I was unlocking a world that I had never known, and yet it was a part of me. Everything I was experiencing felt like a return to oneself. In the beginning, everything was wonderful and magical. By the end, it was rather stressful, and now I have come to terms with somewhere in the middle.

In the beginning of rediscovering my Armenian roots, I was soaking everything in like a sponge and trying to take ownership as quickly as possible. Then I started to realize certain parts of me were not unique to myself, but rather belonged to being Armenian. I once stood out for the way that I looked—my light olive skin, my deep brown eyes, my wild head of hair. Now I stood smiling next to people who looked related to me. Suddenly, I didn’t look ethnically vague; I looked Armenian.

After the excitement of feeling like I had finally found where I belong wore off, a new feeling set in, one in sharp contrast to the last. I don’t fit in at all. I was reminded of this constantly as I struggled to learn and speak the language. Suddenly, I felt like a stranger in my own home. How would I ever fit in? I wondered. At the same time, the American side of me started to burn up, like a rope set on fire. The identity of being just American was being questioned. I felt stuck between two identities. Am I American, or am I Armenian? Someone who was born and raised in their heritage country will never understand this quandary. My local friends would say, “Don’t try to think too hard about it.” For some reason, they thought they were being comforting by telling me to push past it. While I can now agree to a degree, I still feel that it was not helpful to my internal state of being. As I have spent the last few years running from one side of myself to the other (American ⇔ Armenian), I have finally come to terms with the fact that it is okay to be a third-culture kid.

This realization is almost like a pilgrimage that each diasporan child must go through. No matter when you become aware of your roots—from day one or upon rediscovering them—once you are conscious of it, the journey is hard. But eventually, you realize life is richer this way. You get to live in two worlds, which means you have more to know and enjoy. The difficult part is learning how to balance the two within you.

There are things from one culture that make more sense, and things from the other that do as well. You want to present your findings to the opposite culture, but they reject them. These are the very things that could help them, yet they choose to ignore them. However, I have now moved past feeling frustrated by the other culture’s ignorance and instead come into a beautiful acceptance that God gave me two worlds to live in and love.

I created Edaalia to speak to that third-culture woman, the one who loves the beauty of the East but resides in the West; the one who wants rich colors and organic textures in her wardrobe; the woman who has created a new identity, one different from her parents or peers, yet secretly feels she holds the better perspective of both. This brand is a love letter to you.