My American passport was on the brink of expiration, so last week I sent it to the US Embassy in London. Along with that renewal comes a name change after being married for five years. There are many reasons I delayed changing my name on any official documents and at the time I didn’t know it was going to be a choice that required so much explanation. The easiest answer is that being a dual citizen with two passports and a professional medical license in one name makes it very complicated and expensive to change that name. So, I just didn’t do it.
But of course, passports are not valid forever and we all have to go through the rigorously annoying process of renewing our passports every ten years. Since I had to send my passport away anyway, I impulsively decided to change my US name from my maiden to my married name. This will make traveling as a family easier someday, maybe it will also make other things easier - at the very least I will be indoctrinated into a longtime tradition of Western culture.
This process has been emotional and stressful on multiple levels. Most understandably (for frequent travellers), sealing my passport into an envelope and handing it off to a postal worker was unnerving. Worse still, sitting at home without knowing where my American passport might be is unbearable. I woke up last night in a complete panic and for a few minutes I couldn’t understand why, then I remembered that I was thinking about my passport - how I don’t know where it is, it’s not tucked in with my British passport, and how if something dire happens and I need my American passport, I simply don’t have it.
Most days I have both passports on my person or I know exactly where they are in my home. They are my lifelines - not only to travel but to my identity. They are proof that two nations have to claim me as their own and they hold visas that prove I have been home.
I have no distinct identity beyond the current name in my passports. I am not Angolan, even though I grew up there I have no real claim on it as a nation or a home. I don’t have a Scottish accent so I don’t belong in Crieff, despite being born there. I am not Kenyan or Middle Eastern so my high school years were spent grasping for an identity that shifted with location and environment. I have an American passport but I have spent comparatively little time there, I have no core memories from the States, and I have to reintroduce myself to the cultural nuances every time I visit.
My accent is generally American but my vocabulary is full of words like ‘rubbish bin’ and ‘hoover’ which have to be explained in the States. My name is Scottish but no one knows its significance beyond the small population privy to St Columba’s enchanting landing place. My memories - the moments that built and shaped me - are scattered across the globe, from Angola to Kenya to South Africa to Scotland to Jordan to the United States, sometimes I’m not sure I even have a claim on all of them.
My identity has always been split by the two passports I carry around, red and blue, desperately seeking validation from others and from myself that I might actually belong to those countries.
But I don’t think I do.
Identity has always been a complicated, sensitive concept for Third Culture Kids (TCK) Where are you from? Where is home? These innocent questions from friends and strangers are translated to Where do you belong? Who are you? Why does it feel like lying every time you tell people where you are from?
For some bizarre reason, holding my passports, with my name printed in them, has been a comfort when those questions overwhelm me. I don’t know where I belong but I know where I’ve been, or at least, I know where Iona McHaney has been. And so, the more difficult explanation to changing my name comes to light. It’s not just a reconfiguration of letters on some documents - it’s a reinvention of an identity, a rebranding into a person I don’t really know.
Iona Marcellino has never been to Angola. She has never been to Africa, she didn’t grow up packing and repacking and boarding planes by herself. Iona Marcellino has never stood in line in immigration as a broken air conditioner dripped water onto a tile floor, hoping there will be no issues with her visa. Iona Marcellino has never been to Kenya, she’s never eaten Korean noodles in the middle of the night with her dorm sisters while laughing and crying about the terrible dramas of boarding school.
My husband has never experienced these memories either. The life we share together began when we were 20, everything from our lives before that is completely different.
We didn’t watch the same shows, we didn’t have the same politicians, we didn’t have the same hobbies, we barely spoke the same language, and we didn’t really live in the same continent until we were married.
He went to an air conditioned church on Sunday mornings, listened to a sermon in English, went home to play games with his brothers and eat a lovely family dinner. On the other side of the world, Iona McHaney’s dad drove through slums to a cinder block church, she sat through a three hour Portuguese service under the scorching sun, she shook hands with hundreds of people while other children were staring and playing games. She went home to a house without electricity and read books by kerosene lamps. Her family made popcorn on the stove and waited until the dark came, to lay in bed and sweat some more while gun shots darted off in the distance.
This isn't to say my husband is insensitive or blind toward our differences. The kindest gift I've received from him is a metal map of Luanda, Angola with a card that read 'So you can always have your home with you, wherever we go.' It was an overwhelming gesture of recognition to me, proof that he sees a place he has never known as my childhood home, one I should and will miss for life.
Life overseas (or as it is known to me, just life) is a different world and it is difficult to explain to other people. And yet, it is the world that created Iona McHaney - and I have become quite attached to her. For years, my ‘origin story’ in general is something I would prefer to write about. It’s difficult to talk about without going numb, without reverting to rote answers about African history, mission logistics, exotic safaris, problematic American church teams.
It’s nearly impossible to answer questions about an experience no one else can understand without further highlighting how much I don’t belong, how isolated I am in my own unusual, uncategorised identity.
This is a common struggle among TCKs, I have found. There are multiple resources documenting the tension TCKs feel between themselves, their families, and surrounding communities. TCKs can exonerate differences, monopolising every conversation with our anomalies to keep that part of our identity front and centre. I’m not sure if this is so we do not forget who we are or so others do not. Conversely, we can bury those differences deep inside ourselves. We can endlessly switch so that we fit in with whatever crowd we find ourselves and we can pray no one asks a question that will betray that we don’t belong.
Still, it doesn’t really matter. At least for me, I have realised it doesn’t matter how many tv shows I watch or how many Buzzfeed articles I read or how many nuanced cultural terms I learn, I will always be pretending, in some degree, to fit into someone else’s world because that’s simply not where I belong. And so, I feel challenged to be more honest with myself and others about where I do belong or rather, where my passports say I have belonged in the past.
I have been trying to share more frankly and frequently with others about Angola, Scotland, boarding school, and everything else. It’s taken a lot of time, and it takes a lot of energy to sift through memories and unpack them in a way that allows me to share them with others, while remaining in myself. It takes conscience effort to talk about Angola - to realise it’s okay to feel the dichotomy of grief or fear and love over a place few other people in my life have experienced.
This can be difficult. I find it safer to keep things locked inside during conversations and let other people create an identity for me, then I can step into the character perfectly curated for their situation. But that is exhausting and it hasn’t led me to any great breakthrough of belonging. It has only exacerbated further loneliness and displacement. It is not only an unsustainable option, it also seems to be a betrayal of myself, my family, and my history.
Most likely, other people will not understand entirely, that's alright, it’s not my responsibility to fully explain it. I share and write mostly for other TCKs. It is so much easier to morph into the identity everyone else sets out for us - who they think we look, sound, or act like the most, and it takes a lot of work to maintain ownership of our multiple, integrated identities. It takes even more work to share that with others and to trust them to understand.
But - it is fully worth it. It is worth the effort, the tears, the exhaustion to find a few people in your community who recognise you, who understand where you come from, who have no cultural expectations of you and who let you see the world through your own lens. Creating those friendships can be life changing.
I still fully expect to burst into tears when my passport arrives - with its blank pages and unknown name. I also expect to go through similar emotional upheaval when I have to update my British passport in a few years. I’ve already cried a fair amount about it - but I’m determined not to be ashamed about that.
Perhaps there are some TCKs out there who are completely nonemotional about their passports. I haven’t met them, but I am sure they exist. I, for one, am incredibly sentimental about passports - and at times even see them as sentient extensions of my harried existence. It sounds silly and over dramatic, I know. It sounds ridiculous to cry over a blank passport, or over one name change when I’m building a wonderful, incredible life with my husband. But change is challenging, and I’m learning that a lifetime of moving hasn’t necessarily made it any easier.
The world is harsh and demanding of our adaption. We, as humans, need to be reminded that change takes time, the leaves don’t turn overnight. Change of any capacity - country, career, relationship, name - takes time and effort and understanding. Tanya Crossman has a particular helpful resource for TCKs dealing with change and transition. I’d recommend her writing to all TCKs and I’d strongly recommend it to family of TCKs.
I’d also recommend that if you are a TCK in the midst of change, be kind to yourself and seek out those people who will sit and listen or who will ask careful questions and listen with compassionate hearts. If you know TCKs, perhaps learn how to become one of those people for them. Learn how to listen carefully, how to ask with empathy, how to remember and how to reframe your own expectations of someone’s cultural identity. We could all be better at this, myself most of all.
As a believer, I know my ultimate identity is in Christ, not in a passport or a marriage certificate. That has never been a question in my mind. The names and labels of this world will fall away one day and we will see our Home in its full and delightful Glory.
I cannot wait for that moment - when I do not have to justify that I belong in a country or a home or a place because He will have spoken for me, He will have prepared a place for me, knowing fully well who I am, who I’ve been, and who I’ve yet to be.