Story by Mishri Someshwar

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 – Growing up in France wasn’t easy for Tanith Fowler-Corsi. Although she was born and raised there, she lived differently than her French friends and classmates.

“We spoke English at home, followed American traditions and culture,” she said.

Going back to the United States for college in 1988 wasn’t easy. “I felt like a fish out of water,” Fowler-Corsi said. “When I was in France, I felt I wasn’t French, and when I was in the U.S., I felt like I wasn’t American.”

During her junior year at the University of California-Riverside, an adviser introduced her to the term “global nomad.” Finding out that there was a name for people like her made her feel better.

Fowler-Corsi belongs to a growing but nearly invisible worldwide group known as “third-culture kids” or global nomads. Third-culture kids are people who have spent some or all of their formative years in a foreign country. They usually live overseas because of their parents’ occupations that often include diplomatic, military or missionary work. Sociologist Ruth Hill Useem coined the term third-culture kid in the 1960s.

Libby Stephens, who works for Interaction International, a group that conducts seminars for such children, said that there are two main traits of a third-culture kid.

“There is high mobility in his life – either he is moving or others around him are moving in and out,” Stephens said. “And then you have the cross-cultural factor, that is, his relationships not just with people of the host country, but also the cultures of his friends who are highly mobile.

“Third culture refers to the cultural relationship these children form with the country in which they live. A child raised in Bolivia by American parents, for example, is neither American nor Bolivian, but belongs to a third group or culture, despite what his or her passport says.”

Unlike Fowler-Corsi, Caroline Ward wasn’t born overseas. She moved to Japan with her family when she was 7. Adjusting to Tokyo was difficult at first.

“It’s overwhelming – looking out of the car window, seeing strange license plates and people who do not look like you,” Ward said. “I have red hair, which made me stand out in Japan. People would stare, and that would get awkward.”

Ward’s family moved back to the United States in 2001.

“There are no clear-cut numbers on global nomads because they are a hidden population,” Stephens said. “They are nearly invisible in their passport country because they look like everyone else, even though they do not feel like everyone else.”

Making friends

Brian Lenius moved to Germany at 15 and went to an American military high school in Frankfurt. He said making friends was easier there than it was in his high school in Virginia because his classmates in Germany were military children like him.

“Most of them were American expatriates. Some had grown up overseas, and some had moved recently to Germany, just like me,” he said.

Like Lenius, Ward said that it was easy to make friends in her new school.

“Half the class was new every year because many children moved every two years, especially those whose parents were in the military or diplomatic services,” Ward said. “Kids were used to that and used to making new friends.”

Ronald Koteskey, a consultant to many overseas missionary families, said it is easier for third-culture kids to make friends with fellow third-culture kids.

“They have a different world view, and they tend to find each other,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if they stayed in the same country or not. It’s mostly about their way of thinking,”

Global nomads frequently marry other global nomads. Fowler-Corsi’s husband, Giancarlo, is a global nomad. The couple met at international student orientation at American University.

Giancarlo Corsi said, in his case, he does not feel more connected to global nomads than other people, many of whom struggle to make friends.

“There are a lot of global nomads who tend to keep very much to themselves because they’ve had everything around them change,” he said. “There might be very few people they make friends with along the way, and they will latch on to these friends like an octopus, because for many global nomads, making a friend is something sacred.”

Moving “home”

Lenius said moving back to the United States was one of the most difficult times in his life. He returned to go to the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay in 1985.

“I didn’t have a choice,” he said. His parents were only willing to pay for his college education if he went to college in Wisconsin or Indiana, where they had residency. “The place I went to college was a small town. Frankfurt has three million people, whereas here, the nearest town had 300 people.”

Lenius missed the camaraderie with people who had a similar life to his.

“There was a lack of opportunity for more cultural experiences,” Lenius said. “I explored subcultures in Wisconsin, but they were pretty tame.”

Koteskey said returning “home” brings a host of problems for the global nomads.

“The ranges of problems are broad – from depression and anxiety, all the way to something as simple as filling out income tax forms,” he said. “Others try to figure out their careers or complain that their peers in the U.S. seem so superficial and materialistic.”

Some nomads maintain that the transition isn’t that difficult. Ward said the only thing that challenged her was her inadequate understanding of U.S. culture. “I missed out on the TV shows and all the cultural references,” she said.

Upside, downside

Erica Lee, a junior at the University of Virginia who grew up in Taiwan, said there are advantages and disadvantages of being a global nomad.

“I love being able to know and have experienced two extremely different cultures,” she said. “I feel that, coming from both an American and Chinese culture, it’s easier for me to understand other cultures without being as biased.”

Lee said the main disadvantage she faces is identifying who she is. “While I can identify with both Chinese and American cultures, it’s hard for me to define if I’m American or Chinese. Being away from America so long, I feel like I am no longer ‘American’ due to my lack of knowledge in various aspects, like current famous people, certain television shows.”

On the other hand, Ward said she doesn’t feel a detachment from American life.

Ward’s biggest challenge, however, is not having friends from “home,” like most college kids.

“My winter and spring breaks are spent more with family than with friends I grew up with, and I sometimes wish I was able to see those friends more often,” she said.

Would you go back?

Stephens said about 12 percent of global nomads who return to their “home” country move overseas as adults, at least for some time. With missionaries’ children, the rate is about 25 percent.

Fowler-Corsi said she does not wish to move overseas but would like to continue to travel.

“I like having a home base for my job and personal life,” she said.

Stephens said that regardless of what they say, change and movement are inevitable parts of the third-culture kids’ lives.

“They realize that change is normal, even though they may not like it, so they find a job that requires travel, or they move a lot,” Stephens said. “You have some who say they’ll never move again, but if you look at their lives, you’ll see that they have changes in their lives. They frequently re-decorate their house, change jobs frequently and so on.”

Regardless of where they live, global nomads will have a tremendous impact on the world as their numbers increase, Stephens said.

“I believe this is how the globe is going to go, and if countries don’t recognize this population and the challenges they have and the advantages they bring, then it will cost them on the international market.”