Returning To My Foreign Birthplace
“Where are you from?”
Thrill and dread. That question we all prepare a thirty-second elevator pitch for. Missionary kids. Oil kids. Business kids. Military kids. Third culture kids.
“Wow! That’s so cool!”
(Yep, it is.)
“Were your parents missionaries? Military?”
(Nope.)
“That must have been amazing.”
(I wish I could be on a plane right now.)
“I’ve never left America, but I always wanted to go to Africa.”
(Where in Africa? Name a country!)
I have long-since memorised my list when they question me.
“Texas Colorado Singapore back to Colorado Ohio Scotland Washington Ethiopia Florida.”
The first time I was on a plane, at the age of two, we were moving from Texas to Colorado. I distinctly remember that my mom gave me a clear bottle with Christmas trees printed on it. That was the last time I was in Texas, until two months ago, when it became my home again.
And now? I have no idea what to say. Do I say, “The Ethiopian prince I met and married after moving to his country has an opportunity in Texas”? When a friend of his near Dallas asked for his help, the last thing I expected was to revisit a place I had not seen in twenty-seven years. A strange tugging in my heart told me that I was supposed to be excited, but all I felt was confusion.
Texas, my birth state—a place as foreign to me as the time I randomly decided to fly to Djibouti for a day or when I drove to British Columbia and complained until the guy gave me a stamp at the border. I just don’t know how to answer the question.
When they ask me where I’m from, am I now supposed to say, “Here”?
I tried explaining to my family the ambiguity and uncertainty of finding myself in a place that I am ‘from’ foreign. Unfortunately, no one could understand or relate. Not one of them has ever moved back to the place where they were born after a lifetime away. Although I had hoped for sounding boards and empathy, I understand that they thought it would make more sense for me to see this as just another new home.
And maybe that is exactly what I should have thought. After all, there is so much that I do not understand here. What is this strange twang I hear in the music, so different from Ethiopian tizita? In contrast to my ample vegetarian and vegan options in Scotland, all of the food here has meat in it and the meat is always wrapped in more meat! When it comes to clothing, I see no kemises, kilts or qipaos. Instead, I just see overalls.
Yes, it is a very new place for me, despite what my birth certificate says. There are times when I simply wish someone around me could understand why this matters. Maybe it really doesn’t make sense to obsess over it, but when it comes to identity, I think it is fairly normal to want to have an answer.
My son is just fifteen months old, but he has already lived in Montana, Ethiopia and Florida, visited Washington and Kenya, and is now a Texan. What will his identity be? Will he one day wind up back in Montana? Will he be asked the same questions? Will he have the placid smile of mutual thrill and dread?
And just how long must the list be before the confusion of identity leads us to say, “Here. I am from here.”
- Edited by Radhika Sharma