Third Culture Kid
Gayoung Do
I was born in Busan, a small city located at the edge of Korea. I moved to the United States with my mom when I was 11 years old, a little girl who didn’t know the alphabet but to absorb herself into the community and culture while leaving everything behind in Korea. This is a cultural phenomenon called Third Culture Kid (TCK) in which an individual is born in one country but moves to another country during a significant part of their childhood development years. TCK presents a unique and complex cultural identity forged through the intersection of diverse backgrounds, navigating the challenges of growing up in multiple cultures. As part of Korean TCK, I often don’t feel a sense of belonging to people, cultures, and places, questioning my cultural identity.
Third Culture Kid is an interview book series dedicated to Korean Third Culture Kids who went through the same route of challenges of adaptation. The experience of growing up in a different culture makes them unique and redefines who they are and what it means to be. Third Culture Kid consists of a set of interviews I conducted individually in a passport format. The lens of interviews provides their unique cross-cultural experiences, shedding light on the complex interplay of identity formation, adaptation, and resilience within a globalized context. Third Culture Kid seeks to bring Korean TCK together to provide comfort space and support one another by sharing their stories to transition to belonging and the representation they lack in identity.