somehow, Obama and I shared some “secret.”
This secret about our strange lives. Being able to blend in, chameleons camouflaging, whether it is adjusting our accents, perceived as perhaps pretentious, but a phenomenon particular to TCKS called code switching (I can converse in 4 different twangs). Or switching spellings from “color” to “colour,” or “center” to “centre.” Or even altering our verbiage, oscillating from “soccer,” to “football,” or “chappal” to “slipper” when appropriate. We implicitly understand that the Indian shake of the head means “yes”. With our flexible palates, we can eat as easily with our hands, as we do with forks and knives. And our closet contains a confusion of jeans, sarees and maasai beads. And we are adept at calculating time zones, converting currencies, and switching from day/month to month/day when recording dates. And we don’t bookend our lives in terms of dates, but in terms of places, Before America, After America.
The eccentricities of the TCK experience is what as Spaeth contends “makes one a writer, because it is all invisible, all internal,” since “it is an identity with no outer expression, afflicting people of all skin colors, beliefs, and accents” and thus it is also the most effectual enterprise in empathy. TCKs are predisposed to identifying with the Others in society, simply because they are the Others. This was reflected in the policies of Obama, the world’s most prominent TCK, whose empathic posture on issues pertaining to foreign policy was undeniable. It is for this reason that Sun Young Park posits that TCKs are critical to deepening perspectives on immigration as well as global citizenry. They possess a xenophobic-averse worldview that challenges the reductive Us Versus Them polarism, espousing acceptance, as opposed to tolerance. Where others perceive contrasts, they sense commonalities. Their enriching experiences can counterattack navel-gazing, nativism, and nationalism. And because of burgeoning globalization, TCKs are predicted to be the “prototype citizens” of the future.
“I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth, and I am a citizen of the world.”