How Asian American Third-Culture Kids Navigate Their Identities

What does it mean to belong when the places you root yourself in stretch across continents? For third-culture kids, especially those who are Asian American, the journey of self-discovery is filled with rich experiences and profound challenges that shape who they are.

I talked to Jon Kung, a Chinese American chef and podcaster; Cindy Chen, an avant-garde makeup artist and TikTok personality; and Winnie Gu, a webcomic creator. All three of these third-culture kids shared how their unique upbringings shaped their perspectives as Asian Americans and creatives. 

What is a Third-Culture Kid?

The term “third-culture kid” was coined by American sociologist Ruth Useem in the 1950s to describe American children who grew up abroad due to their parents being expats, diplomats, or in the military, for example. Because their home life reflected American culture, while outside the house, they were exposed to a different culture, these children developed a “third culture” that was a blend of the two they were exposed to. 

Today, third-culture kids can most easily be defined as people born into one culture and raised in another. Chen told me that the resulting third culture is not just a mixture of the two cultures but is also layered with personal experience. 

What that has been shown to do to people who grew up this way is that it gave them a greater sense of empathy. It helped them with their communication skills.

There are debates as to whether children of immigrants or who are immigrants themselves are considered third-culture kids. Kung says that the definition is more fluid and can encompass those who are adopted or live in multicultural households. While Gu believes that there are similarities between the experiences of children of immigrants, the experience of third-culture kids — and the adults they become — is not quite the same. 

Additionally, Gu notes that she identifies as a third-culture kid from a place of privilege. “My family has always been, I wouldn’t say we’re super wealthy but definitely comfortable,” she reflects. “We don’t use the term to identify people who are child migrants. We just call them migrants. We also don’t use that term to identify refugees. We just call them refugees.” 

Pointing back to the term’s origins from an American sociologist, she understands the term third-culture kid to be more white- and Western-centered. Nonetheless, Gu acknowledges that third-culture kids — of color or not — do experience a lack of autonomy since choices are made by parents and the loss of social systems (such as friends, family, and mentors) every time their families move.

At the same time, these third-culture kids/adults gain flexibility and the ability to move between spaces. “What that has been shown to do to people who grew up this way is that it gave them a greater sense of empathy. It helped them with their communication skills. It allowed them to change between communication styles because sometimes, at home, English wasn’t the strongest language in the household. But then they will go out into the world, and maybe it’s English, French, or German or whatever [that is used],” Kung explains. 

The chef goes on to share that as one of the first generations to start using the term and connecting with the broader community of third-culture kids, he finds that there is a pattern in that the kids often turn into creative adults, with outputs and a unique worldview because “they have a lived experience that encompasses two lifetimes’ worth of lived experiences.”

Jon Kung: A Midwest Chinese American Chef Cooking With Empathy

Born in Los Angeles, Kung was on the move before he was even 8 weeks old. Over his lifetime, he has lived in Hong Kong and Toronto, but these days, you will find him in Detroit. 

“Being a third-culture kid, it made me realize that the world is small, and the common needs of people just stretch so far beyond linguistic boundaries,” he shares. “It has enabled me to, as a cook, do my job with a greater deal of empathy, with a greater consideration for the needs of different people when they come in and experience my food.”

Those who have strong feelings (good or bad) about fusion cuisine might find Kung’s understanding of cross-cultural cooking refreshing. As a person who has had an immersion in both cultures, he feels that it is not his duty to showcase the exotic, as some do, but instead to “cook a meal that can be recognizable by two different families who speak different languages.”

Ultimately, he wants his food to be something that people can see themselves in: “It is just an extension of my definition of service and hospitality, just to make people feel comforted and at home, even though it’s like something that might be slightly different.” 

That’s why his cookbook “Kung Food: Chinese American Recipes from a Third-Culture Kitchen” often tries to navigate the similarities between Chinese and American recipes rather than put the culinary traditions at odds with one another. His Hong Kong chicken and waffles use egg waffles, with their beehive and fluffy texture, instead of the denser American version. Lasagna and Dan Dan noodles are married to create a spicy, adult, and homemade version of the frozen meals found in grocery stores across the country. 

Nevertheless, he acknowledges that there are challenges that come with growing up as a third-culture kid. “We’re told by a lot of people that surround us that we don’t really have a place where we completely belong,” he shares. “Whether being othered by complete strangers in the world about our home and habits or even if it’s just like maybe an auntie or an uncle telling you that you’re not fully the ethnicity that you look like.”

At the end of the day, he hopes that people will not try to dilute their identities and will understand that just like a well-thought-out fusion recipe, third-culture kids are a perfect combination of cultures and influences. 

Cindy Chen: Creating Makeup for the Global Internet

Undoubtedly one of the most unique creators on TikTok, Chen is known for using her face as a canvas for her creativity. Whether showcasing emotions or cultures, Chen’s short videos stop viewers in their tracks as she paints and embellishes with intricate detail and precision. 

Although Chen was born in Taiwan, she barely spent any time there. Making a business decision, her father moved her family, including her infant self, to the Philippines, although he debated going to Indonesia as well. She shares that in the United States, she is often asked, “Where are you from?” 

“Because I grew up in the Philippines, I have very strong ties to Filipino culture. I’m of the diaspora, and so I’ve always had this strange identity crisis [around] how do I describe myself?” she replies. “[But when they ask,] I’ll be like, ‘I’m Taiwanese, and I grew up in the Philippines.’”

Chen finds it hard to explain to Americans who have a narrow understanding and are not third-culture kids. She says people will try to label her a Filipino when that’s not her nationality, but she also won’t accept that she is an insider when it comes to Filipino culture.   

With English being considered a co-official language (alongside Tagalog), Chen grew up with a language barrier, even with her own parents. While they would speak Mandarin to her, English is the language she primarily used.  

Being told that she’s never Filipino or Taiwanese enough has left Chen feeling like “an in-between at all times,” which, she explains, goes beyond language and carries over into culture, such as when rooting for teams at the Olympics or trying to place her own accent. In one of her viral videos, she talks about her “blank accent,” which leans, at times, toward British or Filipino, depending on who she is surrounded by. These days, I would say that Chen rocks a true Californian accent located in Los Angeles. 

“I relate to so many people because I have so many cultures in me,” she acknowledges. “I have never struggled with relating to a single person, whether that is someone who grew up in just one place all their life or someone who has just bounced around the world … [I have an] understanding [of] what it’s like to both be an outsider and also live in a place where you have to adapt, and it feels like everyone can relate to that type of struggle, which it puts me in a unique position to actually be more relatable to so many different people’s experiences because I’ve had a unique experience.” 

Perhaps that’s why over 2 million people relate to her artistry and storytelling on TikTok. Yet, Chen’s philosophy behind art and inspiration behind her designs come from a place of respect. 

“I strive to be [aware and respectful] because I know how I would want my culture to be represented by someone who is from outside of it,” she shares. “I’ve also just been in conversations a lot about what is a respectful way to appreciate a culture. I’m not perfect, and I have gotten things wrong before, but listening to communities — [specifically hearing from people] where [the inspiration is] from —  is the most important part.”

Drawing East and West together, Chen finds that many patterns across the world have similarities that make them seamlessly match one another, whether the elements are from Taiwan or London. Her viewers will comment on the same design to ask if her inspiration is William Morris (an English textile designer known for symmetry, nature-inspired emblems, and intricate patterns) or say that the same piece reminds them of their grandmother’s wallpaper in Asia. 

Art is subjective, and so is its interpretation, but Chen explains, “We have actually just melded together more than people think.”

In her series “Beautiful Corners,” she showcases patterns and designs from all over the world. When you look at the series individually, they are all stunning and feel unique. But as a collection, you might realize that there are more similarities than differences. “Art really helps remove the separations and the differences to find similarities,” she comments. 

For Chen, the earth is a melting pot; however, she does not just blend cultures ignorantly. Chen takes two main steps to avoid appropriation: giving credit and doing research.

She explains, “The main difference is appropriation is usually when you take credit for something that you took from another culture; appreciation is where you’re showcasing another culture and then respectfully being like, ‘This is the context.’ I’m not claiming it as my own. I’m not trying to take away from it. I’m trying to show where it’s from and amplify the voice behind it.”

“It’s important to know where your source of information is from, and give credit to that source and amplify the voices of those people or if you were inspired by a specific person,” she says, adding that it simply isn’t true that people create completely original works. “Everybody, I believe, is a mosaic of a lot of different inspiration. Nothing is original these days, but you can create your own twist on things based off of respecting other cultures.”

Winnie Gu: Self-Discovery and Expression as a Third-Culture Chinese Adult

Born in China, 2-year-old Gu moved to Japan with her family. However, two years later, she returned to China to begin preschool. Then, in middle school, the family relocated to New Jersey so her mother could pursue job opportunities. But before too long, her mom was relocated again for a job, and Gu’s family found themselves in Singapore. 

It was in this Southeast Asian country that Gu started and completed high school at an American international institution. It was also there that she began to understand and relate to the term third-culture kid because she was surrounded by other third-culture kids in this international school. Ultimately, Gu applied only to American universities and has lived here ever since coming for higher education — as a teacher in New York and now as a full-time content creator in Houston. 

Moving around as much as Gu, a child can feel overwhelmed due to the lack of control. But Gu shares that her move to the United States felt like a relief. “Unique to my experience was that when I was about to leave China when I was in middle school, I was actually sexually assaulted for an entire year. So when I left China, I wasn’t really leaving the land of happiness and joy because there was a lot of trauma,” she shares. “When I first moved to the States, I still felt like, ‘OK, this is really painful, learning a new language, learning a new culture.’ But at least I didn’t have all the trauma, and I can start almost on a blank slate and restart my life and rebuild my new identity.”

Being in the States was not just a new start but also a place that inspired her career. Gu’s calling to teach was mostly shaped by her time in America. Our society’s expectations and cultural norms of civic participation paved the way for Gu to center service in her career.

“In college, I got to see a lot of inequity in our community, so I decided to study education for my master’s program and became an elementary school science teacher, and I was serving underrepresented populations in New York City,” she reflects. “[During which] I felt like I’m contributing to America, which I see as the homeland of my choice.” 

Also during her college years, Gu began a webcomic titled “Third Culture Chinese,” which actually was a capstone project for her art major (in addition to majoring in architecture). 

“So many people just live their lives not knowing that they are a third-culture kid or live in confusion or just don’t bother [considering that part of their identity]. How I started ‘Third Culture Chinese’ was because I wanted to explore my own identity and my upbringing more, and a lot of people tuned into that and supported me. I’ve just kept going since my senior year in college,” she shares. 

The webcomic has evolved with its audience over time. In the first year, Gu explored the bilingual nature of being a Chinese third-culture kid. But then, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic began, as did a rise in anti-Asian sentiments in the United States, so her comic shifted to depicting what it meant to be Asian in America and exploring the social construct of that specific identity.

These days, her comic strips are more broadly focused on the effects of globalization and how third-culture kids internalize their nuanced identities. For instance, she tries to show how her upbringing has affected her mindset and the way she uses words in daily conversations. She also recently moved in with her boyfriend, who is Thai, and has been highlighting the differences and similarities between their cultures, which is interesting with many Chinese people of the diaspora living in Thailand. 

The lessons and learnings she shares online are often ones that grew out of her time as a teacher. Working with kids of different backgrounds and cultures, Asian and non-Asian, she honed her skills in analyzing societal assumptions and expectations to understand how the students she taught think and learn. 

So Are Third-Culture Kids Asian American? 

Notably, while all three third-culture kids currently reside in America, they would not necessarily call themselves Asian American. All feel like the label is nuanced and recognize the history behind the term, but have interesting perspectives based on their experiences as third-culture kids.

Although Gu identifies with this label demographically, she does ask herself at what point she will consider herself an Asian American since she intends to continue staying in the country.

“I wouldn’t necessarily label myself as Asian American because, from what I have heard from other Asian Americans, as well as online media, is that the term comes with a collective experience of growing up in America, being either first-generation or second-generation immigrant, and going through common things — for example, other kids saying that your lunch smells. But I never went through that growing up,” she tells me, instead opting to think of herself as an “Americanized Asian” because she is “just not quite there yet.”

For Kung, he finds that a product of his global upbringing is that he does not put that much weight into labels like that. He acknowledges that because he has an American passport and because he is Asian, he is technically Asian American. 

“On a broader sense, I could ask, ‘What is Asian American?’ But I could also ask you, ‘What is American?’ They’re both such broad terms that they barely mean anything specific as to where we are and what we look like,” he shares, though he does label his food as Chinese American, and he feels that he most strongly resonates with the label of Midwest Asian. 

Chen is in the process of naturalizing to be an American citizen and leans more toward the understanding that to call oneself American, even Asian American, is a sign of citizenship. Even though she has been in the United States her whole adult life, she does not categorize herself as an Asian American, although she understands that others might do that. 

“I would say I’m an Asian in America because I didn’t grow up in the U.S. Because when someone says, ‘Hey, I’m Asian American,’ my first thought is you grew up in the U.S., and you have a completely separate set of experiences,” she says.

In a world that often demands clear labels, Asian American third-culture kids and adults navigate the complexities of identity with fearlessness and resilience, utilizing their experiences to unite and create communities of their own.

In case you are wondering, Chen dreams in pictures and images, but mostly in English — unless she is counting, which in real life and in dreams, she does in Chinese or if her mom is fighting with her. Then, mimicking reality, they would both be speaking Chinese. Once in a while, a third language — Spanish — gets thrown into the mix as well. 

For Gu, aside from nightmares of not grading her students’ tests, she mostly dreams in English.  But after moving to Texas, she admits she has had a handful of fully Chinese dreams, often including her parents (again mirroring reality). But one time, a person who does not speak Chinese in real life started speaking it to her in her dream, and she was so startled that she woke herself up.  

The unique life journeys of Jon Kung, Cindy Chen, and Winnie Gu highlight the complex and multifaceted identities of third-culture kids. Their experiences, though varied, share a common thread of cultural blending, adaptability, and a deep understanding of multiple worlds. 

As third-culture creatives, each contributes to a richer tapestry of cultural diversity, challenging traditional labels and fostering greater empathy and understanding. Ultimately, their stories are a small sampling of third-culture kids, but together, they underscore the unique blend of cultures and perspectives third-culture adults bring to the communities they are a part of.

Cover illustration by Lisa Wakiyama.