My identity has been shaped by many things but has it been shaped by my national identity? As a third culture kid who hardly has anything to remind herself of where she is from other than two passports this is a difficult question. Do I even have a national identity?
National identity has many definitions one of them being “National identity is a person’s identity or sense of belonging to one state or to one nation. It is the sense of a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, language and politics.” So then I would say I don’t have much of a national identity because I haven’t experienced the culture or traditions of the countries I come from and certainly don’t I always feel like I belong to them. But this could still have impacted my identity. I started the portfolio post mentioning that I am a third culture kid (TCK) this has become part of my identity because I don’t feel that at home in any one country anymore. Also, I react better to change than some of my friends who have lived in Singapore all their lives because I have experienced a lot of change mainly due to regular moving and therefore not feeling grounded in one place or to one thing (which is again a lack of national identity).
In conclusion, I have not been impacted by my national identity but by my lack of one. My identity and my characteristics would probably be different if I had grown up in a small suburb outside of Sydney however, it is only one of many things impacting me so I don’t know different I would and there is no way to ever know.
