Where do I belong? Here.
Late-night social media scrolling left me staring at a family photo that looked slightly like my own. Striking East African features blended with a hazel eye and fair complexion on the countenance of a sweet toddler just loving his ethnically diverse parents full-heartedly.
I looked down at my own nursing baby. What will she know of her mother’s mother’s homeland? Will she be asked the same questions I have faced in my life? Will she know that most blonde-haired babies don’t swallow mouthfuls of injera with delight?
This little corner of the internet looked a lot like me with commenters that looked just like me sharing culturally ambiguous names. So, I wondered, Is this where I belong?
When we moved abroad to Ireland, I was questioned by a colleague about my intercultural experience. It was assumed that, because I came from the United States of America and spoke with a twinge of a southern accent, I must not be “cultured” and would need help navigating intercultural conversations.
My heart sank. Did she know I was half-Ethiopian? Did my Bachelor’s Degree in Spanish escape her review of my CV or seem like just written words instead of intellectual work? After a lifetime of finding myself in rooms where my appearance alone had initiated my work to both understand others and to be understood by others, I would find myself defined, now, by the stereotypes of the nation that issued my passport?
I wasn’t upset only in self-defense, as I’m sure my flesh had some reaction to the comment. I was sad because it is always sad to feel misunderstood and unseen. It is our human responsibility, especially within the family of God, to do our best to keep another’s soul from isolation. It is my experience that making and verbalizing assumptions about another person leads most often to isolating that person from the crowd, not welcoming them into the community. This forces a person to ask, Where do I belong?
An article in The New York Times struck me in a familiar way as I read what Noor Brara had to say about a recent televised series on Third-Culture Kids. In the review, Brara wrote, “If asked, any third-culture kid will tell you that shape-shifting — rousing one of the many selves stacked within you to best suit the place you’re in — becomes a necessary survival skill, a sort of feigned fitting in that allows you to relate something of yourself to nearly everyone you meet.”
It felt as if someone had summarized my entire childhood and adolescent experience of socialization as I read that remark. This survival skill helped me to mask the shame I felt when I couldn’t make it past common greetings in the language of my heritage. It soothed the ache of guilt that I felt when I learned another mother’s language fluently while barely recognizing my own. It calmed my anxious heart within my warm, brown skin standing at the hostess table in a southern meat-and-three. And, it’s a biblical admonishment to any believer in Christ to become all things to all people.
The apostle Paul spoke in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 about becoming all things to all people, taking on whatever their position was so that he might understand them and reach a connection with them that led them to know Jesus. It was not manipulation or speaking falsehoods, for he surely did not intend to become a different person. What he could and did do was learn about others, empathize with their positions, reach a connection with them, and see authentic relationships form out of that. I see this in his letters to the churches. He knew them deeply, even if he was ethnically as different from them as could be. He was a third culture kid, after all: born in Tarsus as a Roman citizen but to Jewish parents as a Hebrew.
I do not begrudge my raising and my genetic makeup or the beautiful cultures I was brought into. I am thankful for the circumstances that have brought me to this day. I rejoice over my tall and wide family tree, its branches heavy with vibrantly colored leaves dancing in the breeze - the breath of life given to each leaf in its time by the Sovereign Lord over all.
It is becoming clear to me, in these divisive and tense times of communication, that what I learned as an intercultural survival skill is more necessary now than ever. It now transcends the need to survive socially and emboldens the call to fulfill Christ’s prayer that people would know we are His believers by our love.
I know what it is to feel unseen, unknown, and misunderstood. I also know that those moments have given me an insight into the pain of those across the aisle from me in many avenues. It is my duty to see them, to know them, and understand them. In doing so, may they be led to the Light of Life.
So, where do I belong? That’s a question I need to ask the One who made me. When I ask the Lord, I can’t help but believe that I belong right here because that is where I am.
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