Cultural Clash: The Identity Puzzle of Growing Up in Conflicting Cultures
As a TCK, the multiple cultures in your life may sometimes be in conflict with each other. Every culture has its own set of beliefs and ways of life. So what can you do when you want to remain true to yourself and your values, as learned in your home culture when you also want to fit in and be a part of where you are now in your host culture?
Our master’s student intern, Livia, shares a personal essay as she reflects on this very question.
As a third-culture kid, there are certain moments I can reflect on when I noticed a clash between what my home culture (Germany) had taught me, versus what my host culture (Emirati) was teaching. In a way, my experience might also have been further complicated by the fact that I am not 100% German, I am also Tunisian – these cultures are quite different from each other so that’s also a mix I had to learn to understand/navigate.
I moved to Dubai (UAE) with my parents when I was about 1 year old. Because of this, I had not spent a significant amount of time in Germany before my move. In this way, I was saved from some of the problems a lot of TCKs face: I couldn’t really ‘miss’ German customs, pop culture, etc. because I hadn’t identified closely with them at such a young age. My family was also lucky enough to have found an expat community of German families. This was how I really grew up feeling somewhat connected to my home country. For example, in Germany it’s common to celebrate ‘Sankt Martinstag’ on the 11th of November. Traditionally, children craft little paper lanterns and then go on a small parade together singing songs. This is one of the very ‘German’ activities that the German expat community organized and we would go on our little lantern parade through a popular park (Umm Suqeim park) in Dubai. This community also organized get-togethers for Saint Nicholas Day (6th December) as well as Easter egg hunts and these were activities I always looked forward to. As this community allowed me to engage in customs from my home culture, whilst simultaneously also partaking in customs from my host culture (e.g., Eid-al-Fitr), I did not feel much of a conflict between the two cultures. Only as I got a bit older, around 13 years old, did it really start to hit me how different the value systems and laws were between Germany and the UAE.
For example, I remember first learning what a democracy was and how the idea of shared power and voting aligned with my values. And I also remember realizing that I actually wasn’t a part of a democracy. The UAE is an autocracy, with no elected rulers and no legal commitment to free speech. This realization made me quite sad. I understood that I was living in a country that denied certain people their freedom, and this was not something I believed in or wanted to be associated with, but obviously I was. It was something that I quite strongly disagreed with. Living in the expat ‘bubble’ I wasn’t too affected by the strict laws, and privately I could also voice this opinion when I wanted to. But at school or in other public places I felt like I had to be quite careful and could not get ‘political’.
Another moment that struck me was when I learned more and more about how labor rights differed between Germany and the UAE as well as what rights were granted to women and the LBGTQ community – for the latter, it is essentially none. My mum had struggled to find a job after we moved to the UAE, and often, women in the UAE need ‘permission’ from their guardian or husband to seek employment. I recall my mum telling me that when she wanted to get her German driver’s license approved in the UAE, she had gone to the appointment alone, but without my dad’s signature the authorities could not finalize the process of recognizing her driver’s license.
This happened over 20 years ago, so perhaps the laws around this have changed. I in fact don’t want to ‘demonize’ the UAE by sharing these memories, but rather I want to share my personal experience of how I felt recognizing these conflicting realities. I was a woman living in a country where women had fewer rights than men, and this did not sit right with me. I considered (and still do consider) myself a supporter of women’s and LGBTQ rights. It was disheartening to know that I was growing up in a country where the nation’s values did not coincide with my values. To the outside world, I presented myself as opinionless on these matters to make sure I fit in and wouldn’t experience any repercussions, but on the inside I knew that I did in fact hold a very strong opinion on these matters. Having to hide the fact that my values did not align with the values of the host culture I was in made me feel uncomfortable and alienated. Despite the fact that I disagreed so strongly with the UAE’s position on certain matters, it was still my home. As I mentioned before, I had left Germany as a baby. The UAE was my home. But increasingly, I didn’t feel as good about my home as I did when I was a couple years younger. I felt more and more confused and foreign in my host culture, even though ironically I would be living there for 18 years of my life.
This realization that I identified less with my host culture was also tough because, honestly, I hadn’t lived a bad or difficult life in the UAE. There were many things I liked about my life there, in fact. In some ways, it felt like I was being betrayed by my host culture when it was something I loved. On the other hand, it also felt like I was betraying it - because I had had a good life there, my anger and disapproval shouldn’t be justified. The UAE gave me my education, rich cultural experiences, and ultimately gave my father a stable and successful job to support my family.
Despite feeling a combination of disappointment, anger and confusion, I coped with the misalignment of values by staying silent about political and human rights issues – especially in public. Since demonstrations or protests are not permitted in the UAE, it’s not like there were moments where I ‘actively’ had to hold myself back from expressing my opinion. But I did in a way feel like I was not being true to myself and my values because I lived in a country that held views very different from my own. Obviously, staying silent was helpful because it kept me and my family safe. There would certainly have been ramifications for my family, my dad’s job in particular too, if I had not been silent. But I must also admit that hiding away my true thoughts and feelings on certain matters did not feel good. It felt like I had dulled that side of me. Upon returning to Europe, I noticed that I was quite awkward when it came to openly and casually discussing political matters or sharing opinions. I would wager a guess that this awkwardness arose because suddenly I was allowed to casually share my opinions without fear of any serious consequences and this was something I was not used to. It was a very new and foreign experience for me, and it took me some time to ease into that and feel comfortable in such situations. But, the fact that I no longer lived in a place where I had to be so cautious and calculated about speaking my mind, and where access to certain resources/information was no longer censored felt extremely liberating.
What I’ve learned from this experience of living between two cultures would be that no matter where you are in the world, you will probably never feel 100% aligned with the place that you live in. Perhaps I’m a bit of a cynic, but having lived in Germany and the Netherlands, I certainly also noticed societal/political issues here that I disagree with. This is not to say that I don’t also appreciate the many benefits or advantages that come from living in countries in Europe or the Middle East. But I’ve realized now that it’s not as black-and-white as my younger self would have liked to think. This can be a difficult concept to grapple and wrap one’s head around.
If you find yourself in a similar circumstance as me, where you are living somewhere that doesn’t align with your values, try to process some of these thoughts and feelings you might be having by working to accept the fact that they are there. If you deny yourself your true experience, you’ll never be able to move through it and forwards. You are allowed to feel angry, sad, confused, disappointed, betrayed. Be compassionate towards yourself for having this experience. It can be really tough to realize that the world you once thought you lived in is actually very different from what you believed. You can also be grateful for the positive impact and experiences living in your host/home culture may have given you (as I said before it doesn’t have to be black-and-white or good vs. bad). Be patient with yourself, learning to let positive and negative feelings associated with your home/host culture coexist within you is not going to happen overnight. It’s also okay to have periods where the negatives may outweigh the positives and vice versa. It’s not an easy process, but if you can be compassionate, patient, and accepting of your feelings, you will be able to make peace with them.
Another strategy I would recommend is to try to talk to someone you trust. Let them know that you’re feeling at conflict with your identities or alienated from your host or home culture. Talking about this is both validating and clarifying: it can help you untangle the many thoughts and feelings you might be experiencing. For me, there were a handful of people who I learned shared my sentiments. Talking to them about this, and knowing that I wasn’t alone with my experience, was very reassuring and made being in this situation a bit less scary. Keeping those thoughts and feelings bottled up and suppressed for long periods of time (like I did) was not helpful – it led to somewhat of a disconnect from a very core part of myself: my values!
If you don’t feel like you have someone in your immediate circle who you can talk to, a therapist can be a great resource. When you talk with a therapist, such as with The Expat Kids Club, everything you say is confidential. This means you can express yourself and explore your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors without having to worry about judgment or having them shared with other people. Only when we have concerns about your safety do we share what we have to, in order to keep you safe. Otherwise, therapy is a space aimed to be one of expression meant for you and your therapist only. For more information about talking with a therapist, you can explore our practice or send us an inquiry email.