I consider myself a third culture kid. For those who don’t know, a third culture kid is someone who is born in a country that neither parent comes from. For example, I was born in England, but my Mom is Belgian and my Dad is American. And even then the terms of being a third culture kid are pretty loose. Third culture kids tend to move around a lot, and often go to international schools.
While it’s super awesome and I wouldn’t change my childhood for anything, there is a problem that all third culture kids suffer: we don’t have a country of origin. When asked where home is, we don’t really know. This is a really awful feeling. Then, we come to the states, and suddenly Thanksgiving is now something you have to worry about.
Thanksgiving is an American and Canadian holiday. Both versions are meant to be spent with your family/the people you love. In college, just as Thanksgiving approaches, almost everyone gets homesick (there will always be exceptions). But if you live in the states, you can just go home for Thanksgiving. For a lot of international kids, we can’t go home. Flights are incredibly expensive, and some live so far away it makes no sense to go home for the short Thanksgiving break.
There are some really nice people at college who invite their friends to Thanksgiving dinners if they can’t go home. And I personally am lucky enough to have extended family about 20 minutes away from my apartment.
But it is always going to feel like something is missing. You don’t get to be with your immediate family. (Again, this is from my personal experience. I don’t know what everyone’s home life is like.)
I get incredibly homesick right around this time. And even though I spend time with family, I still always feel that I’m faking smiles and laughs because I don’t want anyone to know just how homesick I am. Last year at Thanksgiving, we all sat to say grace, and my aunt asked me to sing it (that’s how we do grace in my immediate family.) The minute I tried to sing grace, I burst into tears, and the rest of the family had to finish it for me. This also happened to be the first time I was meeting my cousins boyfriend.
Even this year, I was one facetime with my parents sobbing because I was so incredibly homesick I just wanted to see their faces. That made me cry harder because it meant that the hugs and company of my family was still not in my grasp. I have to wait another month to go home for Christmas.
Being an international student is hard, especially around Thanksgiving. My suggestion is, if you haven’t found a family to go home with for Thanksgiving, then try to find out who else isn’t going home for the holiday and maybe organize a little Thanksgiving get together for yourself and whoever else is going to be alone on Thanksgiving.
It is completely normal to feel homesick. Before college, I didn’t really understand just how bad homesickness could hurt. And boy, it hurts. It’s a physical feeling as well as psychological. The best thing you can do is acknowledge the pain, and then try to deal with it, either by surrounding yourself with friends who care about you, or calling your family, or just by taking care of yourself. It is hard, but you will get through it. It may not get easier, but you will push through.
