I accept business cards with both hands. It’s an odd quirk for an American, but if nothing else, it’s a good conversation starter. The first time I got a name for my seemingly out-of-place habit was at Doni Aldine’s Thinking Differently for Publishing Success talk at Magazine Street.

Doni Aldine is the founder of Culturs, which caters to people who exist ‘in between’ classifications, like multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, minority, and third culture kids since its advent in 2014. It’s no secret — in the multi-cultural community, at least — that despite the uptick in diversity that we’ve started to see in media, content exploring less clear-cut identities is uncommon.

The talk introduced several concepts. Multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, military and airline brats, and passport versus heritage culture are all terms I’ve heard thrown around in my own multi-cultural circles, but Aldine introduced a new one as well. The term was third culture. Aldine explained that while it was coined in the 1950s by Ruth Hill Useem, it’s something that she herself didn’t hear about until well into adulthood. The definition on Useem’s website, www.TCKWorld.com, is “children who accompany their parents into another society” and was first noted when studying the sociological impacts of Indigenous children on reservations.

I’d never heard of third culture before. I’d never felt so seen. As a multi-cultural, white-presenting descendant of a survivor of the Indigenous residential schools, I’ve wrestled with a lifelong journey to reconnect to a cultural identity that had been almost surgically excised both internally and to the world. To complicate things further, my older sister settled in Japan, and I spent many summers with her and her husband. Growing up is complicated enough without the added weight of feeling — as many mixed kids do — like I was too much and not enough all at once. Suddenly, a talk I’d merely been interested in became the grounds of a shift in my sense of identity.

Aldine discussed how sometimes, bigger isn’t better, and that staying true to yourself and your brand can grow your audience and loyalty better than trying to hit every group can. “Find your niche and dig in,” she said during her segment, and Culturs certainly has. The website is full of ‘othered’ creators from all walks, including some who I would’ve assumed were competition but were uplifted instead, carving out a space where no matter your background, you have somewhere to see your expereinces reflected for potentially the first time. “I don’t think we’re competitors,” she laughed. “Everyone deserves to feel at home.”

Culturs is giving people today the chance to see themselves in media in a way they never have before. It’s no wonder 2022 was a record-breaking year for them.

The next time someone hands me a business card, I’ll accept it with both hands, and I won’t cringe in embarrassment at carrying that habit with me. I’ll have a name to explain it.

Third Culture Kid. It has a nice ring, doesn’t it?

Bibliography:

Cloudinary People Matters (no date). Available at: https://res.cloudinary.com/people-matters/image/upload/q_auto,f_auto/v1614871817/1614871816.jpg. (Accessed: 10 October 2023).

Lifestyle media for cross-cultural identity – celebrating cross-cultural identity (no date) CULTURS. Available at: https://www.cultursmag.com/ (Accessed: 05 October 2023).

The Official Home of Third Culture Kids (tcks) (no date) TCKWorld. Available at: http://www.TCKWorld.com/ (Accessed: 09 October 2023).

Speakers (no date) International Magazine Centre. Available at: https://internationalmagazinecentre.com/magazine-street/ (Accessed: 11 October 2023).