Gypsies

Text 3.2: My Gypsy Childhood

Activity: Text 3.2 only presents part of Roxy Freeman’s story. She was 22 years old when she enrolled in college and 30 years old when she wrote this piece. What do you think happened to her in between? Write a diary entry talking about her experience at college (100-200 words).

18th of August of 2014

            Now I’m in college and I realize that everything is very different compared to what I’ve lived. I never went to school because formal education is not priority in my culture, but at age of 22 I decided to get it. I went to the Suffolk College asking to enrol. I remembered that the receptionist looked at me with disdain.

            I knew that this change would not be easy. In my first college days I suffered a lot, being discriminated, insulted and offended; I was treated as a different kind of person, like an alien. I was full of prejudices because I was a Gypsy.

            First days I was really sad, but now I’m better. Other people have already realized that I was like any other, but with a different background. I've gotten used to this place and I have made many friends.

Personal Response (TCKs)

"Some Third Culture Kids have nothing beyond their passports to connect them with their home country. TCKs lose and gain from the fact they grow up outside their passport country".

Third Culture Kids or TCKs are children that are creating their own sub-culture. They have only their passports to connect them with their home country. They lose and gain being a TCK but there are more advantages.

TCKs get used to live away home, so they feel the new country as their home country. For example, if you have Chinese parents, but you are living in the United States and have made friends there; you will feel USA as your home, not China. This demonstrates that TCKs actually have no relation with their real home country or just a little.

Being a TCK can bring problems, such as feeling different from others, or the sense of belonging everywhere and nowhere. But there are more advantages: they know more places and cultures, so they have more life experiences, they are more open-minded, culturally astute, cross-culturally enriched, educational achievers, observers, mature in social skills and also they can speak more than one language.

Concluding, I can say that I agree the stimulus given; there are TCKs that don’t really have a connection with their home country, because they never are there. Also they can lose and gain growing up outside their passport country, but I think that they gain more than they lose.

Book: English B, Course Companion, Oxford